Nothing attracts people more than a good story. American history consultant Robert McKee once said, “Storytelling is the most powerful way to bring ideas to the world. And in the age of technology, storytelling has become a snap.

Generation Z, the youngest generation of consequence, comprises approximately 72 million Americans and 27% of the population. For Gen Z, storytelling and digital engagement are a daily priority as they connect to the internet and social platforms for more than 10 hours a day, according to a survey by Adobe. They seek real-time communication with content creators, chat with trusted peers, engage in political discussions, and respond to live polls. They are, indeed, the main active target audience sought by live video streaming services.

A survey carried out by the software company Livestream and New York magazine shows that 80% of audiences prefer live streamed videos to blog content. Additionally, with live streaming becoming a popular feature on social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, brands have accepted it as a staple of social media marketing and have invested 28% of their budgets in TV shows. live broadcast.

Create authentic connections

Accelerating the importance of live streaming is the fact that Gen Z is moving into a critical consumer category. Business Insider Intelligence’s Next Generation Report indicates that Generation Z will soon become the largest consumer population in the United States. Inside the business community, it is already estimated to influence $ 143 billion in spending in the United States alone. With their ability to influence purchasing decisions, Gen Z is turning live streaming into an industry worth over $ 30 billion, which is expected to grow to over $ 70 billion by 2021. One new study from ABI Research further estimates that there will be 91 million subscribers using live streaming by 2024.

Additionally, Gen Z shuns traditional media altogether, instead looking for platforms where they can connect directly with brands. Characteristically, this generation favors the honesty and transparency that live streaming offers, with all the flaws of spontaneous reality. Savvy brands are therefore creating new digital marketing strategies incorporating live streaming, especially in these difficult times, bringing real-time events to a confined audience.

Related: 5 content marketing trends you need to know for 2020

Recycle content once and create new video assets

Brand marketers are discovering the value of live streamed content beyond the event, incorporating the live streamed content into subsequent videos and creating an arsenal of marketing materials.

Vogue used the live-streamed Met Gala for a live video of the behind-the-scenes activity to make it happen. The video has received over 200,000 views. After national broadcaster KBS launched BMW’s M2 on Periscope, it then used the launch to come back with the brand’s first live interactive adventure, on the app.

Likewise, many brands recycle live streamed content as live video footage onto regular branded videos as part of a subsequent marketing strategy to attract new customers. Forbes quotes Brandlive as saying that nearly 95% of brand and agency executives said live video would be an important part of their marketing strategy.

So brand marketers see it as two for the price of one and an opportunity to capture new customers.

Related: New to Instagram Live? Here’s how to present yourself as a pro

Connect the virtual and physical worlds

Not so long ago, there were significant gaps in streaming media technology that made live streaming inaccessible to many organizations and limited the expansion of their brand within the confines of the home country of their business. Today, it all feels like prehistoric times, as technology has moved to its current user-friendly format, giving digital marketers the ability to use live streaming to present their brand to a global audience in real time. .

Related: 5 content ideas to make money with Facebook Live

Generate valuable market information

At a live event, a brand cannot quantify how many spectators are captivated or annoyed. But livestreaming allows brands to get information by asking questions such as:

Were there more viewers at the start of the live event than at the end? If so by how much?

When people come back to review the presentation, what do they watch?

What does the audience say about the presentation?

These features unique to live video provide feedback on actual audience reactions that cannot be obtained in any other way.

Indispensable to improve brand awareness

Using live video has the potential to become a clear growth hack for almost any brand, as you’ll be in a better position to form these invaluable connections with your customers. If you know how to use the technology available, making those connections could be easier than ever. Understanding why live streaming is important can be crucial in improving your company’s brand awareness.

It is a time of change for BRR, one of New Zealand’s leading branding companies, which started as a consultant Brian Richards in 1993 and was incorporated in 1999 as BRR .

It now has a strategic, design and digital offer with 20 employees and an average turnover of 3 to 5 million dollars over the last five years.

Owned by Brian and Brigitte Richards and Julian Smith, Brian Richards is in the process of handing over ownership to the younger members of the company headed by Smith. “As the oldest statesman, I will be free to do other things,” said Richards.

Richards has contributed to NZ Trade & Enterprise’s Better by Design program for the past seven years and continues to lead a coaching team in the BBD process and practice.

BRR’s team of strategists, writers, designers and digital developers seek to bring diverse thinkers to a project, “workshop” ideas with clients using a technique called Design Thinking. “The key is to think broadly with a diverse team and then very specifically about a brand or a project,” says Richards.

The consulting firm’s most recent success has been its project for the New Zealand Antarctic Research Institute, which was elected by “Brand New” – one of the world’s leading authorities on corporate brands – as one of the 12 best international projects of 2012.

Since 1999, BRR has created and developed world-class brands for New Zealand companies seeking to increase their international competitiveness.

“Orca, ZiwiPeak and Icebreaker are all companies that have worked closely with BRR from their inception to develop the brand and the history of the company,” says Smith.

Other BRR clients include local startups Pushpay and Teknique, as well as larger companies such as Turners & Growers, agrotech company Simcro and Vogel’s Cereal. The consultancy, which works internationally with clients such as Haworth Australia, the global manufacturer of office furniture, and Swiss concrete and aggregates company Holcim, also enjoys working with small and medium-sized businesses.

“About 40 to 50% of what we do now are startups. Four or five people on the North Shore, but with cutting edge technology, that’s what we like, ”says Richards.

The founder, who trained as a chartered accountant and studied commerce at INSEAD in France, believes in the performance of brands.

Since joining BRR after serving as Global Marketing Director at Orca in 2006, Smith has developed the company’s social media expertise. BRR recently created a new social media platform for Nikon New Zealand.

New technologies, smartphones and mobile devices of all kinds require continuous development and management of content, says Smith.

The company also works with industries and regions, and currently supports the avocado industry.

“We bring industries together – a lot of them don’t work together as well,” says Richards.

The founder will leave the company in three to five years.

“We are looking for other partners in the team. The key element we want is diversity of thought. We need a creative leader, someone who comes up, who has a great creative mind and who can help us. to balance.”

Meanwhile, Smith plans to expand the business. The “big” brands should receive a premium of at least 20 to 30 percent in the category in which they are traded, say the two directors.

“New Zealand has a great deal of intellectual property that can please the world. Our belief is that 80% of it is poorly stored, packaged and delivered to the market and is not getting the premium it deserves.” , said Smith.

Richards, meanwhile, would like to see more Maori heritage businesses.

Superior council
Think about your brand from the outside to the inside. Create a set of four or five non-generic values ​​for your brand.

Biggest commercial success: Rebranding Holcim, a company three times the size of Fonterra.

Small Business Editor-in-Chief Caitlin Sykes is asking a handful of small business owners this week about how they use brand partnerships.

Seadon Baker is CEO of New Zealand streetwear brand ilabb.

Can you tell me about some of the partnerships you have with other New Zealand brands?

We foster a fairly large network of like-minded companies, ambassadors and supporters that we call our “ilabb family” and our colabb products have all been designed in collaboration with these people, whether they are a business, a musician or an athlete. Some of our more recent partnerships include collaboration with Red Bull, BurgerFuel, Rhythm & Vines and Shapeshifter. We aim to inspire collaboration with other brands wherever possible, and our partnerships are a true joint venture for both parties.

What are some of the things you do together?

We’ve worked with the partners I mentioned on a range of different activations – things like branding, uniform design, and merchandise production. It’s about finding people and companies inspired by the same things we are and taking what we both do to the next level.

When it comes to our collaborative products, the process is to sit down together and figure out what each can do and would like to do. We then work together on the design and ilabb makes the product. We are a streetwear company, so our current colabb products are mainly clothing and accessories, but we are also working on more technical colabbs for the next year – like the production of sports equipment and tech equipment – which is also very exciting.

How did you find the partner brands you work with?

Many of our collaborative choices have come from our consumers. We know our customers are shredding for the R&V, the amps on Mad Mike and eating BurgerFuel, so for us it’s kind of natural that we do that too. I think we are fortunate to come from a country like New Zealand where there is a great community atmosphere. Many of our collaborations start from our own networks, and simply by connecting with companies and people we find inspiring.

What do you gain as a business by developing these types of relationships?

We’re a New Zealand company with a global perspective, so I think it’s just a good deal for us to work alongside other like-minded organizations – like BurgerFuel and Red Bull – that have the same global dynamics. . We certainly know that this facilitates entry into international markets by aligning with global partners. And on a local scale, building our ilabbfamily helps us connect with our customers, not just at their local surf store or online; but on several levels. It also helps tell our own story and show that we are passionate about these things as well.

What other points of contact do you reach customers through these partnerships?

Our main ones are sporting events, concerts and festivals. We often support our ilabbfamily by hosting pop-up stores and activations at events they attend. So, for example, we ran a pop-up store alongside our FMX pilot Levi Sherwood at the X Games in Texas last month. We also supported Shapeshifter by running activations at Homegrown when they were headlining there earlier this year.

What were some of the challenges for the company in terms of setting up this type of partnership?

For us, many of these partnerships carry a high level of risk. We wholesale all of our colabb products well in advance with no prior sales commitment, so planning something completely new is always a challenge.

What is the next step for the company in this area?

We have some pretty exciting global partnerships going on with a rapidly growing family of action sports athletes, businesses and musicians. We’re also working on something pretty epic to collaborate with our clients, which we can’t reveal yet, but there’s a lot of progress.

Social media is an effective way for many businesses to improve brand awareness and affinity, which leads to new customers and greater retention of current customers. Landscaping Companies in particular have several built-in benefits for using social media platforms to their greatest brand building potential.

Here are some of the most important:

• Social media users love to consume and share visual content, and landscapers can produce all kinds of photos and videos to showcase their work.
• Social media users love to discover new products and services. Landscapers can share videos and photos of plantings that become available, horticultural tips and ideas, as well as up-to-date alerts on weather conditions and diseases harmful to local plants, flowers, lawns and trees.
• Social media users love to know more about promotions and specials. Landscapers can easily create platform-specific discounts and promotions that get followers excited and feel like they have the way forward.
• Social media users love to interact with brands, and landscapers can really strengthen their brands by inviting users to share comments and photos focused on landscaping challenges, successful landscaping jobs, and landscaping. other related issues. This allows clients to speak and helps establish the landscaper as an expert eager to share ideas and solutions.

Tips for taking full advantage of social media

With those ideas in mind, read on to discover specific actions and strategies landscapers can use to put social media to work.

Choose your platforms wisely

It’s important to know where your customers like to connect, and if you’re not sure, ask them. Facebook and Instagram are likely to be popular with customers as these are two platforms where visual content thrives. In terms of demographics, 77% of Gen Xers are likely to engage brands on Facebook, while 41% of Gen Z prefer Instagram.

Budget for videos and photography to showcase your work

Ideally, photos and videos will be professional or near-professional quality, as poor and hard to understand content could actually hurt your brand. Nevertheless, for a landscaping company, smooth videos that cost five figures to produce are way beyond customers’ expectations. Additionally, short videos (30 seconds to 2 minutes) are preferred for most social media platforms.

Post regularly, but not too regularly

Coherent communication is a big plus, as most social users follow many people and brands. If you are out of sight, you will certainly be out of mind. At the other extreme, if you post six times a day, you might be asking your subscribers to log out because the content is clogging their feeds.

One to two posts per day should be a good starting point for most landscaping companies. Keep in mind that a post can be just a photo with a brief description or just text that communicates a short but valuable message.

Market your presence on social networks

Building an audience is a big challenge for any small to medium sized business. Advertise your social media account widely and link to it where possible. The logo of a social media platform – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, etc. – is usually enough for people to understand that they can find your business page there. Add the logo to your email signature, letterhead, invoices, trucks, uniforms, giveaways, advertisements and anywhere you can.

Establish some measures of success

Engaging with customers on social media can be a lot of fun, but there should always be a clear business purpose. Good metrics for evaluating the performance of brand awareness and affinity campaigns include growth in the number of subscribers, comments, the number of times the content is shared, and the number of new customers that can be attributed to the company. engagement on social networks.

Don’t be discouraged if these statistics are modest at the start of a campaign. What matters most is whether the key metrics increase over a 6 to 12 month period. Also, keep in mind that if your business is seasonal, social media activity is likely to decline during winter and pick up as spring approaches.

Social media platforms are free to use, making them extremely economical for landscaping companies with scattered resources on advertising and other paid marketing campaigns. Social media marketing takes a little time to be successful, but with sustained effort it can be a powerful and profitable way to improve your brand.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Rebecca Purrington is an expert in promotional products with Crestline personalized promotional products. She has over five years of industry consultative sales experience and has degrees in Social / Behavioral Sciences and Business Management.

Apple’s power is now going after the rest of the fruit basket: The tech giant is trying to crush a meal-prep company’s offer to use a pear as a logo.

App Prepear used its parent company Super Healthy Kids to ask for help and signatures from the general public.

Mum co-founder and blogger Natalie Monson says Prepear has been running for about five years.

The stoush erupted when Prepear went to drop its logo.

Apple doesn’t have a bite of it.

In court documents aimed at blocking the brand, Apple says the pear is a threat to the “distinctiveness” of the company’s logo.

The apple takes particular shade to the pear leaf, which is at a right angle.

It “easily recalls Apple’s famous Apple logo and creates a similar business impression,” the documents say.

“The Apple brands are so famous and instantly recognizable that the similarities in the applicant’s mark will overshadow any difference and make the ordinary consumer believe that the applicant is related to, affiliated with or approved by Apple.”

See this post on Instagram

Dear Instagram friends, I NEED YOUR HELP! I know there is a lot going on in the world right now, and it’s nothing in comparison, but I need your help in a situation that is affecting me, my family and my colleagues. Please help yourself! Many of you know that I started a business called Prepear almost 5 years ago. It’s an app that lets you store all your recipes in one place, plan your meals, make shopping lists and have your groceries delivered to one place. Recently @apple yes the trillion dollar Apple decided to oppose and go after the trademark of our small business saying that our pear logo is too close to their apple logo and is supposed to harm their Mark ? This is a big blow for us at Prepear. To combat this, it will cost tens of thousands of dollars. The CRAZY thing is, Apple has done this to dozens of other small fruit logo companies, and many have chosen to ditch their logos or close doors. While the rest of the world is doing everything they can to help small businesses during this pandemic, Apple has chosen to go after our small business. I’m not trying to get anyone to stop using or buying Apple products. I feel a moral obligation to take a stand against Apple’s aggressive small business lawsuit and fight for the right to retain our logo. We’re defending ourselves against Apple not only to keep our logo, but to send a message to big tech companies that small business bullying has consequences. HOW YOU CAN HELP: 1 Sign the petition (link in my bio or in my stories) 2 Share this same link on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. http://chng.it/QPd2mRYW #savethepearfromapple

A publication shared by Healthy Kids Recipes • Routines (@superhealthykids) on Aug 7, 2020 at 12:56 p.m. PDT

Co-owner Russell Monson started a petition on Change.org to “Save the Apple Pear! End Apple’s Aggressive Opposition to Companies with Fruit Logos”- At the time of writing, the petition had only a few thousand signatures to reach its goal of 25,000.

“We are a very small company with only (five) team members, and the legal costs of our fight for the right of all small business owners to be able to develop their own logo without fear of frivolous litigation has already cost us. several thousand dollars. and the very sad dismissal of one of our team members, ”writes Russell.

“It’s a very terrifying experience to be legally attacked by one of the biggest companies in the world, even when we clearly haven’t done anything wrong, and we understand why most companies just give in and go. change their logos. “

Indeed, Apple has a habit of challenging logos of outfits smaller than it (which is pretty much any company) – including a Norwegian political party and a German apple-themed bike path. , who both used apples in their branded designs.

The heart of the argument

In addition to the logo’s similarities, Apple claims the nature of the app makes it even more threatening to the power of the i-company.

Prepear is a meal planning app that lets users collect, store, and categorize their favorite recipes – you know, to get ready for the food week ahead.

It is stored in the health section of the App Store.

Apple says it’s aligned as a health and wellness brand, and Prepear’s logo, combined with content on its app, is too similar to what Apple is known for, especially its Healthcare app. , which has a nutritional element.

Digital marketing agency moved to a bigger office when the economy plunged, but the work continues

Digital agency Brand Definition had just moved its offices when the coronavirus crackdown hit in March. The Northwest Portland company, known for its campaigns for LG monitors, Enterprise Ireland, JVC USA and Hitachi, had seen its lease in the old Albers mill and moved into spacious new digs to Field Office, the brand new office in two part building at 2035, NW Front Ave, just north of the Fremont Bridge.

However, unlike many companies in the media industry, Brand Definition did not put its 15 employees on leave. He kept them, working from home, producing scripts, videos and animations for social media campaigns.

Field Office is a ghost town right now, but CEO Daniel O’Connell was in the new office recently assembling the racks that will hold the cameras and lights in their new studio, which will be double the size of the old one. There are ottomans to make a seating area for a small audience, as if the old normal life would someday come back.

Since the technology is so affordable, in their old space the company created content, releasing 51 video podcasts called Output PDX, where they talked to technicians and creatives in Portland. This show will be relaunched in the new space, O’Connell said.

He unboxes one of the new Spark Plus IO 4K PTZ cameras that they have entered into with a client they represent, NewTek. Pan Tilt Zoom cameras allow a video director to create spectacular shots from a distance, while sitting behind the glass of a control panel – in the next office or across the world. Shots can be written as macros in the system controller, saving time and manpower. The new equipment is all about automating and improving the workflow. They use NewTek’s Network Device Interface app which, in theory, turns any phone into a reliable source of video for presentations.

It’s a new start. “The technology needed to be improved anyway, it was five years old,” O’Connell said. “But you walk into this space and you’re not going to do it halfway, are you?” ”

Keeping the studio live in Portland is important as it wants to continue tapping into local talent. “You can’t do it all remotely.”

And video for all

The content they are creating now, he calls it “almost personalized feeds” which speak, for example, of electronics maker LG, for the hospitality market. The content is aimed at the person who could buy thousands of TVs for a hotel chain and should persuade them to buy LG. It will never be seen by the public, but there is a lot at stake.

The new setup allows Brand Definitions staff to create sophisticated videos almost on the fly.

“Before, you really had to plan and set up the equipment. Now we can go in and express it right there. And if you’re wrong, you can go back and do it again.

O’Connell just had workers to install this studio glass and cut holes in the walls for the power and data cables. Cameras, mixer, editing suite, and storage all use a single connection, making setup simple.

The space is set up in such a way that the two small conference rooms can also be turned into studios in a plug-and-play fashion. It’s a good place to hold a virtual press conference, with speakers called remotely and backgrounds on green screens. The goal is for the studio to be able to be operated by one person during times of extreme social distancing, which may well happen in the future.

Recession strategy

O’Connell believes in long play. He will keep in touch with a sales manager for years to come in the hopes that one day they will do business together. He sees an advantage in being a small agency during a recession, as marketing is often the first thing to be taken from a company’s budget, and larger, more expensive agencies are more vulnerable. Its young employees are graduating from a communication school and already know how to edit videos. Currently three can do it at home using Final Cut and others use Adobe After Effects and Adobe Suite.

“If you position yourself as a very high-end consulting firm or a very expensive service provider, then you are the first to be cut. I like to think about how Volkswagen is handling its lineup.”

The line starts with SEAT at entry level, and goes up through Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche and Lamborghini.

“And we’re like Audi, at Volkswagen prices. We’re not the Porsche. But if you look at these cars, it’s all the same chassis, everything is made the same way, with the same platforms.”

The definition of a brand is partially protected from the recession because it is business-to-business. Mainstream brands are having a harder time now, as consumption has effectively been reduced to grocery and streaming media.

But he clings to the staff for the future.

“I keep my staff because they’re really hard to find. Getting out and replacing these people would be a very expensive proposition. You build something and you build it strong, hoping that downturn can strike anytime.”

Everything worked out well, with a contraction of 4.8% of GDP in the first quarter of 2020 and a national unemployment rate at 14.7%. 36 million jobs were lost in mid-May 2020.

“So when he hits you are in a decent position,” he said.

As for other digital agencies, “the big guys are all boastful. You will see their faces, they will tour the speakers, they will go to Davos. But it’s the middle tier and the lower tier of these big agencies that are disposable because clients are going to migrate. But the figureheads will be fine.

O’Connell, who is from Ireland, landed the PR contract for Enterprise Ireland, a state agency that supports Irish business interests in Ireland and abroad. They worked with Vigor Industrial to build the OE Buoy wave energy converter for Irish company Ocean Energy. It is now at the US Navy’s Wave Energy Test Site on the O’ahu Coast, generating electricity from the motion of the ocean.

Right now, they’re also making videos for businesses that need to learn how to use social media, give an online presentation, and use Salesforce, as traditional businesses scramble to digitize their communications. They are preparing a 10-part series on how to build social media for Enterprise Ireland, using Irish and American experts.

Brand Definition applied for a Small Business Administration loan during the first installment of scholarships, under the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program, and was successful. O’Connell won’t say how much they got other than saying it was “five digits.”

Joseph gallivan
Journalist, The Business Tribune
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