It is vital that company’s keep their brand or image alive. For consumers, this means product awareness. Brand awareness is an indication of how well consumers know what a company offers in the way of services or products. Companies can communicate their message in various ways, such as radio advertising, TV commercials or printed advertisements. There are some companies who will go to extreme measures in an effort to barrage customers and visually assault their senses with brand images of what the company has to offer. By using images that will stick in a consumer’s mind, consumers will feel they have a connection with that company.
McDonalds
McDonalds had an entire bus shelter plastered with real images of a McDonald’s store counter. To the consumer, this looked like they were facing a Maccas counter, complete with uniformed staff, registers and menu.
The Score
Fanatical basketball fans will always remember when a player misses a shot. The term given to this missed shot is ‘throwing a brick’. At one basketball game, the great Shaquille O’Neal missed a free throw. As a tribute to this, The Score had bricks printed with ‘Shaq’s in Town. Catch the Highlights and Stories. The Score’. These bricks were then placed at basketball venues and in popular sports bars and clubs.
PETA
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals bombarded consumers with a memorable ad named ‘None of us would like to end up like this….neither would other-than-human animals’. A human size foam tray with a naked activist lying face down and curled up on the tray, covered with clear plastic and labelled ‘human meat’ was actioned in town centres and town squares around the globe. This action was taken to show that this is how animals end up in supermarkets.
Image by Mike Brown / The Commercial Appeal
Ikea
Ikea purpose built an entire glass walled room, complete with peaked rooftop on the back of a tray truck which then drove around the city. This room was then entirely decorated with Ikea furniture, linen and accessories. Whilst waiting to cross the road or sitting in a car in traffic, consumers were able to see firsthand an example of what products Ikea had to offer.
Lego
In Santiago Chile, Lego placed their logo on real very large cranes and suspended a Lego block from them. These real cranes were used around the city to draw consumer’s minds to Lego.
Companies need promotion to establish them in the marketplace. By using a good marketing strategy, companies can gain sales and customer loyalty. By promoting themselves, they will be remembered. As well as media advertising and networking, there is a wide range of promotional products online that can be customised to suit individual companies. It is crucial to keep the company’s image alive. It is also important to be kept well informed of what is happening in the market to enable a company to compete or develop. The public responds well to repetition. It is proven that the average consumer needs to hear or see a company’s advertisement at least five times before it is actually remembered and sticks in their mind.
