Scholar-Journalist of the Week: Learning the tricks of effective brand building

Sakshi Verma, an advertising student with Apeejay Institute of Mass Communication,  is a creative person and a strategic communicator. She enjoys planning and strategising as well as exploring with a keen eye for detail having an excellent grasping capability. Her batchmate Shakshi Raturi is an optimistic person, who is also keen to enhance her creative side and develop necessary skills to be part of the advertising field. She opines that in advertising, one gets challenged everyday and that helps in improving one’s personality. Also, she emphasises that working with brands, engaging with their marketing strategies attracts her the most about this profession. Thus, the budding advertising professionals are exploring multiple aspects of the branding and advertising segment. Their aim is to learn effective branding strategies via several brand building exercises. 

Recently, they participated in a brand building exercise in which they had to choose a hypothetical product or service related to media, and strategise ways to promote it. In this interview, the Apeejay students explained key learnings from brand building exercise. Read edited excerpts:

What are your key learnings from brand building exercise?

Sakshi Verma: I learnt planning and brand building, promotion through digital marketing, posters and banners, different marketing strategies, experiential marketing, feedback of the consumer and teamwork.

Shakshi Raturi: I learnt the basics of brand building such as what is brand identity, the target audience, ways to build a brand, etc. I understood how a brand is portrayed to the customers by creating awareness through direct marketing and also using social media marketing strategies. I also learnt that every brand has its own uniqueness and it’s important to convey the same to the customers through correct advertising and promoting strategies.

Effective ways of brand building

Sakshi Verma: Create Emotional Appeal –  This helps in creating association between the product or service. When we understand the key desires and struggles of our target market, we can build a brand persona that shows how our product can help our target market achieve their desired state of feeling.

Focus on generating value for others – Trust is most important to whom you are serving and the person you are serving must feel the genuineness of your character and experience your competence first hand. 

Shakshi Raturi:  Effective brand building can be attained when the brand is ‘Authentic’, that is, the brand knows what it stands for and how it is different from others. Consistency in delivering the right communication about the brand through right social media platforms, newsletters and so on.

Why brand building is important

Sakshi Verma:  Brand building helps in attracting more customers and building relationships with the audience, which can turn them into loyal customers. Branding imparts a professional look to the business resulting in establishing credibility in the market. It leads to financial value. The more the company devotes itself towards building its brand, the more will be the financial returns from its efforts. It also boosts employee morale and job satisfaction.

Shakshi Raturi: Brand building creates awareness about what the brand is, what it stands for and how it is different from its competitor. People usually resonate with the brand who share their beliefs thus effective brand building creates loyal customers. If a brand is seen as one of a kind it’s able to build strong association with the customers in the long run and passes the test of the time. 

How does technology play a role in brand building? 

Sakshi Verma: Technology can make brand building much easier. Social media is one of the best ways to make a brand seem more human or connect with customers personally. Unifying customer’s experience across different channels helps make them more aware of the brand and more likely to remember your company in the future. Technology has improved communication. Online databases offer information about the company and its products, including guides, tutorials and blog posts with tips and tricks relevant to your offerings. They allow customers to learn a lot about the brand without reaching out directly.

Shakshi Raturi: Technology is evolving so much and now the internet is available to nearly every person in this world. The latest technology advancements have helped in brand building in amazing ways. For example, for strong online presence, brands are using design tools and also video branding apps for the best visual content. Moreover, using social media influencers has become a prominent way of building a brand. Through brand survey tools it has become easy to understand how the brand is being perceived by the customers. In all these ways technology is helping so much in the brand building process. 

Do you plan to pursue your career in branding or strategising? 

Sakshi Verma: Yes, I see myself as an account planner, which requires strategising and being experienced in client servicing. I want to grow in this field.

Shakshi Raturi : Yes, definitely I see myself building a career as an Account Planner where strategising would be one of my tasks.