Branding and Conceptual branding

Branding is an idea that you create a known identity for yourself or your company. Your brand can be characterised in many ways for example if your brand has an iconic logo or a certain look or feel about it. Branding usually develops expectations of the brand as it becomes known for certain things. An example of this would be say your brand is known for using warm colours throughout all of its products then the consumer will grow to expect these colours throughout all products in the future. Branding is mainly done to sell more products to the consumer as the company and its products will be more attractive if they have a well rounded brand. 

A great example of a company that does branding well is Benefit Cosmetics. Their target audience is young women that want to spend a bit of money on beauty products. When the company began its ethos was 'Who says make-up has to be serious to be good?' and they have definitely stuck with their non-serious concept throughout their brand.  the packaging is a huge part of their branding strategy as they all follow the same cute, quirky retro style. their products are so uniquely packaged to any other makeup company that it makes the consumer want to buy their products over a other less visually pleasing brand. They also give their products fun names such as 'stay don't stray' and 'Oh la lift' this adds a more exiting aspect to the products making their consumers exited about their products. I suppose their brand is aiming to re create the feeling of excitement that a child might feel in a toy shop as everything is bright and visually pleasing. 
It is highly visible when looking through their ranges that their branding is consistent throughout the whole of the company. 

As Social media has grown so much in recent years that is the companies main focus for branding they use platforms such as instagram, facebook and youtube to promote their products and extend their brand. 

"The growth of social media is doing amazing things to help us spread and receive the news faster. But our fundamental belief in business still hasn't changed. Our ultimate goal is to make our customers happy and that's it. Benefit's success began with word of mouth. Now the word of mouth just spreads faster and without borders. We have an amazing digital marketing team helping us but nevertheless, nothing can replace engaging our customers in person. Our brand has to be consistent in the digital world and real world."- Jane and Jean Ford, Benefit Cosmetics founders. [1]

They have no in-consistencies anywhere within the company from the social media promotions to the stands in department stores. Branding makes the consumer more comfortable with a company or product as all of their products have a familiar friendly feel. It could be said that the branding has built this company from the ground up, good branding can make any company succeed. Without branding then your company doesn't really have an image or 'face'

[1] From Social to Mockumentary: The Marketing Journey of Benefit Cosmetics,

 http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2282245/from-social-to-mockumentary-the-marketing-journey-of-benefit-cosmetics, accessed 14/10/14

Target Audience

Knowing your target audience one of the most important parts of being an illustrator because if you get that wrong then you wont be aiming your work at the right people and no one will want to buy it. I did some research into the Target market of the Halloween party that my class is planning. Hers is some information that i have collected

• The target market of this party is university students that attend CCAD.  
• Students spend on average £9.30 a week on alcohol [1]
• Students study an art subject. 
• Not many students live near campus.

These things all have to be taken into consideration when planning the party to make sure it is successful. For example, because not many students live near campus it has to be at a venue that everyone will recognise and because all of the attendants will be university students living off student loans, the drinks prices will have to be kept low. 

After thinking about the parties target audience i decided to think about my own target audience as an aspiring illustrator. These are the things that i took into consideration:

• the age group that my style suits 
• the gender
• how much money they might have to spend 
• geographic location 

After thinking about all of these  things I decided that my work would suit a younger female audience but would also have to appeal to the young persons parents because often a younger person does not have a disposable income. I feel as though my illustrative style would be more likely to appeal to a female audience because of the feminine colours that i often use. I don't think that the geographic location is too important to my target audience as my style is diverse and could fit in with all different cultures from around the world. 

[1] Nat west student servey, http://personal.natwest.com/personal/current-accounts/compare-current-accounts/student-account/student-living-index.html (accessed: 06/10/2014)

Halloween Party update

This week the party planning preparations have progressed massively as a lot of things have been sorted out and put into motion.

• The posters have been designed and printed.
• Tickets have been designed and are ready to be printed for next week when we start selling them. 
• A rota has been made for ticket sales so everyone knows what days they will be selling tickets on.
• A table has been confirmed for us to sit at in reception to sell the tickets
• Skyy have confirmed that we can partner with them and do a deal on tickets.  
• The venue manager has confirmed information about the venue, bar and bar staff. 

So far the party planning is looking pretty good and at the moment it seems like we will be able to host a great halloween party and have everything done in good time for everything to run smoothly. There are still a few things that need to be sorted for example music and decorations but they are in the process of planning. These two aspects are not things that needed to be planned as urgently as the others because these things happen on the night of the event not before.

Defining markets and understanding consumers

• A Consumer is a specific group of people that buy a product. To know your consumer there are a lot of different things that have to be thought about. Consumers are constantly changing and evolving with the times as trends, environment and their age changes. There are a few exceptions to this though for example if you illustrate for children's books then your consumer age never really changes. Many things can be done to help you understand the consumer more, for example you could interact with your consumer through the use of social media platforms such as blogs, facebook pages, youtube, instagram and other similar platforms. Another way of collecting your consumers opinions and feedback is through surveys, this is a good way of contacting a lot of people and getting a fast response in a small amount of time.  

'Once the consumer journey is defined, the channel strategy is aligned to each phase of the targeted response path including: payed media, owned media, (properties owned by a brand [e.g. website, facebook page, videos and physical events]), and earned media (volume and sentiment of social media discussions). The owned and earned media channels are mission-critical for non profits as they provide a lower cost option to reach consumers and have them interact with the cause.' [1]

• There are 3 main points that you need to think about and know the answers to in order to understand your consumer. they are: 

1. Who? Who will be buying your products for example, if you create childrens books then your target audience is children but your consumer will be the parents as they are the ones to buy the books. So your product has to appeal to the parents as much as the child. 
2. Why? Why will your consumer be buying your product, for decoration? education? as a gift? This is important to think about because you can taylor the aesthetic and pricing to the purpose of the product
3. When? When will the consumer be buying the product, what will be the peak times that your product will sell, Holidays? birthdays? You need to know this information to know when to bring out new products. 

• As well as these points there are other things to consider for example how do you want your image to come across?, how should you approach your consumer?, is your market captured or not?.
• You have to sell yourself as well as your product because the consumer will feel as if they are buying into a more personal experience with the company. Its all about giving your consumers a good experience when buying from you.  

• A market is where your products fit in within the industry, this is defined by your consumer. Within the market you always have to consider the future of it as your consumer may change throughout the years. Your market is defined by the consumer feedback, if you go onto the market without knowing your consumer then you wont really be aiming your work at anyone in particular causing your product to not sell.  After getting to know your consumer you will know how to define your market to suit them. 

I decided to do some primary research into a company and their consumer and how they go about targeting their consumer. I decided to look into Coca Cola as they are one of the most widely known brands throughout the world. 

• I found straight away that they have a Customer care survey to connect with the consumer and get feedback on their product.
• Their website has a community section allowing consumers to feel as though they are part of a larger community, as if the product is connecting them to people all around the world that share a liking for the same product.  
• Coka cola target a captured market by getting involved with events such as the Olympic games.
• They build relationships with consumers by executing well thought out marketing campaigns, promotions and merchandising.[2]  
• For the last 2 summers in the UK Coca cola have had a huge marketing campaign called 'share a coke' where the companies logo has been replaced with popular names. The company knew that this would result in more sales because they know their consumer well. 

About the 'Share a Coke' campaign- 'The company said there have been more than 125,000 posts about the campaign across all channels from June 2 through July 14 and said 96% of consumer sentiment toward the campaign is either positive or neutral.' [3]

     

[1] Marketing for goods, Markets for Good Selected Readings: Making Sense of Data and Information in the social sector, Published january 2014. 

[2] http://www.coca-colahellenic.com/aboutus/customers, marketing and merchandising  (accessed 08/10/14) 

[3] Tadena.N, The wall street journal online, Coke’s Personalized Marketing Campaign Gains Online Buzz (accessed  08/10/14)