Brand activation: useful term, or useless jargon?
Are you a branding expert? Take our fun quiz and find out!
Over the years, I’ve witnessed the emergence of many marketing buzz words. Some of them are even useful.
For example, in today’s world of furious content creation and the convergence of traditional and digital advertising and PR, the terms earned, owned and paid media are straightforward and are more accurate ways to mentally categorize marketing activities in our current environment.
But often, terms provoke exaggerated eye rolling. Then I challenge my initial disdain by asking: does this term truly clarify a new aspect of modern marketing, therefore helping us make better distinctions and decisions? If you’re a marketer, I’d love your opinion on the term brand activation.
Many marketers refer to HubSpot’s definition for explanation: Brand activations are one-off, in-person events, experiences, and interactions that forge lasting emotional connections between a brand and their target audience.
Essentially, brand activation is one component of an overall brand launch. Activation refers to a specific campaign of one or more interactive or in-person experiences. This campaign is part of a launch or on-going branding process, which typically includes a broad mix of advertising, PR, social, email, SEO/SEM, etc. to introduce a new or improved product.
The purpose of activation is to elicit the interest of customers and prospects by allowing them to use or experience the product or service. If the prospect has a positive usage experience, he leaves with a strong personal connection to—and affinity for—the brand, thus the brand’s value has been ‘activated’ in his psyche. Positive personal experiences create a posse of devoted brand ambassadors that then activate others by sharing their opinions which are informed by usage.
The most common activities in activation campaigns are:
Experiential marketing events that typically involve product trials and sampling.
Interactive digital engagements such as an online launch party or contest conducted on an app.
In-store experiences and in-person events that involve engaging activities and product usage.
One-on-one interactive and product usage experiences have always been essential for a strong launch, and these activities have long been a part of the marketing mix. The term brand activation simply categorizes these types of activities. But with or without the term, smart marketers have always included these activities within a broader launch with the knowledge that personal experiences build brand trust, loyalty and influence.
So is the term brand activation a meaningful and useful way to describe the personal, interactive experiences that are already part of the branding process? Or is it superfluous?
What do you think?
