Power of 21st century digital branding: Is it essential or not?

by Rimo Bose, PR and Branding Country Manager, TCL India

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It sometimes feels surreal, but the world is gradually adopting digital transformation right in front of us, and we, like mute spectators, are just watching it all being done, isn’t it? Often called the new-age version of traditional branding methodologies, what exactly is digital branding? Is it just an old concoction served in new digital bottles, or does digital branding entail more than what the surface indicates? Today we will delve into the deepest corners of digital branding and learn why it is highly crucial in the current circumstances.

Coup d’œil: The evolution of digital branding 

As of 2020, Asia has close to 2.5 billion internet users, making it the largest in the world. The magnitude of rapidly growing digital audiences forced businesses to take the brand management approach towards digital enlightenment. This is where digital branding came as a promising and consistent solution that can cater to the demands of modern-age clientele as it offers more channels for marketing than the conventional branding mediums.

Digital thrives branding in the face of a multi-channel approach which magnifies seamless communication between consumers and producers. It enables producers or manufacturers to express their stories, beliefs, ideas and vision through online advertisements, websites, social media, search engines and instant digital activations. They can get the feedback from the consumers or from their target groups in real-time and drive the profits and effectiveness in the twinkling of an eye.

In the ongoing digital era, a brand’s worth is directly proportional to the story they sell. The world has gone past the point and won’t get satisfied with just singular channels of storytelling. Instead, it’s the consistently told soul-stirring stories that convey brand messaging, vision, product details and ideas. Something unique and creative but also relatable with contemporary generations. Unless these tales reach the heart of consumers, branding is nothing but a hollow word. The moment business owners lose grip on brand storytelling, entire branding starts tumbling down. However, with the substantial resources and bird-eye view, the omnipotent digital branding channels can keep the story afresh in consumers’ minds.

Remember, if the consumers believe in the brand’s values, messaging, vision and ethics, they’ll stay loyal and recommend others to do the same. So, maintaining product quality is the highest priority, but conveying the brand message is almost cardinal.

Trends in digital management with the potential to make or break the game

  1. Elevating the methods of digital assistance: Since internet penetration has made accessibility quicker, easier and convenient, consumers nowadays have almost zero patience to deal with old-school customer care support. Brands need to become digitally mature. Leverage advanced automation tools like machine learning and artificial intelligence to create systematic customer support segments to solve consumer problems instantly. Work on keeping the sales and customer service proactive, especially during the festive season.

In addition, websites should be modified to make them reader-friendly. Don’t try to focus on a segment, but become meticulous and personalized. Because consumers are aware of what they want, and if your brand can’t provide them with instant solutions, they’ll simply look for the competitors’ products.

  1. An all-inclusive approach towards omnichannel marketing: Taking a step beyond just multi-channel marketing, brands need to take a comprehensive approach. An omnichannel approach will enable brands to optimise individual user-based information based on previously online interactions, shopping interests and similar online behavior. Leveraging this optimised content, brand owners can offer exciting discounts and offers. Bottom line is that consumer interaction needs to become more personalised, from friendly emails about latest offers to social media advertising, everything is directly linked to broad gouge marketing.
  1. Conscious lifestyle and all-embracing values: Consumer patterns change every day, but some changes are rather drastic. For example, consumers today are far more conscious about buying only cruelty-free products that are 100% natural. The idea is to take steps towards conscious lifestyle rather than adding to environmental degradations. Similarly, consumers are also boycotting the brands intentionally or unintentionally encouraging discrimination against minorities based on race, class, colour, sexual orientations, gender and similar factors. Brands need to carefully choose the path, content, messaging and words so as to not hurt consumer sentiments.

In fact, while planning company strategies and branding maps, it is vital to keep the aforementioned messaging in mind. Always highlight the unity in diversity commitment of the brand along with the conscious consumerism side. Underlining these steps will elevate the brand presence and profit the overall branding.

In a nutshell…

For creating a better foothold in the 21st-century market, brands need to ride on the back of digital marketing. Needless to say, a company’s consistent presence across all channels coupled with high-end products will automatically garner tremendous consumer traction. People may call digital branding an evolved version of traditional branding, as both these branding mediums share numerous common attributes. However, it is clear that digital branding is far more encompassing than its predecessors. Its applications and approach require custom-based solutions for every consumer. And, this is why digital branding is vital for every brand, from early-age startups to global giants. If brands want to survive in the cutthroat world, they’ll have to shake hands with the digital marketing concept. Otherwise, the world will move on, and they’ll be left behind.

About the Author:

Rimo Bose

Rimo Bose is currently heading the PR & Communications department of TCL India. She has 6 + years of experience in the field of corporate communications. She joined TCL in the year 2020, and continues to be the lead for all PR and media related activities. As the spokesperson of the company, Rimo believes that TCL brings an array of technologies that the Indian audience will highly appreciate. Her aim is to bring the brand communications closer to the audience via strategic PR techniques; she also believes that TCL as a product brand gives an open door to branding professional to create wonders.

Previously Rimo has worked with Continental Automotive, where she managed both internal and external communications, has worked both in India and Germany, also supported US market. She has also worked at Akshaya Patra Foundation in marketing communications. Additionally, she has also worked in agencies for clients such as – Bosch, 3M & Scania. Also, started her career as member of press board for Kolkata Film Festival and enjoyed working at Silicon India as a tech editor.

Rimo is a Masters in Mass Communications from Calcutta University and has a PGDM in Public Relations from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavans. Apart from being a communications professional, she is an avid reader, enjoys sketching and practices classical dancing. Rimo’s mantra: “A good communicator can tell you the difference between noise and news.”