5 Ways to Brand Like a Boss

By Lindsay Kwaselow

1. Be Insanely Unique. This involves diving in and studying what your competitors are doing and do whatever it takes to set yourself apart from the ordinary, monotonous landscape. Do not be vague in your branding approach, but rather zero in on the qualities (or single quality) that simply makes your brand better. According to Entreprenuer.com, “Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be.” The actual definition of branding involves a marketing practice that identifies, and more than anything, differentiates a product from other products.

Being unique also requires reflecting your own personal values and underlying principles within your brand itself. First you have to identify, what makes your brand or company tick? What do you stand for? What makes you special? Stay true to yourself and to your brand and your audience will follow. This creates a personal experience and today, the experience really is everything. 

2. Be a Thought Leader. Don’t act like a know it all. You don’t know it all, so act like a leader. Leaders lead by example. Leaders have an impact on others because they don’t just step outside of the box, they skyrocket themselves up and out of the box. They recognize and talk about companies across industries that have altered and improved the way consumers buy goods and services. Leaders recognize their strengths and dispose of their weaknesses. Better yet, they forget about their weaknesses entirely. Find your strength - one single thing you can do better than anybody else, and RUN with it. There is no such thing as a “Jack of All Trades.” So be a master of something. Own whatever that is, and do it in a way that differentiates your brand from the clutter and the competition.

3. Bleed Trustworthiness and Transparency. Despite the saying, “Fake it ‘til you make it,” you can’t fake being honest. Think of your brand as the promise you make to your customers – and you better intend on always keeping that promise if you’d like to sleep well at night, or more importantly, stay in business. How many people trust Amazon’s purchase process due to the brand they’ve built and the way they’ve changed the game? Everyone trusts the service they provide, and if you’re a Prime member, you trust your package will arrive at your doorstep within two business days. Amazon is in fact so transparent, and their customer base is so incredibly loyal, that they have actually forced the United States Postal Service to work on Sundays. Now that’s some bossy, powerful branding!

4. Start a Serious, Eternal Relationship with Mobile & Social. It’s simple. Your brand needs to be present where and how your customers spend their time. For the first time in history, time spent using mobile apps has actually exceeded the time consumers spend watching T.V. This is huge. We’ve seen studies that show results of consumers spending an overwhelming (and somewhat alarming depending on how you view it) amount of their time on their mobile devices. Here are a few stats to let that settle in:

·      According to TechCrunch, “Today’s consumers are spending over 85% of their time on their smartphones using native applications, but the majority of their time – 84% – is spent using just five non-native apps they’ve installed from the App Store.”

·      TechCrunch also reports that for social apps, Facebook in particular takes up a large chunk of mobile usage time. “As a category, social networks claim 14% of all smartphone usage – or more than 25 minutes per day. Facebook is the leader here, with 1.25 billion mobile monthly active users.”

·      Mobile usage occurs on the go in most cases and is often used to compare prices while physically shopping at a store or showroom. A Placed Inc. and Cars.com study reported, 63% of automotive shoppers researched and shopped online while physically at a dealership using their mobile device.

·      In 2013, ComScore reported, “Consumers are spending 1-out-of-3 minutes of all online browsing time on mobile devices and that activity is only expected to increase." - And that was 2 years ago (which is like a decade in digital time). 

5. Do Not Underestimate the Untouchable Power of Your Logo. Your logo is the essential core, the foundation, the attributable starting point for the launch of your brand’s absolute, complete identity. In a word, your logo is everything, and it should be everywhere it can possibly be. Furthermore, there is something about simplicity that is a common denominator amongst the most powerful and successful brands ever created. Interbrand compiled a list of the top 100 brands across the world based on the their overall value and yearly revenue. The list included obvious game changers like Coca-Cola, Nike, Apple, and Google.

The Logo Factory then conducted a study analyzing the logo designs of each company to determine what they had in common. They revealed, “93% of the top 100 brands had a logo design that was relatively simple in form, and this is not a result of coincidence.” According to DesignBuddy.com, “Simple logos are unquestionably more versatile than their more intricate and detailed counterparts.” If your brand is just starting out, first devote your energy entirely into your logo in order to choose one single, simple, solitary symbol that defines who you are and what you represent.

…And that’s how you brand like a boss!

What Can Neuroscience Teach us About Branding?

By Lindsay Kwaselow

Neuroscience is defined as the study of the nervous system or the study of our subconscious reactions within the brain. How can this possibly relate to improving the way we market on mobile? There’s surprisingly a lot to consider when it comes to how the human brain processes data and visual stimulation from one screen or device to the next. By studying the activities that happen within our subconscious minds when shown an ad, we can thus derive data and make justified conclusions that will ultimately enhance the way we visually market our ads to make them more impactful.

Sharethrough, an advertising software company for publishers, commissioned Nielsen to conduct a study in hopes of determining how consumers visually react to, and process mobile ads. The problem with so many survey-based conducted mobile studies is that they only tap into the consumer’s conscious responses. By leveraging neuroscience in conjunction with EEG data and eye tracking, Nielsen was able to quantify where and how the participants’ focus was directed when viewing various mobile ads. Sharethrough reported how important it is to incorporate the subconscious behaviors of consumers, as “the subconscious is the motivating force behind many of our actions, including which brands we buy from.”

Eye tracking specifically evaluates how people visually interact with text or online banner ads. Companies who leverage eye tracking can use it to evaluate the impact of their visual products. According to EyeTracking.com, “The fields of advertising, entertainment, packaging and web design have all benefited significantly from studying the visual brain behavior of the consumer.”

Key Findings:

1.      Native ads, or ads that are coherent with the other media displayed on a device or webpage (such as a feed-based design) were shown to receive twice the visual focus than standard banner ads. The study concluded, “Across native ads and banners, eye gaze appeared to be consistently more concentrated on the native, even though both formats were placed in-feed.” 100% of the top ten most successful mobile sites use a feed-based design. 

2.      Native ad headlines can be enhanced to trigger associations within the brain. Words displayed on an associative network that are similar to words included in the headline of an article resulted in a lift in message resonance and was also shown to subconsciously influence brand perception.

3.      Marketers should always include key branding assets such as logos, keywords and consistent messaging, as Nielsen found that including these assets will facilitate the formation of brand associations within the human brain, and heighten your brand’s lift and influence.

4.    Native, feed-based ads provide markers with an increased rate of capturing audience attention – with the visual focus more so on the text of the ad than on the corresponding image. This heightened focus helps advertisers to create a network of branding assets and related words in the conscious and subconscious minds of their potential customers – ultimately strengthening overall brand perceptions.

“Each adjective or noun in a headline—including the brand name—is stored in an associative network of related concepts. Activating one concept automatically triggers the others, strengthening those connections over time,” says Sharethrough. As mobile adoption evolves and consumers continue shopping and learning on their mobile devices in real time, at exponential rates - remember that native ads effectively demand the focus and attention of the brain.

Mobile users are, for lack of a better word, distracted. According to NativeAdvertising.com, “In the last 15 years, the human attention span dropped a third, to about eight seconds (now a second shorter than a goldfish)! In a lot of ways, this is a response to the increase in stimuli we are bombarded by on a daily basis, from email and social media to smartphone notifications and of course: ads.”

Steps must be taken to ensure your ad stays afloat in the wake of an overpopulated, overstimulated mobile storm. Last year, Nielsen found exposure to mobile ads produces a 45% lift in intent – a significant factor when it comes to winning over mobile customers and prospects and increasing the efficiency of your branding structure.

Click here to view the complete infographic featuring the results from the study.