Creative Brand Strategy - Project 1B

08/04/21 - 22/04/21 (Week 2 - Week 4)

Atiqah Farzana Binti Syalleh Karimyee (0336740)
Creative Brand Strategy
Project 1B

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LECTURE NOTES

Week 2: What is Brand Strategy?

Brand strategy defines positioning, differentiation, the competitive advantage, and the unique value proposition. 

Developing an effective brand strategy involves three key components:

1. Brand Positioning
2. Brand Architecture
3. Brand Extension

A brand positioning is the conceptual place you want to own in the target audience's mind - the benefits you want them to think of your brand.

A brand truly communicates when it sets the brand apart from the competitor, making it immediately recognizable, and creates an emotional connection.

Brand architecture is the logical, strategic and relational structure for all brands in the portfolio. It is used to ensure clarity, synergy and leverage across the portfolio. The three different ways to organize brands within a company is:

        1. Monolithic - (a.k.a Branded House) is characterized by a strong, single master brand, for all brands bear the master brand's name identically.

        2. Endorsed - characterized by marketing synergy between the product or division, and the master brand. The product or division has a clearly defined market presence.

        3. Pluralistic - characterized by a series of unrelated brands. The master brand name may be either invisible or inconsequential to the consumer, therefore new brands are developed.

Brand extension involves stretching the brand into attractive categories, by creating 'equity bridges' for customers to cross.

Week 3: SWOT Analysis, Customer Journey Map, and Guiding Principles

SWOT stands for:

• Strength
• Weakness
• Opportunities
• Threats

Strength and Weakness are seen as internal factors (within the organization, its assets, processes, and people).

Opportunity and Threat are seen as external factors (arising from your market, your competitor, and the wider economy).

A customer journey map is a visual representation of the customer journey (a.k.a buyer journey or user journey). It helps on identifying the customer's experiences with the brand across all touchpoints in stages.

Week 4: The Big Idea

A campaign's big idea is the overarching message that underpins all elements of a campaign in order to resonate with the target audience.

The big idea will emerge in the process of narrowing the focus.

The steps to find the campaign's big idea is:

1. Understanding - brand story, target market, SWOT, etc., basically all about the campaign
2. Clarifying - all the learnings from the research and analysis are distilled into a unifying idea.
3. Positioning - perceptual mapping
4. Brand essence - central idea, unifying message, voice and tone
5. Big idea

The big idea can always be expressed in one sentence, sometimes it becomes the tagline. A brand becomes stronger when you narrow the focus.

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INSTRUCTIONS

Module Information Booklet:

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PROJECT

Project 1B - Campaign Proposal (Individual)

Week 2 (08/04/2021) - Week 4 (22/04/21)

This task requires us to propose a campaign for our local market to answer the needs and wants, following the suggested proposal framework:

• Campaign description (chosen subject, topic)
• underpinning the Brand Story:
• Objective/Purpose, Brand Values, Vision & Mission,
• Target Audience/Market(demographic & psychographic)
• Featured Activities
• Place & Location
• Organizer(s)
• Situation Analysis:
• SWOT*, Customer Journey Map*

We should choose a campaign that we are interested in - such as promoting local art & culture, or a campaign that focuses on social environmentalism. The design approach should either be rebranding an existing campaign, or to propose a new campaign.

In the first hour of brainstorming, I came up with 2 ideas:

1. a campaign to revive traditional Malaysian games
2. 24 Hour Race

I quickly jotted down my main points onto a Google slide to show Ms. Low my options.

Fig. 1.1 - Traditional Malaysian Games: Campaign Description

Fig. 1.2 - Traditional Malaysian Games: Games List

Fig. 1.3 - 24 Hour Race: Campaign Description

Ms. Low said both campaigns were doable. Now, I just had to research more on both topics and choose which campaign I would want to work with.

After researching on both campaigns, I compiled my findings into the Google slide presentation below:

I was leaning a lot more towards the 24 Hour Race, but after the consultation session with Ms. Low, I realised that it already has such a strong brand identity which doesn't really need much improvement. Thus, I chose my other option which is the traditional Malaysian games.

Here is my final campaign proposal for traditional Malaysian games:

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FEEDBACK

Week 2 (09/04/2021)

General feedback: Ms. Low said that we should choose a campaign that we have some interest in, so that the project would be more fun for us. Choosing a local campaign over a foreign one is also better in a way because we could potentially promote Malaysia's culture.

Specific feedback: My first campaign idea was to revive traditional Malaysian games so that the future will be preserved through the younger generation. Ms. Low thought it was a good idea, but her main concern was finding who would be the organization/brand in charge of creating this campaign. She suggested the Malaysian government. My 2nd idea is an existing campaign called the 24 Hour Race which is a charity made to abolish modern slavery. Ms Low said the branding already looks alright, so rebranding isn't really what I should be looking for. She suggested that maybe because the charity is very open about their funds, I could focus on designing in a way that more people could see their statistics of the charities.

Week 3 (15/04/2021)

General feedback: Next week we will be presenting our campaign proposal, so we need to finalise our campaign choice by today.

Specific feedback: As mentioned last week, the 24 Hour Race campaign already had a good visual identity so there's no need for rebranding. Moreover, there is also not much of a demand for citizens to see their financial/annual reports. After doing a brief SWOT analysis for the 24 Hour Race, it became clear to me that their weaknesses were very minor and not really solid problems to begin with.

With that, I decided to finally go with the traditional Malaysian games campaign. Ms. Low said that it was a good concept as there was a demand for it. The only thing left to do is to choose an organizer who would host the campaign, to which Ms. Low suggested to look for international board game companies who might want to branch out to Malaysia. I quickly searched up some companies, as well as miscellaneous companies that may be interested in organizing the event. Ms. Low said that the board game companies would make sense if I was going to create a new board game, so it might be better to go with other company choices- but she gave me full liberation in choosing the company I want as the organizer.

Week 4 (22/04/2021)

General feedback: If we are choosing an existing campaign, it would be better if we created a new name for it instead of using the original name because it gives more freedom to our campaign and what we do with it.

Specific feedback: After my campaign proposal, Ms. Low said that I have chosen a suitable venue that has both indoor and outdoor spaces. She suggested that what can be improved is to change the brand name, Jom Main! Although it is a catchy name, it is too generic to be identified. The name itself is in Malay which translates to 'Let's Play!', however, when translated to English- it opens up to a wider definition. Ms. Low also suggested that I try to find some reasons as to why kids nowadays prefer digital games, and why traditional games are being left out. This would help me find ways to make traditional games more appealing to kids, perhaps something like VR. 

REFLECTION

Experience: Week 2 (08/04/2021); When we were given an hour or so to find a campaign, I didn't really have anything in mind so I spent a long time trying to come up with something. Alas, in the last 15 mins or so I thought of the 24 Hour Race, and preserving traditional Malaysian games. Week 3 (15/04/2021); I spent a bit too much time researching about the 24 Hour Race and not enough time for the traditional Malaysian games, which resulted in an imbalance in my slides. Week 4 (22/04/2021); Choosing traditional Malaysian games was definitely the better choice as I have the liberation to start from scratch and build my own brand from it.

Observation: Week 2 (08/04/2021); Finding an existing local campaign was already difficult, but having to plan out and design a whole branding would be even more challenging. Hopefully, choosing a campaign that I'm passionate about will make this task easier. Week 3 (15/04/2021); To a certain extent, I couldn't help but feel like my research for the 24 Hour Race was sort of useless because I finalised my choice to be the traditional Malaysian games, however, I took it as a good learning and research experience for different campaigns. Week 4 (22/04/2021); After finishing my campaign proposal, I looked back at it and realised that it was very different from my initial plan as I had to change a lot of aspects along the way (organiser, location, campaign, etc.).

Findings: Week 2 (08/04/2021); I think either campaign would work, but right now I couldn't choose which one I preferred more. Week 3 (15/04/2021); Doing the SWOT analysis was really helpful because I was able to see that the 24 Hour Race didn't really have much weakness in their brand identity, which led me to go with my other option of the traditional Malaysian games. Although I was quite fond of doing the 24 Hour Race, I think going with traditional Malaysian games would have more potential on creating a fun and playful design as its brand identity. Week 4 (22/04/2021); I found that in order to create the best work, you have to constantly be researching along the way to improve the work and make sure that it is as accurate and detailed as possible. Even if the initial plan turns out different in the end, it is all part of the process.

FURTHER READING

Master of Design: Logos & Identity by Sean Adams

Week 2 (08/04/21) - Week 3 (15/04/21)

Fig. 2.1 - Master of Design: Logos & Identity Book Cover

This book is a collection of logos from 29 designers (listed on the front cover) who have created logos for well-known companies such as NBC, Tropicana, Kleenex, along with regional and local businesses as well. In the book, these designers discuss their influences and techniques of logo design, while offering advice for designers approaching their own logo projects, including strategies for developing successful logos, tips on how to improve client relationships, and much more.

From this book, I was able to see the design process of various famous logos, including the evolution of the rough idea to the final logo. I found that it is very useful to see how an idea can grow and change over time, and that an initial plan might completely change by the end of the project. Overall, looking at so many logos and brand identities showed me that there are so many possibilities for design and no two will look the same.

10 Tips For Creating A Powerful Marketing Campaign Strategy by Campaign Creators
Week 3 (15/04/21) - Week 4 (22/04/21)  

    1. Lean towards influencer marketing instead of celebrity endorsements

Influencer marketing is based on a smaller, more intimate fan base than that of a true celebrity, therefore it instills more trust in the consumer.
    

    2. Don't underestimate what social media can do

Social media is an excellent way to advertise to new and previous customers, and it is the perfect medium for building customer relationships, which will lead to a strong brand loyalty.
Here's how to craft the perfect social media message
    

    2a. Identify and get to know your target audience
Find out who your audience is, where they're from, when they're online, and which channel they use. All these aspects can be discovered using free online social media analytics tools such as:

Buffer - A tool that helps you drive traffic, increase your social media engagement and understand your followers. The free version helps you track major engagement stats.

Tweriod - A free Twitter tool that helps you find the best time to Tweet based on when your followers are online.

Facebook Page Insights - Available to all page admins, Facebook Insights give you the stats behind your posts, your fans and the reach of the content you are posting. Bonus: You can also get to know your competitors by placing them in the “Pages to watch” category.

Twitter Analytics - Twitter provides users a 28-day overview of how their tweets have performed: # of retweets, # of mentions, # of favorites, and # of clicks.

Fig. 2. - Social Media Analytics

    2b. Create and conduct social media audits

The audit should include information on the different platforms you are active on, list links to your profiles, identify who is responsible for these accounts, key social media metrics, key audience demographic information, and the best performing posts based on engagement. 

Fig. 2. - Social Media Audit

This audit should also include information about your followers such as which day of the week and at what time they are most active on these platforms as well as the type of posts they resonate with most (i.e. posts with pictures, posts that contain videos, posts about giveaways/contests, etc.).


    2c. Develop a content calendar

A content calendar will help you track the frequency of your posts and the content that you will use based on the channels you are active on. Be it weekly, bi-weekly or on a monthly basis- a content calendar will ensure that you are creating consistent, timely messages across your channels.

Fig. 2. - Content Calendar

General social media advice: 

• Use hashtags wisely. 

• Don't bend any grammar or spelling rules to make your message fit the space. 

• Doing so could tarnish your credibility with your followers. 

• Use images or videos to grab the reader’s attention. 

• Ask the readers a question to get more engagement. 

• Provide just enough information for the reader to know what your content is about but still make them want to learn more. 

• Use bit.ly or another link builder to create a unique, trackable link. 

• Provide a clear call to action including a shortened, unique link to track effectiveness. 

• Post at a time when you know your followers will see it. 

• Use the data in your social media audit to determine your best days/times to post. 

• If your best days/times to post are not during regular business hours, you can use free scheduling tools such as Hootsuite or Buffer to upload posts and schedule them accordingly.