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How corporate advertising can affect your bottom line
The first time I talk to someone about brand or marketing strategy, I get a funny feeling they think I’m trying to start a fluffy marketing conversation. Logos and colours and new business cards. I can’t stress this point enough: a logo is not your brand.
When I talk brand strategy, I’m interested in the big picture. How can I help your business succeed? After this is made clear, people relax and begin to understand that I’m after the same thing they are. Selling more, engaging more, growth, and prosperity for their business.
But in these tough economic times, isn’t marketing one of the first things on the chopping block?
Sure, for some companies, marketing is the first area to cut back on. But it’s my firm belief that marketing is the one place companies should be investing in. For example in 2011, General Electric is ramping up their marketing budget. This year, GE Canada launched their first ever branding campaign, communicating to us Canucks that they’re about more than just appliances.
In a recent interview with Marketing Magazine, Kim Warburton, vice-president of communications for GE, said the campaign objective is to tell “the bigger GE story” and build broader awareness of the company’s operations. While more than 95% of Canadians recognize the GE brand, Warburton said that in ongoing brand surveys, people overwhelmingly associate the company with appliances and lighting–which account for less than 10% of its business.
So even in the toughest of times, GE is trying to spread the word about their overall strategy through a multi-platform branding campaign. There is an immense amount of work going on behind the scenes at GE, and this campaign’s goal is to support their focus on “growth regions” outside of the US. Translation: a corporate branding advertisement to help expand GE’s market share.
So can an expensive branding campaign really help with growth strategy?
Digging back to a similar discussion about GE in 1998, the answer was then, and is still now: yes. Back then, GE was spending 40% of their $100m advertising budget on these kinds of corporate ads. The “We bring good things to life” campaign ran for almost 20 years prior to 1998.
But does this type of approach work for medium or small businesses?
According to Tim Ambler, senior fellow in marketing at London Business School, other things being equal, the share rating of companies that are well known are higher than those that are not. So it doesn’t matter if you’re a global, or a local brand. Ask yourself, how well does the public know you? What is your brand saying to the world? A little corporate advertising could give you the extra edge.
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