Brand activation is a marketing strategy aimed at engaging people with a brand, increasing awareness, and fostering loyalty.
It involves a series of planned activities and events designed to bring a brand to life and make it more tangible to the target audience.
Key elements of brand activation include experiential marketing, product demonstrations, promotional events, sponsorships, and various interactive initiatives.
The aim is to forge a stronger emotional connection between the company and its customers by allowing them to experience the brand in a manner that is both memorable and meaningful.
Why is it important to activate a brand? This must consistently remain at the forefront of the mind of the Pan-African entrepreneur as they seek to bring their brands closer to their markets and enhance their interface with the target audiences.
Brand awareness in the market: Brand activation techniques increase the brand’s visibility and help more potential customers recognise it. Brand activations organised around notable events can also foster a stronger connection between people and the brand.
Getting customers to care: Brand activation initiatives encourage customers to actively participate and engage.
They allow consumers to interact with the brand beyond simply watching adverts, which helps foster greater involvement. Customers who feel connected to the company will form positive impressions and may become loyal patrons.
- Lupane man survives axe attack
- I don’t have depth: Bosso coach
- Farm wrangle sucks in Lands official
- In defence of Trevor Ncube
Keep Reading
Building emotional connections: Successful brand activation campaigns use emotions to leave a lasting impression on customers, so they naturally feel connected to the brand.
Emotional bonds make people more loyal to a company and turn them into brand advocates, as their interest in brands that represent their values never diminishes.
Competitive advantage: In today’s increasingly competitive business landscape, brands must capture people’s attention and stand out from their rivals. Brand activation serves as a way to demonstrate what makes a brand unique, reveal its personality, and define its identity. This helps the brand embed itself in people’s minds and carve out a distinct niche.
Building brand engagement: One way for brands to encourage discussion is by creating unique brand activation experiences that prompt people to talk about them and refer others. This can help amplify the brand’s reach further.
In this edition, we therefore take the Pan African entrepreneurs through some of the ideas on how to go about the brand activation process as noted below:
Interactive capabilities: Creating experiences such as exhibitions or actual interaction that not only enhance the brand but also encourage customers to engage with it. Part of the entertainment will include a mirror booth where people can take photos with props featuring the brand’s colours or logo.
Pop-up events: There should be flashes at locations where many people gather, like malls, parks, or public spaces, to educate about homelessness. You can attract customers automatically by showing them how to use the samples, giving them free items, or providing discount codes.
Experience marketing campaigns: When it comes to experience marketing, always ensure that people see you as a brand. You can make the process more relatable by doing it live, with demonstrations, anecdotes, or seminars where people can talk to each other.
Branded challenges or competitions: Develop branded challenges or competitions to encourage fans to participate. These activities should be enjoyable and inspire participants to think creatively. For example, contestants simply need to take photos and videos demonstrating how they utilise your product on social media and other platforms.
Collaborations with influencers: Organise your efforts to work with well-known individuals in their fields, or elevate your brand to reach a broader audience and market. Join us in creating content, events, or product launches that maximise their industry’s strengths and how people perceive them.
However, Pan African entrepreneurs should always recognise that brand activation as a process is pointless if there is no way to measure the success and reach of the activation. Below are some of the methods that can be applied to measure the success of brand activation.
Brand awareness: Determine how much the activation campaign helps people understand what brand awareness was like before and after. You can use surveys, brand monitoring studies, and social media analytics to see if people’s memory of your brand, recognition of it, and overall awareness have improved.
Audience engagement: Monitor metrics that indicate how engaged your audience is, such as Facebook likes, shares, comments, website traffic, and event attendance. Using engagement data, you can gain insights into how interested people are in your brand activation strategies.
Social media mentions and sentiment: Reduce the frequency of discussions about brand activation initiatives on social media, along with the overall tone of these conversations. Implement tools such as social listening platforms to monitor comments, sentiment patterns, and how people perceive your business across various social media platforms.
User-generated content (UGC): Monitor and enhance the quantity and quality of user-generated content, which can be a crucial element of a brand activation campaign. For example, user-generated content (UGC) may include photographs, videos, reviews, and user feedback that demonstrate people’s appreciation for your company and assist in spreading the word to a wider audience.
Until then, think, eat, sleep, and dream about branding!
- *Dr Farai Chigora is a businessman and academic. He is the head of business science at Africa University’s College of Business, Peace, Leadership, and Governance. His doctoral research focused on Business Administration (Destination Marketing and Branding Major, UKZN, SA). He can be contacted for feedback at fariechigora@gmail.com or via WhatsApp mobile: +263772886871.
- *Dr Tabani Moyo is an extra-ordinary researcher with the University of North West, South Africa’s Social Transformation School. He holds a Doctorate in Business Administration (Research focus on new media and corporate reputation management, UKZN), chartered marketer, fellow CIM, communications and reputation management expert based in Harare. He can be contacted at moyojz@gmail.com @TabaniMoyo (X)
