The Windstream Green Truck
According to Nielsen, TV is still king. But for how long? And how many advertisers can afford a sustained TV effort? Sure viral is a niche, and social media is as well. And display is a lousy creative medium. How many people are actually watching time shifted TV online? Search holds me hostage. None of these issues are that important taken individually. When you put them all together, deal with the problems, and you look at the gross Brand Building potential, Digital becomes your # 1 communications channel. And it must be # 1, because Digital is the preferred way that people choose to consume Brand information today.
At the Concept Farm, Digital and Brand Building are one and the same. We recognize the need (and corresponding expense) for traditional media in many cases, and we do it very well. However, the rise of online video and social media has brought forth the need for Brand Building skills formerly reserved for big traditional media based efforts.
At the heart of our Digital Brand Building is the fact that people gravitate to, and spend more time with the most “likable” brands. Digital gives clients the ability to present the multiple “likable” facets to a brand that traditional advertising does not.
The greatest opportunity online to enhance your brand’s “likability” is through digital video. Online video, more than any other digital medium, creates the need for strong Brand Building strategic skills. Whenever we set out to increase a Brand’s “Likability”, we begin with research that helps us uncover the passions and aspirations at relate purchasing in the category. From these category passions and aspirations, we are able to identify Brand Insights that create differentiation and preference. But only when great creative is applied.
Windstream Communications is a great example of how passions + aspirations + insights + great creative leads to effective Digital Brand Building. Research told us what we already knew. People dislike telecoms and cable companies. Drawing on the inset that people trusted local providers much more than out-of-town carpet baggers, we leveraged the small town roots of the multiple-billion telecom operating in 17 Southern and Midwestern states. As a result, the “Green Truck” was born, providing consumers with all the connectivity to the world that they can imagine. And we’ve won every Time Warner and Cox battle that we’ve waged along the way. All because of the extreme “likability” of the brand we’ve created in a world of Digital shopping (with a hefty but shrinking TV budget).
Posted by Blake
