A Seamless Brand Experience

Many brands aspire to be it, few brands get it right and those that do are some of the most successful brands in the world...all brands are in search of a ‘seamless brand experience’ for the consumer...but what exactly is it?

According to Gair Maxwell's blog a ‘seamless brand’ means, “To make and keep a promise that matters.” He talks about how making the promise relates to sales, marketing and spreading the message, keeping that promise is the execution of the ideas on a operational level and the fact that it matters is the differentiator of the brand. 

I think that it is important to ensure that a brand firstly sets out what they stand for and what their identity and personality is. This is the main focus and how they differentiate themselves within their market. This can then be followed by consistent communications across all marketing and promotional activities and in everything that they do and say, whether this be the bags used in store or in the form of apps or their website.

I am most interested in how a brand can integrate themselves through digital communications. I recently found a journal that I felt explained perfectly what a seamless brand means in the digital environment. 

“A range of new marketing mediums can be leveraged to keep people tuned in and seamlessly integrate brands into their everyday lives” (Ken Martin and Ivan Todorov 2010)

Martin and Todorov (2010) talked about how brands need to think of new and innovative ways to communicate with their audiences in a market that is becoming evermore crowded . The brand needs to find specific ‘touch points’ at which they can communicate directly with the consumer, this type of brand interaction will then form a regular and prolonged relationship with the brand.

Mike Crossman from EMC gave us a lecture this week about the seamless brand experience, where he posed the following questions that, as fledgling advertisers, we should take into consideration.

• How do you create resonance?

• How do you get the consumer to remember your brand?

• What is emotional connection I can create through the use of digital communication?

One such example of a brand that has created a new digital platform to provide a seamless brand experience is Rimmel. 

Rimmel’s target consumer is 16-34 year olds, their personality is fun young and rebellious, with their colourful product range and recent advertising campaigns reflecting this. The company has used many young and popular models as part of their campaigns like Kate Moss, Lily Cole, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and their most recent signing, Zoey Deschanel. 

 NewMediaAge recently reported that Rimmel have relaunched their website as a platform to encourage their young consumers to communicate with each other about the brand. 

The new website provides the following features.

• Celebrity make-up artist tutorials so that consumers can recreate the look themselves with their own Rimmel products.
• It also includes different features such as a weekly style guide and best looks.
• Consumers get the chance to register on the website, this means that they then can create a profile and take part in something called the ‘Make-Up Bag’ that allows consumers to pick their favourite products and rate them, upload photos of different looks and blog about their experiences, they can also invite friends to the make up bag and interact with each other about fashion and the brand.
• The site also shows the models and what looks they have created and how consumers can create the look themselves.

I think that this is an innovative way to place the brand at the epicentre of conversations that occur with young teenage girls anyway. As the Facebook and Twitter phenomenon shows, many young people enjoy the use of digital communication to interact with their peers, therefore, Rimmel’s new website is like an online magazine that allows the brand to resonate with the target consumer.

The ‘Make up bag’ feature on the website allows the consumer to sign up and then tell their friends, this helps to make the website memorable as they need to pass on their experience of the website to their friends.

The ‘looks section’ that shows pictures of other girls’ outfits allows consumers to create an affiliation with brand as they can relate to one another, be that through conversation or the style tips they are giving one another. All of the features on the website have been designed to interact with the consumer at every opportunity, sending out the same message “We are a brand that is young, fashion forward and popular.” 

This digital communication has allowed the brand to effortlessly depicted that they are fashion forward and that make-up is a part of fashion, which is a part of consumer’s lives. I also like the way in which the brand has attempted to make their own forum and discussion without the use of Facebook, which so many brands are using a wagon for social interaction with the brand now days.  

It’s all in the detail and Rimmel have thought about the ways in which their consumers, in particular now interact with each other and use it to their advantage. Now all that is left to see is if their digital communication efforts prove to be a successful integration of the brand with their consumer’s daily lives.