It can be tough to get airtime for your business. When you’re up against huge corporations or entering an already busy market, it’s essential to communicate what your brand represents. Once consumers understand who you are and what parallels there are to their needs and requirements, then there is an opportunity for them to become customers.
In this guide, we will help you understand why brand awareness is critical to your business. We’ll also provide our top tips for your brand awareness campaign and tell you all about the hugely successful #RaiseABud created by deuce : studio, the branding and packaging design agency.
What Do We Mean by Brand Awareness?
Brand awareness refers to how familiar or aware consumers are with a brand or its products. So you might also refer to it as ‘trending’ or simply how popular a brand is. Establishing brand awareness is critical for both new and existing companies in the battle to both gain and then retain a customer base.
Why Is Brand Awareness So Important?
There are three key reasons why every business needs to focus on brand awareness.
Brand awareness develops trust
It’s now very easy to research a company or product before you make a purchase. Review sites, discussion forums, and social media all mean that experiences and opinions can be shared with thousands of others in just a few seconds.
Once someone trusts a brand, it becomes their default choice, and they’re highly likely to recommend it to others. And it’s far more likely that we will trust the opinion of another customer rather than relying on promises from the company.
Brand awareness creates an association
When you last needed some information, did you search the internet, or did you Google it? When cleaning the house, did you vacuum or Hoover? Our language becomes full of brands that we use instead of standard nouns or verbs without even realizing it.
This is brand awareness in action. And if we do need to search for something on the internet, then we are far more likely to follow through and, for example, use Google than one of the other search engines.
Brand awareness develops equity
When we talk about the equity of a brand, then we’re referring to the value of the brand as perceived by the customer’s experience and perception. When the customer has a positive experience with the brand, the equity goes up; when it’s been a negative experience, the equity goes into a downward spiral.
The Budweiser #RaiseABud Campaign
You might assume that a successful campaign is all about presenting the product and its benefits. While that might be needed for a new product launch, once there is already a strong public awareness of your product, then a different direction is required.
Deuce Studios did precisely that with their #RaiseABud campaign in 2021. They came up with the idea of asking Budweiser drinkers to nominate a hardworking American. The campaign coincided with Labor Day and followed the challenges of the covid pandemic.
With nominations being made across social media, it was the perfect platform for pictures of the nominees to be posted and for their stories to be told. Over 500k impressions and 200 nominations were received over the Labor Day weekend.
The ten finalists received a personalized Labor Day Budweiser can, and for the lucky winner, well, they also received three months’ salary.
This campaign was all about the values of authenticity and patriotism. In doing so, it reinforced Budweiser’s values and ambitions of championing the best of America and the ordinary people who have done extraordinary things.
Top Tips For a Successful Brand Campaign
Brand awareness takes time; it will not happen overnight, nor will you get results from a single advert or campaign. Here are our top tips to help you elevate your brand.
Use Multiple Platforms
While your key audience might be on Facebook or Twitter, it’s important not to assume that’s the only place they hang out. Multiple and simultaneous efforts will be needed to help consumers understand what your brand is and what it represents.
Consistency of the Narrative
When you’re trying to communicate what your brand stands for, it’s crucial to have a consistent theme. That might be your company values or what makes you different from your competitors. When that narrative becomes muddled, so does the consumer’s understanding of the brand.
Take the time to carefully consider what your brand represents and who your customers are likely to be. From there comes the language that you choose and the words that define your brand.
Develop a Campaign That Entices Engagement
With an online presence comes great responsibility; to keep your customers interested, engaged, and wanting to come back for more. And the way to do this is through unique content creation.
It’s not enough to post a picture of one of your products; what’s the story behind it? Why is it so good? What makes you different from your competitors?
Start by thinking about how you want to portray yourself as a brand, and then develop a creative campaign that gives consumers an insight into those values.
Be Authentic
When you’re getting started with your branded campaign, it’s essential that you be authentic about what you stand for and who your consumers are; consumers can quickly see through any false pretenses or misrepresentations of your brand.
As with traditional media, honesty is always the best policy. When developing a narrative for your brand, carefully consider what your business can realistically offer and consistently deliver.
To learn more about deuce : studio, visit their website.
