BrandDigital | BrandSimple: The Blog

What makes digital content go viral? In a year during which both a truly awesome presidential election and truly awful financial crisis held sway, there was no dearth of online video, both reality and parody. Some of it people watched and passed along with abandon. Some they just watched and abandoned. As a perpetual student of digital behavior, it’s fascinating for me to see what strikes a common chord and goes on to make the viral hit list, and what just dies on the online vine. From a marketing point of view, in many cases the most virally catchy stuff is the result of brilliant creative thinking and execution. Not expensive, mind you, just strategically innovative, like the Burger King Flame campaign aimed at adolescent-minded guys for whom the idea of a meat-scented body spray is pretty sizzling. Keeping the creative bar high in the contest for online eyeballs is definitely one way to assure your content will catch on. The other, I have to admit, is just plain luck. In many cases, dumb luck. Take a look at our colleagues at Sterling Cooper, and you’ll see what I mean. (In the meantime, if I were you, I’d opt for brilliant creative.)

Audi is a great brand. Friends and colleagues who drive Audis love them for the entirety of the brand experience, from the way the car performs, to the way it looks, to what it says about them as auto aficionados. What friends and colleagues, along with thousands of people I don’t know, don’t love about Audi is the company’s recent digital branding campaign, the Audi A4 Driving Challenge, which is not only not challenging, but not reflective in any way of the aforementioned Audi brand experience. In fact, gamers who download the application from iTunes to play on their iPod Touch see it as a poorly disguised attempt to advertise to them in the digital space. Unfortunately, the net take-away from reviews of the game is not just a bashing of the application, but a bashing of the brand. Ouch. While it was smart of Audi to include digital in an overall branding strategy (essential in this day and age), the company should have made sure that, like everything else it does, its recent branding app delivered on the brand’s promise. As I write in BrandDigital, one of the challenges of playing in the online space is determining how to get involved in a way that’s relevant to the brand and in keeping with what people already think about the brand. If Audi’s game was less an interruptive “advergame” and more an active demonstration of its cars’ performance on challenging roadways, it would have served the company better. The good thing about the digital space is that if something isn’t working you can take it off and move on to something else. I suggest that Audi take its current game off-road and get online with something that drives home what a great brand it is.

I want to thank my friends at The Brand Show for inviting me to join in their recent conversation on branding in a digital world. During this enjoyable and free-wheeling discussion we talked about why, in this transparent environment, it’s critical to deliver on your brand promise consistently and authentically. Moreso, we talked about why, in a society where consumers are more in control than ever before, it’s critical to get them engaged and onboard with your brand story. I invite you to listen in to this lively discussion and hear for yourself how digital tools and tactics are playing an increasingly important role in the way brands get built.

I love the way Don Draper and his band of merry Mad Men talk the talk. But, were they part of this current digital branding world, would their talk cut it? Probably not. One of the things I write about in BrandDigital is that talking the digital talk, being able to throw around digital terms with abandon, is no substitute for knowing exactly what makes a digital branding app work; why some apps catch on and run virally rampant while others simmer like limp noodles. Success in digital branding means knowing how and why things work and how to become part of an on-going online conversation without interrupting it. Take a look at this third episode of Digital Mad Men and you’ll see that while these guys can certainly talk a good game, they may not really know what they’re talking about.

From the NBC network’s point of view, moving Jay Leno from his late night spot to a prime time spot is a stroke of financial brilliance. It’s going to save them the cost of producing high-budget cops, docs, and lawyer dramas (which people DVR and watch on-demand anyway). From my professional marketer’s point of view, moving Jay to 10 P.M. from 11:35 P.M. is a stroke of branding brilliance. Actually, two strokes. To begin with, among the first things a good branding strategy takes into consideration is the target audience. Jay’s forty-plus fans don’t (can’t) stay up late. Their ability to make it to even the 11:00 news is diminishing. Giving them their dose of laughter and live and lively banter when their eyes are still open is a smart way to keep them brand loyalists. It demonstrates an understanding of their needs. Second, all successful brand extensions – and that’s what this is – are the result of taking what people love about the original product and differentiating it in a relevant and innovative way. The Jay Leno Show will do just that. Leveraging Jay’s intelligent brand of topical humor and refreshing it in a ready-for-prime-time manner will allow the brand to stand apart from other talk-type shows, not to mention other 10 P.M. TV options. NBC appreciates Leno. Viewers appreciate Leno. Brand professionals should appreciate NBC’s decision to take a strong brand and enhance its appeal in an inventive way. In my opinion, it’s not just a stroke of programming genius, but a couple of strokes of branding genius.

In this economic climate of shrinking budgets and diminished consumer attention, there are two valuable lessons marketers should take away from the brilliant campaign run by the Obama team. Lesson one: Stay focused on a simple, core idea for your brand which, in the President-elect’s case was “change you can believe in.” Lesson two: Execute on this idea relentlessly. What Obama did so powerfully in his run for the White House was essentially taken out of the playbook in BrandSimple: Great brands are built on single-minded ideas and their branding is consistently aligned with this idea across all points of touch. Obama’s advertising, his Facebook presence, his talking points, his connection with youthful voters on gaming sites, his announcement of a vice presidential choice by text message, even his post-election thank you notes sent via email were branding executions that perfectly supported the one distinct idea he wanted to represent in the minds of voters.

With less money for marketing, with incessant noise and news, with brand clutter growing and confidence dwindling, it has never been more essential to adhere to the principles of focus and execution in brand building. This is not the time for over-strategizing and under-branding. This is not the time for wasteful careening from message to message. This is not the time for ambiguity in any way, shape, or branding form. A laser-like focus on a singular idea and virtuoso execution of this idea have always been key to successful branding, facts well understood by the Obama folks. To change this formula in these turbulent economic times is definitely not something any marketer should believe in.

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In yesterday’s New York Times, reporter Bill Vlasic wrote about the need for the Big Three to cut back on the number of brands they market to improve efficiencies.

But the reporter misses the potential upside beyond saving money. Fewer brands also translates into greater focus and potential marketplace impact on the remaining brands. The trick is to trim the brands that lack any current or potential meaningful differentiation. Ironically, Ford is considering selling Volvo, one of the few brands that stands for something different.

The other drama being played out on the national stage are the Big Three CEO’s asking for billions in government aid. Their challenge here is that the strategy to solve the problem is complex while the process of selling a bailout to Main Street needs to be simple. Right now the companies seem to be getting nailed on both sides. While flying three corporate jets to ask for money will go down as a case study in what not to do, I predict the image of them driving to Washington will get them nailed again on Saturday Night Live.