In my book, impressions are as important as brand consistency. You can be incredibly disciplined about your brand messaging and look and feel, but if you’re not getting in front of your audiences – known in the ad game as impressions – and with the frequency necessary, you’ll continue to be the “best kept secret” in town.
The great news is that today there are many ways to build a critical mass of impressions – one that can arguably lead to a tipping point in visibility for your brand. And I’m not talking about spending oodles in advertising. Some of the more obvious ways in today’s digital environment are institution fan pages on Facebook and MySpace and a YouTube site. But other simple, yet creative, opportunities continue to emerge, like creating a piece of flair in Facebook like the one below (visit Facebook’s Flair site) …or a brand-inspired FB application (i.e. Oklahoma St. Football Fans or Old Dominion Basketball Fans).
Go bigger yet and ask your stakeholders to express how they feel about the brand. Have a flair design contest. Or go even bigger and have a YouTube contest. A number of institutions have had great success with these tactics like the University of Michigan Flint’s 2008 Superbowl contest and Virginia Tech’s “I’m a Hokie” contest to mention two.
These relatively simple and inexpensive vehicles are great ways to augment shrinking advertising budgets and help you continue to build brand visibility. They have the added advantage of allowing you to directly engage audiences and to tap into the pride and loyalty of your stakeholders to promote the brand.
There is a caveat to these activities. While they cost little in terms of a dollar commitment, they require a commitment of time. Someone has to live and breathe the 2.0 space, identify new opportunities and think of creative ways to use them; monitor and interact with responders; and, most importantly, someone has to actively promote the activities.
To simply create is not enough. You have to initiate the exchange – invite your constituencies to view and comment on your videos, visit your fan pages, accept and pass around flair, etc. And once is not enough. You have to keep tapping people – if they comment, comment back, start a conversation. If they accept a piece of your flair, encourage them to share it with others, etc. Like any relationship, these activities require back and forth communication. However, if you can find the resources to fully commit to these activities – like a willing and savvy student intern in your office who can shepherd these efforts – you will reap the rewards of making great impressions.
