Millenials, Branding and Social Media

This week's topic on the use of branding and social media was very interesting to me. I enjoyed reading Business Insider's Fundamentals of Personal Branding. I have my own website vinkankel.com and I believe all of the points addressed in the article were informative and will definitely help me in the future. This spoke volumes to me:

"What you mean must fulfill a specific unmet need in a well-defined target audience, AND be perceived as special and valuable." - Business Insider

I think it is especially hard to create a brand in 2017. In the past media had gatekeepers and used formal communication. Social media uses grapevine communication, through reposting, RSS feeds and the ability to share you see more brands than ever before. Since shared content is very popular, brands are distorting information by cramming their advertisements into 140 characters or less for their Twitter audiences. New media uses informal communication and has diminished what appeared to once be an elite hierarchy of journalists, new casters and commentators. Now media can be created by practically anyone. Most millennials cannot recall the last time they have read a newspaper or watched their local news station. According to journalism.org, the newspaper industry has dropped 20,000 positions or a thirty-nine percent decline in the last twenty years. Digital sales make up twenty-five percent of all advertising sales. Social media is at our fingertips twenty-four hours a day. Social media travels at record breaking speeds and is almost given to you simultaneously while browsing the internet if you subscribe to updates.

Millennials are under the influence of others 87% of the day and not being logged in to a social networking site can cause detachment issues. A survey from Ipsos OTX, stated that users feel as if they are missing out on coupons and discounts when they are not logged into a social network. Consumers follow their favorite brands on Facebook and Twitter to receive updates and alerts on the latest promotions companies are offering. Other reasons for staying connected included contests, interesting content, creating content that others will share, answering emails and messages and responding to content posted on their page. Twitter launched Twitter business to strategically drive traffic to users post. Facebook offers an ad service which guarantees a reached audience based on the amount of money you are willing to spend. Engaging with millennials over social media is lucrative.

In recent year’s brands have changed their approach and target audience to gain revenue. October 12, 2016 the Coca Cola Company’s Sprite brand, released the Lebron James #WannaSprite campaign. The #WannaSprite campaign latest viral commercial stars rapper Lil Yachty. Lil Yachty has red hair, wears gold teeth and emerged as an independent artist. The commercial features Lil Yachty rapping at a piano and explaining why he enjoys Sprite. Within a day the Lil Yachty commercial received 1 million YouTube views. Sprite also launched their limited edition hip-hop cans which featured lyrics from 2Pac, Missy Elliot and J.Cole. The cans also include a Twitter hashtag #Obeyyourthirst. Sprite is number ninety-eight on Forbes most valuable brands list and is valued at 6.2 billion dollars.

Burger King’s marketing strategies changed in an attempt to take over the digital space. Under the Be your Way Campaign Burger King made its presence on Twitter more known. Burger King tweets urban music and caters to the demographics of Twitter’s most frequent users. Burger King chose to use social media to cut down on advertising cost. Tastemakers and critics started to take heed to Burger King’s strategic internet marketing schemes. Burger King’s smartest and most profitable marketing strategy occurred on May 2015. Burger King used a photo shopped picture of Burger King’s mascot “The King” alongside Floyd Mayweather and Justin Bieber during the Mayweather vs Pacquiao fight and posted the photo to Twitter. Mayweather vs Pacquiao fight took place at MGM studios in Las Vegas, Nevada and was the biggest boxing match in the past decade. The fight was commercial free. Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight had a 4.4 million viewers, within hours the King, Mayweather and Justin Bieber were alongside each other and the picture was all over the internet. Burger King developed a knack for social media advertising and is known for its outlandish approach by millennials who heavily indulge in surfing the net. Be your way campaign is one of the best digital campaign’s in its own right.

Brands have been using celebrity endorsement for decades. Entertainment has always grabbed the attention of people from all social, economic and ethnic backgrounds. Yet modern day communication cannot be measured, labeled and classified easily. The way we communicate has changed throughout the years, communication can be viewed from a critical perspective.

Entertainment has also been used by brands on social media to push equality. Ben and Jerry’s ice cream latest flavor “Empowermint” was created in support of the black lives matter movement. The campaign was posted on all social platforms. Ben and Jerry’s website featured a press release explaining why Empowermint was created. According to Nielson Reviews African Americans ages 17-35 are Americas biggest consumers. Ben and Jerry’s may simply care about equality of all people but supporting racial minorities, an influx of women and people with vast sexual orientations has worked in their favor. Ben and Jerry’s icecream I dough I dough, received 27,691 likes and 12,354 shares. Corporations are attempting to bridge the digital gap by appeasing different demographics.  

General Mills, one of the country’s largest food companies, last year revamped its frozen pizza brand, Totino’s, with black packaging and spicy flavors in an effort to appeal to millennials. The new Totino’s Bold products are marketed with entertaining zombie videos on YouTube instead of the picture of the matronly chef Rose Totino clad in red-and-white checkered apron that was used on newspaper ads in the 1980s, when the target consumer was baby boomer mothers. (Searchy).

I think brands are using less slogans and more tactics. Some brands have solidified their target audience and their slogans are known everywhere. Some brands dont even use slogans. I believe branding is completely unorthodox and up to the company in 2017. I think that consistency is most important. Sticking to web videos, celebrity endorsements, or whatever works best for the company is the only tactic that will work.