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Global branding is when products or services are marketed under the same name in various different countries. These products have similar marketing strategies with their advertising, positioning, personality, and look and feel remaining mostly unchanged from one country to another.

According to an article by Small Business, “global branding means using standardized global advertising and global marketing strategies. It’s basically a method of designing standardized global advertising and global marketing strategies in order to develop a product or service that is recognized worldwide, regardless of the country, continent or region where it is marketed.” Global brands are recognized everywhere. By using similar marketing strategies to promote the brand all over, companies make sure that the brand is being presented reliably in every market.

One of the great things about global branding Is how companies benefit through the economies of scale. This means that although languages and customs may differ, brands can use the same advertising strategy, brand images and brand representations anywhere. For example, McDonald’s, Google, Disney, and Apple are some brands who remain unchanged regardless of what country they are being marketed in. Each of these companies have had tremendous success in using the same marketing strategies and images to advertise their product regardless of where they are in the world. This has become easier to do in our modern age due to the internet.

Global branding has various benefits for consumers. The first advantage is that because the brand is globally known, products are very easily identified so consumers tend to be quicker to purchase. Consumers also tend to believe that globally marketed brands are of better quality since they are sold everywhere. This means that the brand has a strong presence regardless of country, language, tradition, and beliefs. The product breaks all barriers, which is difficult to do. Another benefit is that prices tend to be consistent. This means that an Apple iPhone will charge you roughly the same amount in the United States as it will in Italy.

Due to their quality and consistency, globally marketed brands draw in consumer loyalty because they are often seen as dependable and consistent. This means that these companies can charge a premium for their products since consumers are willing to pay more for something that they believe they are getting their money’s worth for. It makes sense for companies that are doing well and leaving a large footprint to expand globally and then adapt their brand to the country’s culture for optimal success. This allows the product to really understand the customer and merge with their values and traditions while still maintaining the same quality and consistency being offered everywhere else.

An article by the Harvard Business Review makes a valid point. “All multinational companies should actively engage in global brand management. Any company that tries to get by with unconnected and directionless local brand strategies will inevitably find mediocrity as its reward.”

Actionable insights are actions which are direct and meaningful that are taken when raw data is analyzed. However, not all insights are considered actionable. An insight becomes actionable when information is analyzed, and conclusions can be drawn, and decisions made. This means that when actionable insights are available, strategic and well-thought-out decisions can be made, allowing these insights to drive business growth and other positive results from insights that were acquired directly from customers.

Actionable insights are important because they are what improve a businesses’ service or product. It also helps identify what kind of products are selling or if inventory is short when it comes to certain products. Because most modern and progressive companies are now data-driven and really dependent on this type of information, actionable insights matter. There are some places to look for actionable insights such as NPS surveys, online reviews, and social media. However, when it comes to producing this actionable data, visualization software such as Tableau is the key. According to an article by Get Thematic, “What AI can deliver today is the ability to sift through the data more efficiently. When it comes to making sense of people’s comments, NLP algorithms can turn people’s comments into themes that can be analyzed just like numbers. Following that, when it comes to making sense of structured data, data visualizations help understand differences, uncover correlations and detect trends.” However, data is only useful if an organization decided to do something with it. This is where Tableau comes into play. Tableau allows users to visually find these insights in datasets by filtering sorting, and grouping data together depending on the dimensions or measures.

Once the sorted and visualized data has been delivered to a team, it can be reviewed to see if there are commonalities in the data. Understanding a customer’s needs it essential to the livelihood of a business. When companies begin using large analytics and visualizations platforms and bringing analytics strategies and business objectives together, companies really begin reaping benefits from actionable data.

Brand tracking is extremely important for organizations. Because a brand tends to be a company’s most valued asset, it’s crucial to take care of it. Brand tracking continuously measures the health of a brand in terms of how consumers are using it, and what their thoughts are on it. Good brand tracking programs display a brand’s progress and highlight the changes that will improve the brand as well. According to an article by Marketing Evolution, “Brand tracking studied that focus on business impact largely focus on financial metrics to determine the ROI of brand building initiatives. These metrics include customer retention, sales and profits market share, and price premiums.” Luckily, measuring the return on your brand investment is relatively simple and straightforward.

When a company has the right data and tools, brands can be measured quickly. For example, for those popular brands with large social followings, companies can track their brands in real-time by using social listening tools which measure who is mentioning their brand, whether it be positive or negative. One of the reasons brand tracking is so important is because by creating brand messages that consumers can relate to emotionally, their loyalty increases, and churn rates reduce. Also, thanks to brand tracking, when a company knows they have a strong brand, they can begin to charge higher brand premiums.

Some great ways of brand tracking include consumer panels, where marketers engage with customers in person to learn about their interests and what engages them to make purchases. Surveys are another great opportunity which target audiences in many different segments. Aside from enhancing customer experiences, brand tracking allows marketing teams to understand where they are in relation to their competition and allows marketers to see purchase trends. It’s also important for a company to measure their brand frequently. According to Survey Monkey, “Rapidly growing companies in a quickly changing market should engage in brand tracking on a quarterly basis. Companies in other markets should run brand surveys 1-2 times a year.”

This web of marketing intelligence is a huge aid to organizations and allows new products and marketing campaigns to be created and optimized in order to give consumers the very best possible experience and promote the brand as a result. Regularly tracking your brand is a great way to understand how successful the brand is. By setting goals, taking a look at key metrics and identifying areas where there are possible opportunities, a brand surely stands the chance of being different from the rest, and that is the ultimate goal of brand tracking.

 

Often times, in order to make important marketing decisions, companies must go beyond just using data points and present analytical data to clients visually so that they can best digest the information. According to an expert on Research Gate, “Visual analytics is a body of knowledge that allows us to use techniques with interactive visualization algorithms and methods of data analysis in order to support the analytical reasoning for decision making.” Visual analytics is incredibly useful in allowing people to understand and process data using interactive visual interfaces. In other words, visual analytics makes complex information much easier to understand so that businesses can access data and make decisions quickly. This means businesses can efficiently solve relevant issues like never before.

One such visual analytics platform is Tableau. This well-known and widely used software can strengthen a business’s positioning and help them differentiate themselves amongst a sea of competition. Tableau enables users to create dashboards that give actionable insights. The program not only provides many options for displaying information but is really revolutionizing the way in which businesses use data to solve their issues. An article by Guru 99 claims that “Data analysis is very fast with Tableau and the visualizations created are in the form of dashboards and worksheets. The data that is created using Tableau can be understood by professionals at any level in an organization. It even allows a non-technical user to create a customized dashboard.” This is an amazing feat and allows users to put the information into perspective by seeing and understanding data to explore what is really means.

Some features that allow Tableau to be one of the strongest data analysis platforms is not only its ability to provide detailed insights and its user-friendly approach, but the great visualizations and ability to work with different data sources as well. Tableau has built in features that allow users to work with all types of unordered data and create many varieties of visualizations. Another strong feature is the platform’s ability to work with data regardless of what source it comes from. The tool allows users to connect many different data sources and blend them to create resourceful visualizations. Not to mention, adding data sets is made incredibly easy by using common fields.

Overall, Tableau is an amazing Business intelligence tool for helping analysts break down multifaceted data and solve complex problems via logical visualizations in no time. By simply dragging and dropping information, businesses can even eliminate their dependency on IT technicians and remove unnecessary complications so that the main focus can be finding the value buried in the data.

Storytelling is one of the best ways for marketers to engage customers. A brand’s story focuses on the history surrounding a company. These stories speak to consumers by demonstrating how companies do business, why they do business, and how they can help customers solve their problems as consumers. A brand’s story really brings personality and an impactful meaning to a business and as a result, consumers are able to make lasting connections. Clear Voice describes the need for brand storytelling perfectly: “In today’s noisy, techy, automated world, storytelling is not only still relevant, it’s important. Without stories we can connect with, we lose something big when humanity gets lost in technology.”

Have you ever been on a company’s website and read the About page? Typically, the company’s story is found here. This is where they explain to consumers who they are and what their brand is about. Oftentimes, the company’s mission is evident through their messages and marketing materials as well. The other part of the brand story lies within the brand’s consumers. It is the brand’s job to discover what their stories are and how a brand can help them reach the solution to whatever problem it is they may have. Finally, storytelling is used in branding to tell marketing stories. In order for a company to best connect with their customers on an emotional level, storytelling is used. When consumers are convinced that they need a product or service, storytelling helps them connect with the brand. Marketing techniques oftentimes won’t reach consumer in the same way that storytelling would, making it a crucial part of marketing.

As an article by Forbes puts it, “In addition to being an important strategic tool, storytelling can be an important tactical tool that lets marketers engage consumers in a fragmented media world. Because there is such media fragmentation, consumers are not just looking for different experiences but different delivery. Why should a consumer give you their time? Storytelling isn’t just a creative approach to marketing. It gives your consumers a totally different entry to your brand.”

Stories matter for businesses. While the features that a product offer are an absolute part of the bigger picture, many people use logic and their emotions to make purchasing decisions. This means that a business must have this very important emotional part of their brand perfected. Without this, brand only have their prices and qualities to stand by. When a brand successfully tells its story, it can avoid this. When a consumer trusts your brand, they become loyal and this therefore leads to more business on their behalf. There are reasons that successful brands like Apple have such a huge fanbase. They tell great stories. According to Linkdex, “Stories are made to be shared, and they’re more memorable than simple facts.”

When a brand keeps their mission and vision in mind, they can embrace the power of storytelling and fly with It in order to reach new heights. When storytelling art and science come together to paint a story, the brand becomes memorable and the customer becomes hooked.

The boom of the internet means that businesses have had the opportunity to develop their online presence and grow quickly. In addition, the way marketing strategies are executed has also changed because it has been perfected. One way in which digital marketers are able to successfully send out marketing emails is by using relational databases. A relational database allows marketers to relate data to other data without adding on new fields. This means that there are many ways to segment and target audiences, which is a marketing dream come true.

Flat file databases have similar functionalities but adding a new field is required whenever new data is to be added. For example, think of a cosmetics company that is interested in tracking what cosmetic products their clients order so that they can best devise marketing messages for this target audience. Let’s say the company wants to know how often their customers are purchasing products from them, where they are purchasing from, how much money they are spending on average, and other important pieces of data. If marketers were to acquire this information from a flat file database, they would be required to add fields each time and for each customer. This is a lot of work, especially when there is a more efficient way of completing this task.

An article on relational databases from Email Critic helps break this down. “If you have a flat file database with one record per customer, but for each customer you have fur actions to keep track of, you will have to have four records for each customer. To use your data, you’d have to merge that data and each instance would have a unique record. One customer record could easily turn into many records, making the data unwieldy to work with, as well as making all that data vulnerable to human error along the way.” Instead, relational databases allow marketers to have a table with one record for each customer that is linked to another table that houses the actions.

So what does this all mean? Relational databases allow for more organized and efficient email marketing. Different kinds of data can be tacked onto customers meaning that these databases can segment in a way that flat file databases can’t. When customers are segmented, marketing emails can be personalized for each consumer segment and can bring more conversions for the business. Think about it. If you receive a personalized email that targets your specific needs and buyer preferences, you may be more inclined to click rather than if you had received a. general email about products that you aren’t interested in.

In the cosmetic company example above, the company may have more success with a relational database because it can better identify the customers who order from the website most frequently and really tailor emails to them, possibly incentivizing them to order and spend more. Having the audience segmented even means that the company can send out coupon codes to those loyal customers who are already purchasing, as a reward for them to purchase more! Relational databases are amazing tools. Efficiently segmenting and targeting customers means higher customer engagement and loyalty. It’s a win for both the consumer and the company.

What if there was a way for marketers to study the brain’s responses to advertising and branding in order to adjust the messages they feed to the public and ensure audiences are buying? Does this sound unethical or invasive to you? Now what if I told you that this revolutionary field of marketing already exists? Neuromarketing uses medical technologies like functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI’s) to gauge what the brand’s response is to certain stimuli. Researchers are able to use MRI results to understand activity changes in a person’s brain when they are exposed to marketing messages and learn why consumers make certain purchasing decisions. In addition, marketers can even learn what part of the brain encourages consumers to make these decisions.

While many marketers would argue that neuromarketing us a helpful field that can assist with the information needed to better create services and products that consumers are more interested in purchasing, many people would argue that it is an unethical practice. Neuromarketing falls under subliminal advertising, which has long had the reputation of manipulating the consumer’s mind. According to an article by Neuroscience Marketing, “Neuromarketing will tell the marketer what the consumer reacts to, whether it was the color of the packaging, the sound the box makes when shaken, or the idea that they will have something their consumers do not.” The problem with neuromarketing is that it can give marketers a scientifically proven basis to determine the power of certain advertisements and how to tap into the consumer’s subconscious in a way that the consumer isn’t even aware about. Although this practice is helpful for businesses because it gives consumer behavior insights, it can be a manipulative tactic for the consumer.

Neuroscience Marketing also goes on to mention that “One of the challenges is that in some respects, ALL marketing is neuromarketing since marketing campaigns are almost always trying to produce some kind of brain activity that will lead to a desired behavior (e.g., buying a product).” This may worry consumers as they could potentially start to ask themselves if marketers will be able to find the sweet spot in their brain that when activated will tempt them to purchase a product. According to Neurofield, “In the end, science and technology will get to a level where they will play a huge role in our lives. They are already doing this: Facebook is violating our privacy by selling our information to other companies, and Google knows where you are 24/7.”

While there are certainly a variety of ethical and unethical cases in which neuromarketing has been utilized, such as health campaigns, political campaigns, and for charity organizations, it is important for companies to maintain their reputation by instilling trust in their consumers. Consumers do not want to feel threatened or like their privacy has been violated. However, when a company has built trust in the mind of the consumer, it becomes easier for them to use neuromarketing. In the end, the field of neuromarketing is not necessarily what is unethical, but what companies decide to do with the information provided can be. Neuromarketing has both advantages and disadvantages, and it’s important for marketers to use this field of marketing responsibly and for consumers to be aware of the practice.

In order for marketers to make important decisions within their careers, they must collect enough information to be able to do so. Whether marketers are most interested in improving the number of customers retained, how many customers engage with social media, or whether markets are penetrated or not, it’s crucial to analyze all sorts of data sets in order to understand how everything is interconnected.

By dissecting data collection and how it is organized, marketers can better understand how to approach these needs. Understanding the Hierarchical Database Model and how data are organized into a tree-like structure can really lay the foundation for allowing marketers to recognize how data connections and patterns are intertwined.

If, for example, a company decides to allocate more of a budget for advertisements, marketers must decide how the budget will be split, what kind of an audience will be targeted, and the content that should be put out into the public. Here is where the database model comes in and dimensions, measures, and hierarchies are put to use.

Dimensions

Dimensions are essentially their own categories of relevant information consisting of location, products, customers, time, and more. This information is “sliced” and stored as measured. There is a relationship between dimensions and measures due to the fact that each data entry in the measure has a value associating the entry with a set of descriptive information. Once all of this data is split into dimensions, companies can begin to better understand the information. It is essential for marketers to properly classify the categories and dimensions that are most needed depending on the project in order to have a firm grasp on insightful information.

Attributes

Attributes serve as a way to describe the dimension value because they provide characteristics of the specific value of the dimension. Each dimension contains an attribute. According to an article by Tongere Partners, “If you are a paint manufacturer and sell many types of blue pant with different subgroups, then it could be a node within your hierarchy. However, of blue is one of many colors in which your product is offered or one of the colors used on your product then it would be an attribute.” Attributes basically give marketers the ability to look across products independently of the hierarchy they belong to. Tongere Partners also gives an example of an apparel manufacturer wanting to know what color is trending across women’s and men’s clothes for tops and bottoms.

Hierarchies

A hierarchy differs from dimensions and attribute because it is a system where people and groups are ranked according to how important they are. Hierarchies establish order and structure information logically. Hierarchies are different from the actual items because items are assigned to a level within the hierarchy. You can think of this structure as a family tree in the way it is broken down.  For example, the node becomes the family name and the elements below the node reference a family name. When hierarchies are organized, it becomes easier for marketers to understand how different dimensions and information are related.

It’s not always clearly understood how hierarchies and attributes should be structured but they are nevertheless crucial to data collection and marketing in general. There is a ton of data out there that lacks structure, and this is a clean way to strategize and define how data can be organized in order to benefit the business. When data is integrated with its hierarchies and attributes, companies benefit from valuable information that is often times necessary for a business’s growth.

 

 

Marketers know how important it is for companies to have strong brand reputations. Companies with strong positive reputations attract loyal customers. They are perceived as brands that provided value, in turn allowing them to charge a premium. As a result, their customers tend to not only be loyal but also buy a variety of products and services from the brand because they trust it. These kinds of companies deliver sustained earnings and possibilities for future growth, so they are able to have higher market values and lower costs of capital. This is an exceptional position for a brand to be in.

Sometimes, however, companies are inadequate when it comes to managing their reputations. When a problem occurs, these companies don’t do much to manage the risks and instead intervene once it has already become a crisis. It is therefore difficult to limit the damage and risks to their reputation. There are a variety of companies who for one reason or another, have failed to either build or maintain a consistent and positive image, and have therefore become unreliable in the eyes of their consumers.

One such company is The Weinstein Company. Although it was once one of the strongest American independent film companies, the sexual abuse accusations that Harvey Weinstein has been engulfed in the past few years has sent the brand on a downward spiral. According to an article by USA Today, “One complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York alleges that the company knowingly enabled the criminal behavior of its co-founder Weinstein.” Weinstein was not only fired, but additional board members resigned as well. This is bad news for the company who will either have to rebrand to stay afloat or dissolve as a corporate identity. Many companies have refused to do business with The Weinstein Company and consumers have even boycotted Weinstein’s films. After attempts at selling the company in order to rebrand fell though, the company was forced into bankruptcy. The company was unable to bring their brand out of the turmoil and build a more positive brand image after so many recent scandals.

Another major brand which has run into many problems recently is Uber. Although Uber gained a global reputation as a luxurious convenience by trademarking itself as “everyone’s private driver,” a lot has changed recently. Between facing various lawsuits in 2017 for sexual harassment, allegedly interfering with rival company Lyft, and the alleged theft of intellectual property, the Uber brand is not currently in good shape. According to Inc., Uber is “hurting and losing value every day.” One problem is that Uber does not have a CMO and has not developed any initiatives to stop the deterioration of its brand. Some other reasons the Uber brand is failing is because Uber has yet to figure out its lawsuits and adopt a holistic brand strategy. In order for Uber to re-build their positive brand image, they need to focus on brand positioning and possibly repositioning themselves as a logistics company and then selling that brand story to their market. Uber has changed among the years so it can no longer be considered a luxurious convenience and must adapt.

Similar to Uber and The Weinstein Company, United Airlines has received bad press over the years. After videos surfaced of passengers being forcibly removed from their seats, outrage sparked across the U.S. The company’s stock dropped, and their market value went down. According to USA Today, United Airlines has tried to make efforts to regain their investors’ and customers’ trust by increasing monetary incentives to leave overbooked flights, reduce over-bookings, training their employees, and reducing paperwork for lost luggage reimbursement. However, the company continues to rank at bottom among airlines when it comes to customer service. United Airlines failed to rebuild a positive image for themselves because they were never prepared to face such large crises and as a result did not know how to manage some of these situations. Their credibility therefore plummeted, and it has been difficult for United to make a comeback.

The importance of a positive brand image is monumental. When a brand is favorable in the eyes of the consumer, it tends to be well recognized and consistent, so it becomes easier for the company to reap benefits. A strong brand tends to be the deciding factor that determines whether a product sells or not and whether consumers will keep its presence in their minds. Uber, United Airlines, and The Weinstein Companies are three brands who unfortunately failed at maintaining a positive brand image and should serve as examples as to why brands should maintain consistency and a positive image throughout their life.

Finding ways to distribute marketing budgets is an important priority for many marketers. When marketers are getting ready to run advertising campaigns, they must know where the best areas are to spend money and have the best return on investment possible. In order to come up with an efficient mix of marketing dollar disbursement, marketers put together different methods in order to obtain the absolute maximum effect. Marketers strive to spend the least amount of money possible in terms of advertising yet still reach a large audience. One technique which they use in order to reach this outcome is the brand development index, or BDI.

According to an article on Cleverism, the brand development index is used for identifying the relationship between the total sales of a brand in a particular market and the total population in the market. The article uses the Coca-Cola Company as an example, stating that to calculate the BDI for any particular region in the US, Coke must calculate its sales in that particular region as a percentage of its total sales in the US. This is then compared with the population of the region in question as a percentage of the total population of the US. The formula used is: BDI= [Brand sales to region / Population in region] / [Total brand sales + Total population]. As Informit better describes it, the BDI Is basically a measure of brand sales per person or per household within a specified demographic group, compared with its average sales per person or household in the market as a whole.

After attaining these calculations, brands can decide whether they want to spend more or less marketing dollars compared to what the market’s BDI is. More of the marketing budget can be spent on areas where the BDI is higher because more of a target audience can then be reached. BDI also tends to be used in conjunction with CDI or category development index. The CDI measures how strong sales are for certain product categories in specific markets and then compares it to the average performance of consumers everywhere. The formula used here is: CDI= [Category sales to group / Households in group] / [Total category sales / Total households]. The outcome allows marketers to pinpoint where the strong and weak segments are located for different service categories. Like the BDI, the CDI contributes by giving marketers important information so that they can better assign advertisements and disburse marketing budgets to certain areas. Informit describes the CDI as an index of how well a category performs within a given market segment, relative to its performance in the market as a whole.

Both the BDI and CDI tools are important for marketing initiatives and guide marketers in the right direction so that they know whether to pour their efforts into constructing a brand, or if the category is weak overall and efforts should focus on improving the category before focusing on the brand. These tools also enable marketers to find comparisons much faster and easier. Overall, both tools are extremely important in guiding marketers to put together financially sound marketing strategy plans.