Building Brand Awareness – Use all 5 Senses
December 14, 2009 Leave a Comment
As consumers, we are constantly bombarded with advertisements. From television and radio ads to billboards and in-store signs – all touting the latest and greatest offerings of these advertisers – regardless if they are that great.
So, how does a small business (with a much smaller budget than its larger counterparts) actually compete (build its brand) in this world of constant advertising noise?
Brand building is a major factor in business success. Brand building essentially rents space in current and potential consumer’s minds. Thus, when they think about a need that is not being met or are simply in the market for your type of product, you want your company’s name or product brand to come to the forefront of these consumers’ consciousness. Take for example in the 1960’s and 1970’s – Clorox Bleach. For years, probably decades, Clorox made a name (built its brand) as the premier bleach product. The company had so much brand awareness that there became a time when people quit saying the word “bleach”, the generic name for whitening clothes, and substituted the brand “Clorox.” Thus, consumers related the brand name with the product.
Further, brand awareness can come from a visual experience. Take the Nike swoosh. Most people in the world will think of Nike simply by seeing its brand.
In the early years of the last century, print and radio (as mass market advertising mediums) really bombarded brand awareness. However, each, while focusing on a certain type of mind stimuli, were extremely limited. Print advertising focused on visual stimulus – where potential consumer would read or see ads with their eyes only. Radio on the other hand, focused on the hearing sense – where potential consumers would only hear the ad – its words and its jingles.
When television came along, it was able to mesh these two together – both seeing the ad and hearing the words and jingle – it was the best of both worlds.
Why this is important is that people (consumers) use more than one sense to remember or identify an experience or in the case of brand awareness – remember a company or product brand. Take NBC that has a very stimulating visual logo. However, NBC also created and built its brand around three simple pings trying to create memory influences based upon hearing as well as seeing.
Having myself grown up in the television era, I am much more inclined to remember something if I both hear and see it together – it is like getting two exposures at one single time.
But, this also leaves my other three senses out of the picture – taste, touch and smell (know that the sense of smell is just as powerful as hearing or sight).
To build brand awareness in today’s market with so much advertising noise happening throughout the day means finding new ways to stimulate potential consumers. This could mean utilizing the other senses as these senses have not yet been overwhelmed to this point.
At one time there were several companies working on smell-o-vision or providing smells through computer monitors. Some restaurants hand out free samples to stimulate the tastes of passer-bys. Even Pepsi used taste tests in attempts to build its brand. Others may use in-store demonstrations to provide hands-on experiences for its consumers or waft the smells of cooking or baking to simulate the sense of smell in consumers.
In a world so thick with visual and auditory marketing competition, any business looking to build brand, to rent space in consumer’s minds, to be the go to company when people identify an immediate need either requires jumping into the middle of the current maylay hoping not to get eaten alive or lost in the noise or attempt to come at consumes from another angle – an angel unlike to already be overwhelmed.
If you want to build the brand awareness of your small business in a world of noise – think about using the other untargeted senses.
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