Today at the market place there are millions of brands competing for the share of the market. Thus, why is branding so key to an organisation? Let us start off with an understanding of what is a brand.  Simply put, a brand is a promise. At a personal level, a brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room. So how can you ensure your corporate communications create the kind of a brand image that would make you proud to be a fly on the wall in your market?

It’s rare to find a company with a genuinely unique selling point, that is why to form a strong brand image and message, organizations or individuals need to think hard about anything that differentiates them. Often companies say their people make them different, but unless they have a truly unusual working culture, that’s unlikely. Better managed organisations always brand their organisation from the inside. Leaders begin by trying to discover what the organisation is good at, what it is proud of, and known for, and then build the brand promise around these existing strengths.

The existence of the strengths is derived from what the company stand for, typically focusing on the brand from the inside and outside. When your internal team doesn’t respond with appropriate enthusiasm for the brand promise, they work with heads of operations to flog the business into behaving the way they think it should. This breeds calamity to the organisation. Imagine leading an institution where an understanding of a brand promise is lacking, the workforce don’t behave, the brand doesn’t deliver while operating at the midst of many competing brand interests.

It should be noted, that brands are built around ‘the relentless pursuit of perfection’. As one would expect of a Safaricom company, there’s a strong emphasis on quality of services delivered, but this is taken to a whole new level through innovation, good governance practices, all round marketing concept and the corporate social responsibility among other virtues. It’s not simply about quality of fit and finish, but about seeking out and delivering on the little details that create as close to a perfect delivery experience as possible. For employees, this means the emphasis is on behaviours aligned to what the company’s good at delivering to its vision. All the above strategically packaged and presented to the company’s stakeholders enables brand positioning.

Brand positioning sets the direction of marketing activities and programs, what the brand should and should not do with its marketing. Brand positioning involves establishing key brand associations in the minds of customers and other important constituents to differentiate the brand and establish competitive superiority (Keller et al. 2002). Besides the obvious issue of selecting tangible product attribute levels (e.g., ‘M-PESA, Mshwari etc.), two particularly relevant areas to positioning are the role of brand intangibles and the role of corporate images and reputation of your organisation.

As you endeavor to fulfill your branding strategy, it’s essential to have your staff on board, ensure the brand has its own story. This approach is effective because storytelling is a fundamental part of human nature and it allows players to position their brands in human terms, rather than sterile marketing.

How do you ensure consistency and longevity? There is power in brand measurement, accountability and understanding. To manage brand equity (or anything) requires current, valid data. This includes diagnostic data about why the brand is where it is. Few brand owners do this well. Endeavour to understand systematically how your brand is perceived. Also consider accountability issue in relation to marketing metrics such as market share, customer loyalty, relative price and relative perceived quality. Leaders and Managers should make it their daily tea to seeing these metrics regularly and report the main ones to shareholders for strategic decision making.

Organisations contribute to the destruction of their brands through communication. A variety of brand messages just leads to confusion in the consumer’s mind.  As a leader in marketing, adapt to play to the media’s strengths and use the channels to the advancement of your brand’s ideals such as building your brand, the quality of goods or services and innovation while maintaining your organizational core values.

If you’ve already gained understanding and engagement from your people as part of the brand formulation process, this will stand you in good stead. Marketing teams can and should drive consistency of brand design, language and brand presentation across all media channels and forms of communication. Be able to drive and support the same messages internally as you do externally and in return this could double the power and performance of your communications campaigns at any given time.

Consider brand management as a solution when it comes to getting corporate communications right while embracing the complex and messy media environment for what it potent to your brand filled with unpredictable highs and lows.

Brand: Product and communications planning must work together as part of a cohesive whole. They’re often the responsibility of separate teams that don’t talk to each other enough. A unifying strategy and joined-up planning are critical.     
 Research: Communications activity can so often look great but miss the target with the wrong tone, language, imagery or media. The cornerstone of relevant, effective communications is insight, derived from rigorous research. Yet often this is the first part of the budget to be cut – in my view, a massive mistake. After all, without insight where’s the competitive edge coming from?

Control: Maintaining brand discipline across markets, languages and outlets is tough. An efficient online resource or library is a pre-requisite, centrally controlled, interactive and really easy to use. And, as a general principle, keep brand rules and regulations stripped out and simple.

Flexibility: With a seemingly unending variety of media available, understanding the relevance of each channel to different consumers on different occasions is vital. It is also critical to plan content and creative to work powerfully in each channel.

Engagement: In an age of social media, dialogue and engagement, we often seem stuck in a one-way street. It’s time to shift into listening mode and embrace interaction and transparency as more than just an afterthought handled by the web team.

As I conclude, it should be noted that, there are many technical and commercial reasons why companies are valuing their brands. Unlike the days when brand managers were messengers in briefing PR firms. Today they are more likely to be rubbing shoulders with key decision makers in finance for the corporate business. Brand managers have to be aware of how, when and why to value brands. Branding is big business and managing it determines your future survival and profitability at the market play.

The writer is a Chartered Marketer and Communications professional and can be reached at timothy.owase@live.com

It is widely recognized that location images greatly influences tourist destination choices. The images of a location play a significant role in influencing tourist’s decision-making process as the basis for where to visit (Gartner 1989; Echtner & Ritchie 1991). This is based on the favor-ability of a location of choice.

Butler (1990) suggests that films can influence the travel preferences of those who are exposed to the destination attributes and create a favorable travel destination. Film provides knowledge of certain aspects of the destination such as nature, culture and people which result in the construction of the key attitudes towards the country.

Film, is used as an influence to viewer’s choices to travel by the physical attributes and their associated themes, story-lines, events and actors, influencing the audience’ feelings, emotion and attitudes towards the location. Locations and film experiences are enhanced in memories by associating them with the actors, events and the setting through the films journey.

The world of associations and sentiments are all enclosed in the viewers’ minds as memories and obsessions which give meaning to these locations. They then become iconic attractions as a result of being given powerful meanings in film narrations in the mind of the viewer. This memories and the picture created from the film and the meaning to it from the viewer, acts as a stimuli for one to want to visit particular places.

Today, the world’s tourism industry has reached a maturity stage. This is to mean most tourists are more experienced and have become more selective in their choices of holiday destinations.  The industry is also very competitive with many competing interests for visitors as well as sustained destination marketing campaigns from all corners. This is unlike those days when countries spent dollars on attracting tourists through promotion. Tourists today want to reap maximum value of benefits for less as there are many tourism products in the market.

In my view, films are likely to be more successful as a tool for promoting tourism than any other model or strategy. This is a new form of cultural tourism which still receives little attention from most authorities and practitioners due to the lack of knowledge and understanding on the benefits of film on tourism. Researchers suggest that films can have strong influence on tourist decision-making and not only provide short-term tourism revenue, but also long-term prosperity a location.

For a country like Kenya, it is easy for film makers to design storylines and sites that are closely related in which the film involves the audience and an emotional experience which links perfectly with the location’s attributes. Exposure of tourism induced films would provide greater familiarity, attachment, identification and influence to the country’s target market. As a consequence, these films acting as marketing tool becomes the push factor for the audience to visit the location, people, experience and stories as portrayed by the film. The success of such a film would in return be a good predictor of film-induced tourist arrivals.

There has been an increase in number of tourists visiting various destinations featured through films and television series that are not directly related to tourism promotion campaigns. The increasing popularity of film-induced tourism owes to the rise of international travel and the growth of entertainment industry (Hudson & Ritchie, 2006b).

Countries that embrace this mode of destination marketing are likely to reap the most in the long term. Most of those who take up this opportunities, package it as part of their main holiday, thus more bookings without any previous visit or knowledge. It has long been recognized that travel stimuli through marketing efforts and previous travel experience have played an important role in influencing destination choices. Non-touristic-directed stimuli such as films can also have strong influences on tourist decision-making (Iwashita, 2003).

This calls for players in the sector to embrace the film stimuli and include it in their tourist attraction models. The power of film in portraying a positive impression of a country’s image to induce tourist arrivals is clearly shown in various researches (e.g. Tooke & Baker 1996; Iwashita 2006; Kim et al., 2008). Having reviewed the literature, it was found that film-induced tourism is relatively new in tourism research.

Film tourism is likely to draw more benefits to a country and thus creating major economic benefits to the local community. Film locations can be all-year, all-weather attractions which alleviates problems of seasonality in the tourism industry (Beeton, 2004). Riley et al. (1998) studied 12 films and found that the peak of the interest appear after the release of the film, approximately 50% increase in visitation at least five years later and the image is often retained for a long time.

It significantly increases the cultural value for the film location of which a range of cultural meanings and values are communicated. Many heritage sites that serve as film locations gain popularity after the film release because these places acquire specific meaning through film narration. It enhances the locations image and increases the awareness of the host country.

Television series are even more powerful since they continuously reinforce the appeal of the destination that builds top-of the mind awareness. Today, there are many strategies used by various marketers, film is one of the strategies that should be integrated. Tourism boards need to begin forging relationships and provide incentives for film commissions and production companies for promotional purposes.

In the developed economies such as New Zealand, film promotion schemes have been introduced with an aim to facilitate international film-makers and broadcasters in the shooting, production and post-production of quality movies and television programmes. Each film-maker or broadcaster may be granted financial support based on the extent to how the film or programme can uniquely showcase its locations and the economic benefits thereto.

Promotion of hotels, guesthouses and other historic places featured in the films can be a powerful magnet to generate tourism. These places can be differentiated from others through films. This promotion strategy has been used in New Zealand where Tourism New Zealand developed part of its website to specifically promote ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and other film locations throughout the country.

Other marketing strategies which have been used include; guided film tours and film walks. These tours rely heavily on the illustrations from the films so that the tourists can recognize the real landscapes used in the film. The success of film locations rely on the success of films. Some film locations are much more successful than others in terms of the number of tourist arrivals.

I call upon tourism marketers in Africa not to separate their promotional strategies from wider film marketing, as the benefits have far reaching positive effects to the community. Films provide many positive impacts for the location in terms of economic, cultural values and awareness and image. I wish to conclude by the following “film induces tourism and not the other way round”.

The writer is a Chartered Marketer ,Communications professional and a film industry practitioner. Can be reached at timothy.owase@live.com

Telecommunications companies operate in highly competitive markets with the potential of IP networks to deliver converged services with the advantage of interactivity. IPTV services have been introduced by various telecommunication firms for differentiation. The technology has enabled service providers to offer Video on Demand with capability of providing a full pay TV service offering.

What is this IPTV?  In context it means, distribution of television content over a controlled IP network, where the end consumer receives the information through a set-top box which is connected to its normal broadband connection. It should be noted that IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) does not mean that information is sent over the internet, only that IP protocol is used.

In some markets, IPTV is largely a defensive mechanism by telecom and GSM service providers in encouraging subscriber’s retention rather than migrate to alternative offers in the same space. In Kenya, Telecoms and cable operators have come to understand the value of new services that could be delivered to consumers over IP networks. Most of these companies have invested in network infrastructure as well as home gateways to provide the managed platforms that are essential for delivering real time services such as video with adequate quality of service.

In adapting these technologies, Operators generate extra revenue through value addition packages incorporating the new services, while enhancing customer relationships through proactively managing the needs of the ever demanding subscribers. Pay TV operators have responded in a similar measure by developing multi-screen services themselves and where possible exploiting their superior premium content offerings to defend their revenues in OTT platform.

In order to maintain their edge and to continue defending their interests, operators need to provide compelling advantages to broadcasters and content owners through their ability to deliver video assets cost effectively to as many users as possible.

What are the key IPTV features? The biggest difference in today’s distribution of television content is that you have the power to choose which information you want. Unlike before, everything is not broadcast-ed as with terrestrial, cable and satellite. The IPTV services presents big difference in that, you are able to have a high capacity two way communication and have the ability to interact with the service provider as compared to the other models.

IPTV services providers also boasts of other things that could be provided with its interactive applications (e.g. blogging) or transaction applications (e.g. Television shopping). Because of the point-to-point connection IPTV offers, every user is able to view their own individual broadcasts. The service offers capabilities for VoD (Video on Demand) which provides individual choices, EPG (Electronic Program Guide) and PVR (Personal Video Recorder), where the EPG is fully interactive, use of features like pause, fast forward and rewind when you are watching a movie on your TV among others.

What does this potent to content producers? The entry of new devices and new video delivery technologies has created an opportunity for content providers to go direct to consumers. Service platforms have evolved from proprietary complex systems dealing with Conditional Access (CAS), Subscriber database, Content database and Portal management to simpler modules inspired by Web technologies.

This change explains that what was referred to as a Service Platform is now called a CMS. In all there are still significant issues to be considered by content providers if they are to fully reap the rewards of this brave new world. There are issues to do with live events; peaks in demand are hard to deal with when the system must scale with the number of users, no guarantee for the quality of service once streams are delivered to the local operator’s network among others.

The same provides opportunities for users’ experiences in watching TV and can be achieved by integrating IPTV and multimedia communication services, such as voice and video telephony. This presents user groups like friends or family members to share their emotions while they are watching a TV program. The integrated solutions enable end users to use even complex functions like group communication (conferencing) with ease. This stimulates the service usage and allows new technology usage forms to evolve, potentially opening new business opportunities.

As telecoms flat rates are widely adopted, there is no likelihood for them to experience a big revenue increase from integrated communication services directly, hence need for innovation and creativity for long-term business survival. Most Telecoms are embracing IPTV as a way to boost broadband adoption and generate new revenues. Moreover, the move to IPTV is also dictated by the need to compete with the triple play offering of cable operators. As more operators deploy IPTV services with new features such as catch-up TV and PVR, the factors for differentiation are dissolving rapidly.

I believe that further differentiation is possible by focusing on the integration with communication services in order to create new viewing experiences. The focus here is on the greater benefits, which will come from the social connectivity. This scenario focuses on stimulating cross-service transactions through enhanced IPTV commercial advertisements while maintaining user privacy. With this technology, many people are enabled to many new services delivered over the open Internet. With this technology, content providers are capable of targeting end users directly.

Where do we go from here? The quality of experience is the ultimate game changer in this competitive environment. The user expectations are much higher for a TV-based service than for Internet services, such as internet browsing. The strategy for any video content provider must now include multi-screen delivery. Users are now demanding access from all their devices and there is growing momentum behind companion screen applications that add value to existing services through increased levels of interactivity.

Players in the sector have to be alert and ready to innovate and adapt to new trends which include but not limited to development of new software’s, enhanced companion screen activities and enable new revenue generating applications and use of secondary devices. The y must also consider cost control, user experience across devices among others.

For the content creators’, the future is bright, however be ready to change with the ever changing operational environment.

The writer is a Chartered Marketer, and film industry professional and can be reached at timothy.owase@live.com

 

Getting into the business means actually getting started on your own for profit. This arises when one has crossed certain milestones especially in reconciling effort verses some success. When the reconciliation of the two is positive, one may not need to break into private venture but instead, the business comes to you. A number of times, this has happened to many entrepreneurs especially when opportunities come their way. Suddenly, positive vibes start coming, free publicity and key followers sizes up.

What does this mean to film business start-ups? Start making work on your own by considering yourself a winner while building an audience and gaining some recognition, and adding to the number of those willing to help you from the industry. Consider gaining industry validation from the industry as compared to if you were to gain it on your own.

Fundamentally, as we get more film professionals joining the industry, there are key questions that must be answered. It is now easy to acquire filming equipment as the costs of the same have come down. This means that, many people who would not previously have been able to afford to make films now are able to make them. Also, there are more and more outlets for distributing films to a global audience than ever before.

Creators have to imagine an oversupply of films which as a result may drive down the sales numbers from distributors and the amount of money consumers are willing to pay. There being continuous change in consumer behavior and watching patterns. Filmmakers must respond to questions such as why buy a DVD for X amount or leave home to go to the cinema when you can see the film online for free or for a very low cost and at ones convenience.

The film market has become so uncertain with various disruptions arising from technological changes, audience changing needs, competing interests hence more difficult to get the attention of an audience who now have an overabundance of leisure activities such gaming, YouTube, cable channels among others. As we make films, this calls for us to be steadfast and strong in making films capable of grabbing wide attention repeatedly.

Marketing has to be at play and alive to the changing times. There is no specific format to follow, but strategies in use keep changing all the time. This is as a result of the ever changing time and tools, new tools come up, old ones fade away, capabilities on all of them change, audience needs also change. A strategy based on knowing who your audience is in an in-depth way and what you want to achieve is critical as part of your overall marketing strategy. Today, the social networks are a game changer, as they are about sharing, researching, selling through influence etc. As filmmakers break into professional businesses, there is need to separate their accounts into business and personal use and keep what they share on those channels. What will pull you off from a professional standpoint will be what you share with an audience and what draws them to you and your professional work.

As we discuss, the business of film, there is need to respond to questions such as why people make films. Generally, many filmmakers do side jobs and only do film productions for personal satisfaction. In such kind of a mindset, how do we reconfigure our minds to orient the art into the profit making business?

In forging the journey in the business of film, let us craft the art, put it in perspective and consolidate all factors for growth. Enjoy film making and tell more stories for the world to share.

The writer is a Chartered Marketer and film industry professional. Can be reached at timothy.owase@live.com