 Every brand (just like every human being!) has something special and unique to offer the world. Our last blog discussed the first step of captivation: the brand clarifier, an internal process of self-discovery to help your brand determine its strengths and value. Clarification identifies the DNA of your brand.
The next step in captivation is the brand differentiator. This is the process of articulating what distinguishes your brand's unique strengths from your competitors AND makes it worthwhile for your audience(s). Jump on any smartphone or tablet or any app and find yourself served with countless ads seeking to promote products ranging from sneakers to sleep aids. With so many choices and SUCH a cluttered marketplace, consumers struggle to identify key differences across brands. That means less consideration for any given brand. It also means consumers are less likely to experience the products and services that best meet their specific needs. That's why at Orbital Socket, we seek to act as brand differentiators. We want consumers to hear those things that best articulate your brand, generate an emotional connection, and result in engagement. When consumers see you in the right light, your brand identity becomes more potent and enduring. Your brand becomes an experience replicated with consistency, resulting in consumer relationships built on trust and dependability. So How Does Differentiation Work? Positioning It starts with positioning: your brands' perception among its peers. Our goal is to help you find the paces where your brand's strengths best meet consumer needs. And then we want you to champion those spaces. Core Message Core messaging is at the heart of differentiation; It's the thesis and the oomph that drive your distinction. Core messaging describes why your brand can serve your audience(s) the best and why you can provide the experience they desire and require. Narrative What differentiates a brand from the others is how it builds its narrative. A story is far more effective than a simple soda can or piece of furniture. If someone can associate your story with your brand, they've already got a personal connection with you. With Orbital Socket's brand differentiator, your company will send out that message of a great story and keep telling it in fresh and exciting ways. Message Points Remember that work of clarification? At Orbital Socket, we help you with internal discovery to reveal your strengths. We often find that companies tend to overlook their best assets because their employees are too familiar and too close to the process. What's routine for you is often impressive to outsiders. We build messaging points that authentically reflect who and what our partners' brands are. And these simple messaging points combine to create powerful and lasting communications. Once you know who you are, the next step is telling your audience. At Orbital Socket, we'd love to help in introducing you to your brand and then the world to you!
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 Whether you are a brand that sells frozen yogurt or athletic footwear, it’s important for you to know who and what you truly are. And, it’s just as important for your audience to know you as well. It’s simple enough in theory, but many brands struggle to articulate their identity.
At Orbital Socket, we won’t tell you who we think you should be or try to make you into something you’re not. We’re not looking to project our preconceived notions of brand essence on our clients. Instead, we will engage with you, your partner, to develop a relationship and get to know you. We want to journey in discovery alongside you so the brand clarifier process can work its wonders. This process doesn’t just involve getting to know your audience but your ecosystem. Since the world is an entire ecosystem of systems, brand clarification consists of figuring out your place in each system. This process involves getting to know your business inside and out. At Orbital Socket, we will seek to discover all the beauty and creativity that you may often take for granted. Fresh eyes and a fresh perspective can do wonders to outline what makes your company so unique. If your organization were the Galapagos Islands, think of us as explorers on the H.M.S. Beagle ready to gather and document data about your ecosystem. What Do You Need to Do for Brand Clarification? Brand clarification with Orbital Socket is a future-based perspective, shining light on what your brand is now and what it wants to become in the future. Exploration and Data/Research Overview It begins with research. It’s essential to research who your audience is, what your audience loves, and what meaningful service, product, or feeling you are giving to your audience. Your brand identity is composed of what you create and how your audience resonates with your creation. During this step, you might discover that the preconceived notions of your target audience and brand identity might not be a reality. Key Insights Research produces key insights that define your brand. These insights work as building blocks for a formal communications plan rooted in data and relevant to all stakeholders in your organization. Targeted Audiences and Personas/Target Audience Motivations and Behaviors Defining specific audiences (the people best-positioned to engage with your brand) and brand personas (the behaviors of your particular audiences) allow your organization to create momentum, clearly defining your niche in the marketplace. A well-articulated brand mingles with its audience in the most relevant and meaningful spaces in their lives. Consumers begin to understand your brand, setting the journey to captivation in motion. Give Orbital Socket a call today. We want to help you clarify and discover your brand so the world can experience it.   Imagine you're looking out from the top of the highest peak in the world. With the right pair of binoculars, you could probably see even beyond the horizon. Everyone and everything would be visible to your eyes, whether above or below.
That's the natural evolution of digital marketing. It's called captivation. Captivation is a ten thousand-foot view that puts everyone and everything in your scope. And just like a mountaineer looking out onto the horizon, you see everything as clear as day. That's a huge asset for digital marketing today. Everyone and Everything Is Relevant The Internet has connected the various systems of the world. Chaos theory, which says that a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a tornado, has never been more accurate. A tweet, a post, or an event thousands of miles away can affect everyone on earth. That's why captivation involves accepting the relevance of everyone and everything. Everyone and Everything Is Interesting Today, content pours like torrential rain onto our devices. Whether it's memes, videos, posts, articles, etc., we browse through gigabytes of information every day, resulting in everything under the sun gaining a niche following on the Internet. You may not find the culinary history of Florence very interesting, but thousands out there do. You may enjoy first-person shooters, while others may prefer indie titles and side scrollers. The point is, there is a forum, group, or page for almost every topic or niche under the sun. The advent of social media has made it possible for people worldwide to aggregate together based on shared interests. Brands that wish to remain effective cannot ignore this new development. Captivation acknowledges that everyone and everything is interesting. Let's go back to the ten thousand-foot view analogy. Think of yourself looking down at hundreds of different groups gathering down on the ground. Each has its reason to discuss, celebrate, and compete with each other. What one is doing may not be attractive to the other, and vice versa. However, within their niche, those topics have become interesting. That's why everyone and everything is interesting. Everyone and Everything Is Not Always Engaging A final distinction to make is that everyone and everything is engaging, at least not always. More critical than expressing how exciting something is, is how you represent it. Today's Internet culture rewards entities that embody their identity in more relevant and exciting ways. Toddlers zoom-bombing work meetings and pictures of empty shelves in the toilet paper aisle catch netizens' attention. A Netflix show like Bridgerton offers an escape for ordinary people to transcend barriers of race and gender. Engaging content, wherever found, excites and entices people and provides relevance to their setting. Captivation is about combining these three traits – interest, relevance, and engagement – and putting content forward into the world. THE THREE FACETS OF CAPTIVATION • Be Relevant – related to and adding value to my world. • Be Interesting – pique my curiosity and keep it moving. • Be Engaging – real connections and involve me in the process. That's what is required in digital marketing today, and that's what we do at Orbital Socket. Give us a call today at 704-931-3529, or shoot us an email at greg@orbitalsocket.com. We look forward to helping you #seewhatspossible.  One of our core beliefs at Orbital Socket is The Human Exchange of Ideas: the phenomenon whereby ideas move from person to person and group to group. No matter how much we inject technology into marketing and the concept of activation, its essence will always be human. Humanity is the center of it all, and captivating brands understand this.
People's needs and wants are what drives marketing all around the world. We cannot dismiss the fact that people want to be dazzled, surprised, and stimulated. People desire for their needs and wants to be met in ways yet imagined and places yet ventured. They want to be surprised and delighted, AND then they want to tell their friends about their new conquests and discoveries. They want to post it, share it, and engage with it. They want to make it part of who they are and their community, too. There needs to be a two-way exchange of ideas between brands and their audience. Brands desire to gain insight into their consumers' needs and wants, and consumers desire to know what brands stand for. Are they environmentally friendly? Do they give back to their local community? What is their essence? Exchanging Ideas Through Excitement Since the dawn of time, humans have been exchanging ideas. They've been exchanging ideas about something as small as a book or a film or about a product. And, the fastest exchange of ideas occurs when there's excitement involved. If a company manages to get someone excited about their product or service, that person will spread their excitement, either through word of mouth or through reviews. Customer reviews are the perfect example of The Human Exchange of Ideas because they reveal the consumer journey. People like to know what their peers think about a particular service or product. If that experience is positive, their peers want to be part of it, too. As excitement grows, the new momentum allows the communication of ideas to other people through the conduit of happiness and joy. Brands want customers to become advocates for their product because good reviews can be more effective than simple advertisements. Peer endorsements are authentic representations of consumer experiences – the endorsement is not based on monetary gain but reflects customer satisfaction. The endorsement builds trust because it comes from someone using the product or service and someone a consumer feels like they can at least identify with or know. Exchanging Ideas Through Technology Technology has allowed The Human Exchange of Ideas to become much faster and more ubiquitous than before. Chat apps, social media, calls over the Internet, etc., have allowed ideas to spread faster. Therefore, someone can simply look at a product or a service and send it to their friends on social media. Also, people have formed groups, page chat forums, and subforums on their most beloved topics. They aggregate around those ideas more than ever before. The Internet is today's fireplace, watercooler, and pub. However, it's not just about tapping into these data transmissions. It's about looking deeper and figuring out why those transmissions occur. The core is still the same, no matter how much the medium has changed. The people who get excited about a streaming service today were getting excited about TV shows decades ago. The same people who love gaming consoles today were lining up to play in arcades years ago. It's not that The Human Exchange of Ideas has radically changed; it's that technology has allowed the exchange to grow and multiply. Brands must also realize that while people can share the good, they can also share the bad. Once again, customers want to know what your brand stands for. Knowledge of the good you are doing (environmental stewardship, community involvement, etc.) will be celebrated and shared. Knowing what you aren't doing (or at least what the public perceives you aren't doing) will be questioned, challenged, and shared in consumer communities. At Orbital Socket, we still know that at the heart of it all are people. It's just a matter of understanding your customers and finding those shareable moments that will gain traction with your audience and their friends and community. The Human Exchange of Ideas. It's essential in the world of captivation. |
AuthorGreg Johnson, Managing Director-Orbital Socket Archives
May 2021
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