How to re-enforce your audio brand to a wider market

Here’s a simple way to re-enforce your brand, and appeal to a wider market at the same time;
Use audio.

With audio, you can use the same core idea and apply it in different ways to suit a different audience.

You know how a cover of a song divides opinion on which is better – the cover or the original?
Well you can effectively cover your own ‘song’ and hit both markets.

Case study: webuyanycar.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-yEWZTBQ64

oh no! Another cheesy advert with an annoyingly catchy jingle. Thumping 4/4 beat, extremely repetitive, almost poking fun at the stereotypical ‘boy racer’.
Silly, fun, and aimed directly at the late teens early twenty-somethings - who have maybe just started earning and want to get rid of their car quickly and get something better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lylLAxzS4E

Same basic theme, same motif, same pumping beat but now with new ‘lyrics’. More information and a little less repetitive. With a few changes, this is now aimed at a slightly wider market segment. Notice how the production on the track has changed too, a more refined track to go with the real footage. This is opposed to the previous advert which had a simple animation and simple production.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIzbqU9mg4c&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRu9dAi_EBQ

Now watch these after the first two and what’ll probably happen is a bit weird when you think about it - Did you sing along in your head using the lyrics from the earlier ads?
The only ‘lyrics’ here are the ‘we buy any car’ hook at the end.
If this did happen to you -  because you’ve come up with the words yourself, they seem more genuine. They’re your own thoughts and that makes them trustworthy right?
Added to this, it’s not as brash and in-your-face. The voiceover sounds more ‘knowledgeable/wise’ like a caring friend.

Add it all up, and webuyanycar.com have started with just a descriptive name and a plan – and moved into the realms of a fully fledged brand, now appealing to those outside of their core demographic. Clever.

Getting your brand in the right place at the right time

15 years ago Tesco introduced the first UK loyalty card – the Clubcard. Within a year Clubcard holders were spending 28% more at Tesco and 16% less at Sainsbury. As much as the statistical information generated from these little beauties is the real marketing gem – consumer spending habits, personal information etc. – we can still learn a lesson in keeping our brands close to the customers’ hand. With 85% of house hold now holding a loyalty card of some sort, the little advertising space in your wallet or purse is becoming more competitive. Superdrug have launched a new loyalty card that doubles up as a mirror. This is a great idea for two reasons:

1)      It’s functional, it’s convenient and it’s staying in the purse. Customers are ever more suspicious of marketing ploys so if they can find another reason to keep hold of the card it gives it credibility.

2)      The functional use is intrinsically linked to the products they sell. When putting on makeup a customer will be thinking about replenishing the product – and there in front of their eyes is the call to action – Superdrug.

Another great example of putting your brand in the right place at the right time can be found in Addison Lee Mini Cabs. They are very cleverly placing their brand in the mind of consumers by advertising outside pubs, bars and night clubs across London by advertising on external cigarette ash trays. To read more about Addison Lee’s marketing campaign click here

Thomas

Sound Marketing Blog: How to get more out of Fathers' Day

Sound Marketing Blog: How to get more out of Fathers' Day: "A great example of how to use Fathers’ day to add long term value to products year round rather than simply selling the latest gadget on the..."

How to get more out of Fathers' Day

A great example of how to use Fathers’ day to add long term value to products year round rather than simply selling the latest gadget on the day.

1)      Harnessing the power of widely held stereo types

By first presenting a stereotypical and socially approved cloud nine for Dads (the beer, the leather sofa, the big telly, the make shift den, the NOT shopping) and then updating or tweaking it by adding a new element (3D television) it gets stored with the stereo type held previously. When the stereotype is recalled again at a later date this new element will form part of the picture.

2)      Experiential, aspiration.

Certain stereotypes provide positive gratification to their subjects. With this ‘cloud nine for Dads’ scenario there’s a slight sense of role play.

·         The scenario is societies reflection of manly relaxation 

·         The passing customer is invited to take part

·         In doing so they conform with the stereotype and feel more manly in the process

·         this provides a positive emotional response in the customer.

If this customer now associates the experience of seeing 3DTV with the feeling of manliness there is an instant added value to the product. The customer will now seek to replicate this feeling by buying a 3D TV.

How could you use the essence of masculinity to add value to your products or services?

Sound Marketing Take On Dartmoor!

Building bridges by jumping off one.

This year’s annual team building weekend couldn’t have been a better timed reward for all of us at Sound Marketing. The past few months have seen a change in ownership, an internal restructure and a full rebrand take place. This has increased pressure on the team but as usual they have risen to the challenge, demanded more of themselves and excelled as a unit.

The value of team building exercises like this cannot be underestimated. As much as we all know each other on a professional level and sometimes on a personal one, it’s by moving outside of our comfort zone in a seemingly unrelated task that we learn much more. A better understanding of each other derived from a shared experience allows our relationships to grow and furthermore be relied upon in the office when the pressure is on.

Nicki

Managing Director

Protecting your business from web based threats

A recent study found that 79 percent of Web-hosted threats are hosted on legitimate sites which have been hijacked by hackers who have infected the site with the threat. The remaining 21 percent are found on rogue sites that have been designed to appear legitimate, with email “marketing” employed as the primary vehicle to direct users to these attacks.

On average, security vendors receive more than 20,000 unique malware samples every day, and more than half of all network threats they receive have utilized HTTP as a vehicle. In a growing number of cases, a user only needs to visit a Web page or view Web mail to be infected by Web-based Trojans and spyware. Email is also a significant source of malware, and is frequently used to direct users to Web-based attacks. Traditionally business’s have protected themselves with a Firewall and Anti Virus software believing this is enough to keep them secure. However, this growing number of Internet-based threats has prompted the need for a robust gateway security solution that scans both inbound and outbound traffic to detect and remove threats before they reach individual desktops.

If you would like to know more how to protect your network and users click here!

Paul Cox

IT technical sales consultant aka IT Guru

Change is good

Bring the sparkle back to your production.

If you listen to your favourite music track over and over again, you will inevitably become bored with it. One of the simplest, yet most effective changes you can make to any on-hold production is a simple change of music. This will bring the sparkle back into your production with a fresh, new feel and will reignite interest from those all important customers.

Rob Jacques

Account Manager