CC BY
137
UDC: 339.138
The research was funded by RFBR according to the project № 19-010-00844.
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OF BRAND MARKETING: HOW ALL BRANDS WENT DIGITAL
S. Bazhenov1, E. Bazhenova2, D. Abrosimov3
Abstract. Formation of competitive advantages in the markets of goods and services with the help of a brand has long become a marketing classic. However, the new digital world is changing all aspects of branding, from simple consumer awareness to the formation of customer loyalty.
The article is devoted to the analysis of the phenomenon of brand marketing digitalization as a tool for managing the consistent development of a brand in the modern digital world. The results of the analysis of the development of the global digital environment are given, its role in the widespread introduction of the latest digital technologies in brand marketing is traced.
The authors conclude that as a result of the transformation of the primary digital environment into a fully digital environment, the effectiveness of marketing tools increases many times. In the process of digital branding, there is an increase in information traffic through various digital platforms, while the patterns of consumer behavior are changing. Manufacturers are forced to use the latest tools to attract consumers ' attention and protect and develop their own brand.
Keywords: digitalization; digital transformation; brand marketing; digital brand marketing; storytelling; social media; consumer behavior.
Introduction
Building competitive advantage in markets for goods and services using a brand has become a marketing classic in the era of the industrial revolution [2]. The market was filled with extremely similar, homogeneous goods, while the consumer did not have clear preferences for certain products [12]. Therefore, the brand was first used by manufacturers to manage the process of consistent development of communications with the consumer, from simple awareness to the formation of brand loyalty and further to ousting competitors from the market and enticing hesitant customers [2; 5; 10].
1 Sergey Bazhenov — PhD in Philosophy, Science Horizons Foundation (Moscow), sbazhenov@mail.ru
2 Elena Bazhenova — PhD in Economics, Associate Professor, Southern Federal University (Rostov-on-Don), ebazhenova@mail.ru
3 Dmitry Abrosimov — PhD in Politics, Associate Professor, Southern Federal University (Rostov-on-Don), dabrosimov@mail.ru
Already from the second half of the XIX century manufacturers began to actively use basic tools from this area: (1) price dumping (Standard Oil); (2) creating low-quality counterfeit products that imitate the products of competing brands; (3) co-building of substitute goods that users perceive as interchangeable (Coca-Cola and Pepsi); (4) dishonest advertisements that defame a competing brand.
Since the mid-1990s all over the world, the traditional industry established by the industrial revolution begins to enter the global digitalization process. At the same time, the process of digitalization of brand marketing takes place. Therefore, from the moment of automation of existing business processes and technologies to the spread of digital infrastructure and technologies, there has been a constant increase in the transfer of information through various digital platforms [12].
Each stage of the evolution of the digital environment, as expected, launched the processes of introducing the latest technologies into brand marketing practices. This, in turn, has consistently transformed brand marketing from the classic model to brand marketing through online storytelling, then to the original digital and finally to full digital brand marketing, which is reflected in Table 1.
Table 1.
Periodization of the brand marketing digitalization process
Stage of Market type Brand marketing Methods
digitalization type
Primary It is important to Classic (template) Emphasis on functional benefits
digitalization differentiate brand marketing and quality, status, intangible
(1970-2000) from value and attractiveness.
Implementation of competitors. Events, tastings, call systems,
the SABER system, Focus on commercials and billboards
creation of NSFNet benefits and demonstrating brand excellence
unique features
Virtualization It is important to Brand marketing Creation of stories, myths,
(2000-2010) strive to become through storytelling surrounding the company's
The global spread the center of the in an online products and brand through the
of the Internet and community and environment television and online environment.
mobile a means of Contextual media advertising,
communications bringing people search engine optimization, social
together on the media targeting, content
basis of a marketing
common
ideology
Digital Since 2010, Initial digital brand Combining online and offline
environment purchases have marketing. promotion channels through
(2010-present) been made using Formation of the television and online media
Social networks, social media or a necessary according to the B2C (business-to-
mobile applications subdomain on the company's website
consumer behavior consumer) scheme at the expense of Targeted advertising on social media resources for networks, collaboration with integrated influence bloggers, search engine
optimization, contextual and search advertising, traditional advertising means, email marketing, advertising in online games.
Since 2014, Complete digital
consumer brand marketing.
preferences Shaping the
become dynamic necessary
Creating stories and images by supporting a uniform information flow in the corporate style. Buying audiences of micro- and
consumer behavior nanobloggers, micro-
through dynamic segmentation and point targeting
influence
Source: Based on [5; 7, 10; 16].
The corresponding transformations are due to: 1) changes in the consumer behavior model; 2) the need to attract the attention of consumers; 3) the need to protect the brand [15].
Primary digitalization
A characteristic feature of the stage of the primary digitalization of brand marketing (1970-2000) was the product markets filled with homogeneous, similar goods. To differentiate from competitors, manufacturers began to actively use branding focused on conditional advantages and features of their products. The superiority of a particular brand was demonstrated in the framework of special events, tastings, exhibitions, commercials, billboards, etc. During this period, methods of attracting consumer attention were technologically limited, which led to open competitive wars: (1) opposition to Coca-Cola and PepsiCo (1976-1980) in the Pepsi Challenge and New Coke campaigns [8; 11]; (2) BMW and Audi (mid-2000s); (3) Burger King and McDonald's (1981) [3, 14].
Since its inception as a global workable network since 1992, the Internet has been massively used as a brand marketing platform to attract the attention of consumers. For example, since 1994, when AT&T placed its banner on HotWired for the first time in the world, the concept of branding began to expand with new methods and technological tools that could influence consumer behavior through the Internet [6].
Virtualization
At the stage of virtualization (2000-2010), along with the global spread of the Internet and mobile communications, it became obvious that, in addition to focusing on the conditional advantages and features of the product, the needs and incentives of new generation consumers are also important. As a result, prerequisites arose that led to a logical transition to the use of the best business idea of 2006, recognized by Harvard Business Review magazine, in brand
marketing — storytelling4 for brand development as a means of uniting people on the basis of a common ideology in the online environment, which is illustrated by shown in Table 2.
Table 2.
Factors leading to the use of storytelling practices for the online environment in brand
marketing
Changes
Prerequisites
Generation needs
1. the correct presentation of the goods comes out on top;
2. maximum completeness of information about the product is required;
3. comfortable conditions of purchase and service are more important than price or technical characteristics of goods
Consumer behavior
1. the ability to solve the problem by forming a minimal Internet request;
2. active transition to mobile devices that allow solving most of the tasks
Consumer behavior
1. the first impression and purchase decision is formed in a split second;
2. the purchase stimulates the desire to stand out from the crowd, to be different from others
Necessities for brand marketing
1. new formats of advertising interaction;
2. creation of additional value that will distinguish the product or manufacturer from others;
3. integrate into users' lives and become part of their cultural environment
Source: Based on [5; 7; 10; 16].
An example is the experience of successful storytelling in digital brand marketing for various large manufacturers.
LEGO Group. The LEGO® Story5 is a prime example of using storytelling in the form of a video narration of what a successful brand story should look like. The video was created in 2012 by the digital agency Lani Pixels Denmark for the 80th anniversary of the company and was part of a campaign to create a sense of unity with the company among consumers.
4 Broadcasting the required meanings through the telling of specially constructed stories
5 https://youtu.be/NdDU_BBJW9Y
Figure 1. Still from the LEGO® Story video Source: https://youtu.be/NdDU_BBJW9Y
By YouTube standards, the video has a long duration — 17 minutes, but as of December 2020, the video has more than 30 million views. This is an example of how a well-told story makes a brand unique in the eyes of society [9; 13].
The New York Times. Another example of storytelling, not in the form of video content, but in the form of a virtual digitized story about the history of a company, is the TimesMachine Archive6, a digital project from The New York Times that provides a great example of how brands can digitize their story and attract a consumer audience to it. TimesMachine allows subscribers to browse the newspaper's archive and read any article published since 1851.
6 https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser
Figure 2. Example of a newspaper issue dated April 16, 1912 (The sinking of the Titanic) in the TimesMachine project
Source: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser
Levi Strauss. Another high-quality example of the use of storytelling to present the digitized history of a company is the digital project of the Levi Strauss brand. The active part of the project is represented by the section "Our History" of the site, where the company publishes historical facts and photos, stories about the invention of jeans. The other is the heavily supported blog Unzipped1 (see Figure 3), which discusses posts on a wide variety of company, jeans, and subculture-related topics, from vintage photos to cultural and social issues in society.
At the stage of virtualization (2000-2010), the methods of forming the necessary consumer behavior were focused on storytelling through communication with the target audience, television and online environments. However, at the same time, some modern digital mechanisms and tools have been introduced into brand marketing through hundred-retelling in the online environment: (1) search engine optimization (or SEO promotion) to get targeted visitors from Google and Yandex search services; (2) contextual advertising in search services and media networks; (3) targeted brand promotion for specific Internet users; (4) distribution of articles, news feeds, video images, interviews as content to attract and retain the target audience.
7 https://www.levistrauss.com/unzipped-blog/
Figure 3. Levi Strauss Unzipped Blog Home Source: https://www.levistrauss.com/unzipped-blog/
Digitalization
As part of the last stage of digitalization (since 2010), brand marketing certainly inherits the basic practices of influencing the consumer from classic and brand marketing through storytelling in the online environment. At the same time, at this stage, specific transformations took place with brand marketing [1]. So, since about 2015, consumer preferences regarding the terms of purchase have changed, making social media and the company's website a means of direct influence on consumer behavior. Also, from that moment on, consumer preferences became dynamic, which required variable brand changes from manufacturers.
As a result of the changes, since 2010 brand marketing through storytelling in the online environment has changed to the initial digital one, in parallel with which, by 2016, full-fledged digital brand marketing has finally emerged. Both digital brand marketing, initial and fully digital, in general, inherit the features of all past types of brand marketing from the previous stages of digitalization, but differ significantly from them based on the specifics that form their uniqueness (Table 3).
Table 3.
Features of Initial and Complete Digital Brand Marketing
Features Initial Digital Brand Marketing Complete Digital Brand Marketing
Characteristic Formation of the necessary consumer behavior at the expense of media resources for complex influence Formation of the necessary consumer behavior due to dynamic influence
Specificity that forms the uniqueness Lack of tools that allow combining online and offline promotion channels for a comprehensive impact on the consumer - the use of systems (networks) for the complex synchronization of different channels, as well as systems for assessing their effectiveness (end-to-end analytics and data-driven marketing);
- gradual blurring of the boundaries between online and offline
Uniqueness - traditional advertising and
specific social media direct the consumer to the company's website dedicated to the current advertising campaign; - support of an uneven information flow, maintained in a corporate style
- traditional advertising directs the consumer to the company's website or social
media;
- a system of complex synchronization of different channels, systems for assessing their effectiveness;
- support for a uniform information flow, designed in a corporate style;
- corporate media as the main communication tool
Source: Based on [5; 7; 10; 16].
At the stage of virtualization (2000-2010), the methods of forming the necessary consumer behavior were focused on storytelling through communication with the target audience, television and online environments. However, at the same time, some modern digital mechanisms and tools have been introduced into brand marketing through hundred-retelling in the online environment: (1) search engine optimization (or SEO promotion) to get targeted visitors from Google and Yandex search services; (2) contextual advertising in search services and media networks; (3) targeted brand promotion for specific Internet users; (4) distribution of articles, news feeds, video images, interviews as content to attract and retain the target audience.
Initial digital brand marketing is characterized by the lack of tools that allow combining online and offline promotion channels formed on the basis of B2C (business-to-customer) based on new methods of communication between brands and target audience. The offline environment here is the television environment, directing the consumer to social media and to the section of the company's website dedicated to the current advertising campaign. The online environment is targeted advertising on social networks, cooperation with top bloggers, email marketing, search engine optimization, contextual and search advertising, advertising in online games, and streaming.
An image advertising campaign is formed in a single universal way and is launched in parallel in real and virtual environments, complementing each other. At the same time, traditional advertising and specific social media direct the consumer to the company's website in a section dedicated to the current advertising campaign.
However, the effectiveness of the initial digital brand marketing in relation to communication with the target audience is increasingly limited due to the constant expansion and growth of popular social media in the absence of synchronization of different channels and the gradual blurring of the boundaries between online and offline.
Thus, the original brand marketing of most companies has gradually transformed into a full-fledged digital (Digital Branding). It involves the synchronization of communication channels based on: (1) involving the consumer in two-way communication by means of interactive; (2) flexible communication on the P2P principle (peer-to-peer or person-to-person) and creativity in the presentation of information [4; 1].
Digital branding actively uses communication between brands and target audiences mainly through corporate media, as well as targeting in social media, content marketing, and mobile applications. At the same time, auxiliary (supporting) mechanisms are the synchronization of communication channels, as well as the visualization of images: identity, branded photo and video content, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), Internet of things.
Conclusions
The paper shows how each stage of the evolution of the digital environment through the introduction of modern technologies radically changes the consumer market for goods and services. Further, market changes trigger the transformation of brand marketing. At the present stage, full digital brand marketing (Digital Branding) covers not only the Internet, but also all digital media outside the network, giving the manufacturer a variety of communication channels, the speed and accuracy of the communication, the ability to collect detailed data using various metrics.
Digital brand management allows you to create brand platforms — your own distribution channels, which the brand itself controls.
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ЦИФРОВАЯ ТРАНСФОРМАЦИЯ БРЕНД-МАРКЕТИНГА: КАК ВСЕ БРЕНДЫ СТАНОВЯТСЯ ЦИФРОВЫМИ
С. В. Баженов, Е. Ю. Баженова, Д. Абросимов Южный федеральный университет, г. Ростов-на-Дону
Формирование конкурентных преимуществ на рынках товаров и услуг с помощью бренда давно стало классикой маркетинга. Однако новый цифровой мир меняет все аспекты брендинга, от простого информирования потребителей до формирования лояльности клиентов.
Статья посвящена анализу феномена цифровизации бренд-маркетинга как инструмента управления последовательным развитием бренда в современном цифровом мире. Приведены результаты анализа развития глобальной цифровой среды, прослеживается ее роль в повсеместном внедрении новейших цифровых технологий в бренд-маркетинг.
Авторы приходят к выводу, что в результате трансформации первичной цифровой среды в полностью цифровую, эффективность маркетинговых инструментов многократно возрастает. В процессе цифрового брендинга увеличивается информационный поток через различные цифровые платформы, а модели поведения потребителей меняются. Производители вынуждены использовать новейшие инструменты для привлечения внимания потребителей, защиты и развития собственного бренда.
Ключевые слова: цифровизация, цифровая трансформация, бренд-маркетинг, цифровой бренд-маркетинг, сторителлинг, социальные медиа, потребительское поведение.
