Reader's Digest's “Most Trusted Brands” survey is one of the most anticipated surveys of the year among marketing managers. After all, year after year, consumers rate brands based on whether they would personally recommend them to friends and acquaintances. The recently selected “Most Trusted Brands 2020” include brands such as Krombacher, Edeka, Bosch, Milka, Nestlé and Samsung. It is not surprising that many of the brands mentioned are also among the largest media donors. Because brand recognition not only needs to be built up, but the brand image also needs to be maintained. In the past, TV, out-of-home or print have often been considered as advertising platforms for corresponding campaigns intended to strengthen brands. In the digital sector, there was often a lack of attractive, wide-reaching formats from a single source — with dynamic branding, there is now a serious digital alternative.
Why digital brand marketing anyway?
Digital marketing is often reduced to performance marketing or social media. But there are good reasons to implement brand marketing digitally as well — not least because of the option of integrating moving images. Yet digital use has become an integral part of today's world. Not only are around 90 percent of Germans regularly online, the first touchpoint is also increasingly being found digitally (Cocomore study 2019). With dynamic branding, the well-known advantages of digital marketing — targeted targeting and high gross and net reach at attractive prices — can now be combined with appealing brand communication. With dynamic advertising media, the desired target groups can be reached precisely via attractive formats. Specifically, this is as follows: Users are divided into segments based on their characteristics and interests, e.g. “woman — 25 to 35 years — interested in fitness” or “man — 40 to 50 years — recreational tennis athlete.” Based on this division, users are then shown advertising material that adapts dynamically. Recreational tennis athletes are therefore shown tennis products in combination with the brand message (e.g. the commercial), while running shoes are shown to those interested in fitness. https://youtu.be/-yatn68b_AsDabei, not only can the products be dynamized. From images and videos to prices and the integration of maps that show the way to the nearest store — in principle, just about everything can be dynamic and adapted to the user. It addresses previously unknown users, i.e. new customers (prospecting), who often fall through the cracks in classic online marketing measures. The reason for this is simple: otherwise missing data. While there has already been contact between user and product in classic retargeting, this information is usually not available to advertisers in real time when approaching new customers. Our technology now makes it possible to use appropriate data and address new customers in line with their interests.Studies (Marketing Land 2017/Google Media Labs 17) show how important such a tailor-made approach is: the success of a campaign depends up to 75 percent on the quality of the advertising material. If they are convincing, the campaign is also convincing. Particularly in the important categories of “brand preference education” and “purchase intent”, dynamic branding can achieve a greater uplift than in conventional campaigns so that the branding campaigns are effective accordingly, eye-catching large formats, moving images and interactive elements are used. In this way, advertising materials, which are perfectly tailored to the needs of the target group, have an optimal effect - and can also be played out with the right contact dose. And that completely without wastage, as included in other branding channels. Another advantage of dynamic branding is “full funnel effects.” The targeted integration of products not only enables brand building, but sales can also be generated specifically from campaigns.
Choosing the right KPI
While the success of performance campaigns can be determined with conversion rates, CTR or other directly measurable KPIs, the success factors in branding are often very soft. Traditional channels such as TV, print or out of home are usually evaluated retrospectively through surveys on the brand triad or on the basis of panels such as GRP as an indicator for advertising print in the desired target group. However, dynamic branding can now also be used to directly analyze measurable parameters. However, this depends heavily on the correct selection of KPIs. A good click-through rate speaks for itself, but is of no use for the branding effect if viewability and contact class are not optimally controlled at the same time. Adidas recently showed how important this measurability is, where, after detailed analysis, too much attention was paid to efficiency and too little to effectiveness. This resulted in an excessive distribution of marketing budgets in favor of performance marketing. One of the reasons: it was analyzed using the Last Click model. The start of the customer journey was not considered, as were the advertising measures stored there. The following KPIs in particular have become established as measurable parameters for dynamic branding campaigns:
With all these KPIs, the formation of brand preferences, the overall goal of branding measures, can be tracked. Of course, downstream performance values can also continue to be measured and optimized. Compared to classic media planning, dynamic branding also offers the advantage that the campaign can not only be measured in real time, but can also be controlled. In this way, depending on the course of the campaign, the campaign can be optimized at any time in terms of KPIs and costs.
Dynamic branding — a real alternative
Thanks to its diverse targeting options, effective KPI measurement and tailored target group targeting, dynamic branding is a serious alternative to brand building via classic channels such as TV, out-of-home, print or conventional digital media plans — and therefore a good addition to any marketing concept with branding goals. The integration with performance aspects enables the implementation of “full funnel” campaigns that digitally accompany the user from “awareness” of a product or brand to purchase. Adidas' learning shows how big the influence of branding has on sales: A strong brand sells. And brands are only strong if they are sustainably supported by branding.
