Insight
Digital Transformation of Brand Management
(Text: Prof. Chunshan Chen / President of Global Brand Management Association and Digital Governance Association)
1. The world of the future is a world of digital brand industry models.
The traditional business and industry models of brands have been operating in this world for more than 2,000 years, and digital transformation should be an important issue in the past 20 years. However, the digital world is too powerful. In the future, those with strong digital capabilities will surpass those with weak digital capabilities; those with large digital platforms will integrate with small digital platforms. The digital transformation of the global industry model is the most important business event in the past two millennia. In less than 20 years since its founding, Tesler's stock market capitalization has already far exceeded that of Toyota, the world's largest automobile manufacturer, and the combined stock market capitalization of the top three car manufacturers in the U.S. Uber Eats' revenue for the second quarter of 2020 was $1.2 billion, which is probably more than the combined business of many chain restaurants. In the new digital world, where do we as brand owners go from here? How do we embrace the new digital world? What is our digital strategy? Do we have enough digital talent? How will our digital investment yield benefits? These questions are probably the big challenges facing all brand owners.
2. Brand digital transformation focuses on "Transformation
The most important thing in the digital transformation of a brand is the transformation, not the digital, we need to ask ourselves: after three to seven years of transformation, what kind of business model and industry model have we transformed to. Business model transformation is a new entrepreneurial process, which is tough, costly and difficult to communicate.
Perhaps we can use the tunnel model to describe the digital transformation of an organization. At this end of the tunnel, we need to be very pragmatic and carry out the foundation work, constantly reminding ourselves that the digital transformation of a brand is an important journey to generate brand value, corporate value and shareholder value, and constantly using incentives to form a consensus, so that we can get more support and resources for the tunnel work at this end. Meanwhile, at the other end of the tunnel, keep exploring visions and goals/KPIs, and in the process of exploring visions and goals, finding short-, medium-, and long-term examples and drawing up a strategic roadmap may be a good option.
3. The goal of the transformation is to increase brand power
The digital transformation of the brand is still aimed at promoting customer familiarity, recognition and trust. In the process of digital transformation, it is still to strengthen the brand power, including:
(1) Anticipation: Closely anticipate customers' needs and expectations through digital tools.
(2) Technology responsiveness: the quickest response to new developments in digital technology.
(3) Quality: Provide and control the right amount of high-quality products through digital tools, and be consistent with the digital content.
(4) Control power: through digital tools to serve customers and intermediaries, suppliers for more effective control.
(5) Communication: Provide valuable and meaningful information to target markets through digital platforms for communication, marketing and advertising.
(6) Experiential power: Through the use of several platforms and tools, we can enhance the valuable experiences and rewards of consumers when they interact with consumers.
(7) Ethical power: Through several platforms or tools, consumers and stakeholders can better understand that brand owners have a high degree of brand awareness of ethics and the environment.
4. The brand's digital power target is "inter", "interconnection" and "network": interaction, connection and network residence.
The digital world has created a world where brands, customers, and stakeholders have 24/7 access to brand information and services. The word "Internet" is aptly describing the ability of digital power to "interact" closely with customers or stakeholders, to establish a high degree of bonding, and ultimately to "net" customers into an indispensable and intimate relationship.
The advent of the new cyber century has made the cyber world a competitive field for businesses and an important way for them to enter the global market. Through the digital world, they can quickly understand the needs and opinions of their customers and cross borders in a faster way. By using the digital world, business owners can show their brands, enterprises, products and services, but they have to build the above mentioned interactive, connected and networked relationship with their customers as the goal. In order to achieve these goals, a business owner's branding strategy should include:
First, sophisticated and persuasive brand information and services, through the optimization of digital communication tools to achieve the dissemination of information.
Secondly, the interactive mechanism of digital tools enables customers to interact, communicate and connect with the brand in a meaningful way.
Third, digital interaction should not only be customized, but also personalized, and the needs and expectations of individuals will be built into a better mode of cooperation.
Fourthly, to provide the promised services in the digital interactive world in order to build a digital trust relationship.
The digital world is to allow brand users to enter our brand world, interacting, connecting, and forming a network relationship with each other at any time and any place.
5. The Case for a New Digital Communication System
Over the past five years, internationally renowned brands have unveiled new identities. For example, Burberry unveiled its new brand image in 2018, with a simpler and more recognizable visual language, breaking the established pattern of the past 20 years, Burberry with a clearer and more flexible communication system, combined with digital communication mode, with a new and diversified attitude to face the future market (information cited by Swiss company Procter & Gamble).
Burberry brand image (Image source: Farest Fashion)
Burberry's old (left) and new (right) logos (image source: Hagopian Ink)
In the future of digital brand communication, brands will become media centers, utilizing different apps and online service media to proactively engage with customers in a multi-component commitment relationship. Brands must choose the appropriate media channels or forms to communicate, maintain the content of the story with development, and also accumulate data on consumer behavior as the basis for subsequent marketing.
In the future, digital brand interaction should make good use of new technologies such as video, online interaction, AR, VR, MR, etc., to master the characteristics of multimedia, and to accumulate consumers' impression of our brand through systematic design and application. In the future, we must find the sweet spot of digital tools with our customers, so that the customer journey can be introduced to the digital experience, expanding the imagination of the customer base to the brand, and bringing a brand new vision.
Of course, the most important part of digital communication for brands is still the brand story, and brand content and brand story are always the core yolk of digital communication.