We're now onto Q4, "A big challenge today for companies of all sizes is how to move their brands from brick and mortar to online and vice versa. You’re spending a lot of time studying this issue – you’re on the cutting edge with your analysis. Let us in on some of your findings." from AllBusiness.com's Chris Bjorklund. Ms. Bjorklund interviewed me on NextStage's five year study of the best uses of colors, color imagery and color iconography in marketing. This study contained NextStage original research and research from others. The posts in this arc provide content that didn't make it into the podcast, just as the podcast has content that isn't provided in this arc.
You can hear the entire podcast at The Best Way to Use Color and Imagery to Improve Your Marketing. I'll be including a bibliography in the last post in this arc.
Now, "A big challenge today for companies of all sizes is how to move their brands from brick and mortar to online and vice versa. You’re spending a lot of time studying this issue – you’re on the cutting edge with your analysis. Let us in on some of your findings."
Good question. I’ll give you four things that fall right off the top:- Only brick&mortar brands long established within a given demographic should consider transferring their brand directly online
- Long established b&m brands transferred to e-brands are more easily recognized by older demographic groups
- It is possible to make a b&m brand more recognizable online by subtly changing its color scheme
- Changing a b&m brand's visual orientation can increase e-brand recognition and may also produce a negative feeling towards the brand
#1 and #2) “Long established b&m’s can put their existing brand directly online” and “are more easily recognized by older demographics” because their audience has already had lots of experience with it simply because the brand is long established. In other words, the audience will look for what it already knows, thus “age” = “experience”.
#3 and #4) The human brain is wired to look for and find patterns. This is something I wrote about in AllBusiness.com’s Want to Increase Business Traffic? Play This Game to Learn a Design Trick
Familiar patterns – the layout of your living room, the newspaper showing up at 4pm everyday – let us know our world is safe and can be anticipated. You don’t really notice the layout of the living room or that the paper hasn’t arrived until the pattern changes.
It’s the same thing with transferring and existing b&m brand online. A subtle change in a b&m’s color scheme or visual orientation online sends the brain two contradictory messages; a) this is the familiar so it’s safe and b) this is different so pay attention. Good marketing exists where those two messages intersect; this is safe and pay attention. You don’t want to dramatically alter the color scheme or visual orientation because then the “pay attention” message overpowers the “this is safe” message and you have loyal consumers no longer comfortable with the new brand and unwilling to accept the new brand identity.
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
Links for this post:
- The AllBusiness.com's Chris Bjorklund Interviews Joseph Carrabis on Color Use in Marketing arc
- The Best Way to Use Color and Imagery to Improve Your Marketing
- NextStage Trainings
- Tips for Your Next Website Redesign
- Usability Studies 101: Follow the Eye
- IMedia Brand Summit on 9-12 Sept 07
- XChange on 20-21 Sept 07
- DC Emetrics Summit on 14-17 Oct '07
- Society for New Communications Research Annual Research Symposium & Awards Gala on 5-6 Dec 07 in Boston.
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