Co-creation in digital marketing and IMC

It’s a well known fact that in order for a brand to be successful you need to get the customers involved in Co-Creation as you want your brand to be part of their lives in a meaningful way. However, as much as we would like to engage with our audiences, there are a few things that needs to be done in order for your digital marketing to fit well with your Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) and your overall marketing plan.

1. Know what is your brand identity.

Brand identity is the face of a brand. A brand is an emotional and even philosophical concept, while brand identity is the visual component of a brand that represents those larger ideas.

Brand identity includes logos, typography, colors, packaging, and messaging, and it complements and reinforces the existing reputation of a brand. Brand identity attracts new customers to a brand while making existing customers feel at home. It’s both outward- and inward-facing.

It’s vital that brand identity be consistent. Because it’s representing and reinforcing the emotions of a brand, the message portrayed by brand identity components needs to be clear, and it needs to be the same no matter where it’s displayed.

If you are going into co-creation without knowing what your brand identity is, you are going to let your community define who the brand is. This is very dangerous for the brand as it might potentially lead to no control over your IMC and your other marketing messages or even worst mixed messages from the company.

An example of losing control over your identity is the case of new coke. To put a long story short, coca-cola conducted several taste groups to evaluate their new product “new coke”. Though majority of people loved the taste of new coke, when their new coke product launched it failed tremendously. This was a failure on Coca-cola’s part as they did not trust in their brand identity and instead changed based off the customer’s Co-creational efforts.

So as marketers, how can we apply this into digital marketing? Make sure your digital marketing strategy supports your current brand identity rather than simply what customers say.

2. Attaching your brand to the wrong things

As a brand you will have tons of sponsorship opportunities and potentials for collaborations even if you are a very small business. This however, comes at a cost. If you somehow match with the wrong type of business and it doesn’t benefit you. You might want to stay away from those kinds of collaborations even if it is suggested to you by a customer (who might want to help co-create the brand).

One good example of a mismatch of a failed brand collaboration is when Disney tried to collaborate with a cherry brand by making it branded with their Hannah Montana show. With no real connection between cherries and the Hannah Montana brand, it’s clear that this move from Disney can be classified as a branding blunder. Don’t fall into the same trap: choose your own brand affiliations and products with care.

When you attach your brand name to something, it should reflect and be compatible with your brand’s values and voice. When a brand partners with another company or product that doesn’t directly relate to or mesh well with their own message, it can seem inconsistent and untrustworthy to consumers.

3. Remember that as a digital marketer, your audience is the world.

Meanings and translations across different cultures can mean drastically different things. Remember when you do campaigns or come up with slogans you are marketing to the world. As such, co-creation across different cultures must have proper market research.

One brand that failed to do so is Pepsi. Pepsi launched in China with a word-for-word translation of their American slogan: Pepsi brings you back to life.

Unfortunately for Pepsi, the direct translation of their slogan turned out to actually mean, “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.” You can probably guess that this didn’t go over well with consumers in China, where ancestors are revered.

The key takeaway? There is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to global branding. Something that works in one place might spell absolute disaster for your brand in another location. If you think you might one day want to take your brand global, it’s best to sniff out potential issues in advance — and be prepared to localize your message. All these must be taken into consideration when marketing to the world.

So in conclusion, BE CAREFUL when you are using Co-creation. Proper market research and understanding of your own brand’s IMC is crucial to be successful in properly co-creating your brand into the lives of ordinary customers.