Typically, luxury brands run marketing campaigns all year round, with or without Covid-19 and lockdown. Consumers are willing to pay a premium price for these types of products for a reason, which is, strong brand presence. A pandemic might slow the pace of people consuming luxury products in general, but they will ultimately return to pursuing their belief in those brands.

The logic behind this applies to all brands, not just the luxury market. According to VENNGAGE, 89% of marketers claim that brand awareness is their main goal. Strong brand recognition enables brands to lift sales, obtain loyal customers, and raise relevant conversations about the brands among customers in the long term.

The million-dollar question is – how can you achieve strong brand recognition? At Appetite Creative we have oodles of insight and expertise on this topic. Our top five tips include:

1. Clear positioning and targets

For every marketing activity to be as effective as possible, companies must be precise about their brand positioning, including the target audience and the desired brand image.

Here at Appetite Creative, we helped VSL#3, the poly-biotic brand focused on gut health to reposition itself as a lifestyle brand, by giving it a new look and feel by fresh design for the website and new interactive social media strategy. Colours and images all need to reflect the health and well-being side of the product as VSL3 could no longer be able to rely on prescriptions for revenue. The repositioning strategy unsurprisingly resulted in well over 10k additional clicks to the new webpage in the first 4 weeks and rapid sales growth.

 2. Customer Engagement

Interactive ads are a consistent and result-driven way to engage customers, whether it’s via playable ads involving gaming, display ads with responsive elements, storytelling videos that emotionally engage customers, or mobile ads that make sure customers can connect with the brand via mobile devices. A study shows that customers spend 47% more time with a brand through interacting with a game or watching videos, over-and-above traditional advertising. This leaves customers with strong brand affection which leads to positive recommendations, repeat custom, and sales.

 3. Packaging

Many big brands have their own packaging – we all know and love them – but branded packaging is just the start. Connected packaging leverages QR codes, barcodes, or even image recognition and so on, through a mobile app, to connect consumers to relevant content and experiences. It could be a questionnaire or a simple game. This technology enables brands to extend their conversations with customers through the packaging to establish a stronger brand presence and gather valuable insights to better understand their customers.

Swiss dairy company Emmi AG has an impressive history preceding its current status as a market leader in value-added dairy products, and it would like to be one of the first consumer brands that engage with the audience digitally. To help tackle the problem, Appetite Creative created an interactive online quiz that would educate customers on the benefits of Emmi’s products. Customers could enter the quiz by using their mobile phones to scan a unique, one-time-use QR code on the package. Each pack has a unique QR code, giving Emmi access to an array of information including which variety from the range was scanned and the time and location of the scan, helping facilitate additional customer data collection.

4. Social Media Presence

The importance of social media marketing needs no explanation, according to Techjury, an average user spends 2 hours and 24 minutes per day on social media (Techjury, 18th of June 2020), which speaks for itself. Lockdown impacted many social experiences and activities which only led to increased social media activity, a new report suggested. Brands not only need to be on billboards or big screens but also customers’ mobile apps to be part of their daily lives and conversations.

 5. Consistency

Unfortunately, you can’t generate an immediate result if you only go to the gym only once. The same theory applies to marketing. Marketing efforts have to be implemented in a consistent way to deliver value and results. The forgetting curve is another piece of evidence. Information stored in people’s brains fades away over time if there is no reinforcement in place. Brands need to reiterate their messages as time goes on, and also in a way that does not bore the audience.

A strong brand presence brings long-term benefits, through a long-term effort and innovative marketing approaches. With the right strategy, companies can boost their brand recognition over time and enjoy the fruits of their labour.