Brand Relevance

Introduction:
Brand relevance is about your brand being and staying significant in the minds of your consumers. It is about being able to deliver an outward promise to your customer that goes beyond your mere product and service. Being relevant means that your brand connects and resonates with the consumers, educates them, and provides them with a deeper meaning to their life.

Brand Relevance:
Achieving brand relevance, today, is much harder than perceived since traditional marketing strategies are no longer effective enough. Brand relevance includes a much more thorough understanding of your consumer, your market, and your brand. After reviewing these analyses, a company’s response and strategy to obtain brand relevance is a fundamental success factor.

Gaining awareness in itself is a challenging task, in that your brand must be exposed through the increasingly popular channels today, including all media and social marketing outlets. The message you deliver through these marketing channels will begin your path to achieving brand relevance.

Your company’s message is your company’s promise. Brand relevance means that your promise is authentic and differentiated; your consumers will overlook the price and the competitors to remain loyal to your brand, in the short and long term and throughout all stages of the economic cycle.

Also contributing to brand relevance is the meaning behind your brand: what it stands for and how committed and consistent it is in conveying that meaning to the general public. These days, consumers look past brands that only market for short- term profits; those brands become irrelevant, very quickly. Instead, they are attracted to brands that strive for that consumer connection by expressing themselves through diverse means, while maintaining their roots. Brands that are constantly re-inventing themselves and challenging their consumers, while being consistent in delivering their promise are the ones that become relevant in their respective product categories.

Final Thoughts:
Brand relevance is often an overlooked objective in marketing plans. Many companies are quick to assume that strategies being recycled year after year have already established themselves as being relevant in the market. Unfortunately, with an ever evolving society, including new technologies and fresher marketing channels, old- fashioned marketing tactics are becoming weaker and weaker.

More than ever, today’s aggressive market poses the urgent need for brand relevance. Companies must look beyond their comfort zones and learn to take risks to be differentiated and unique. As well, the brand relevance objective and initial promise must be consistently revisited and pursued diligently.