Part 1 of Article published in Kenya Institute of Management magazine by KinConsult CEO

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Managing Your Brand in a Digital Environment (Part 1)
Behavior Change
Behavioral change, although silent, is necessary and evident in an environment that is rapidly
incorporating digital technology in all aspects. With the deployment of mobile and internet
communication, how information is disseminated has changed drastically in terms of reach and
speed. A revolution occurs when society adopts new behaviors and it is imperative that
companies and organization come up with strategies in line with the new modes of
communication for their brands. Otherwise they will be caught flat footed using outdated
media and consequently, their brand messaging will not resonate with their audience. The
launching of broadband internet access comes with anticipation for a more affordable internet
access that is fast and reliable for the Kenyan community at large. Anyone who is managing a
brand needs to anticipate and react to the tectonic shift in the digital arena.
What is in a Brand?
A brand is collectively what people say, feel and think about your product, service or
organization. In this new era of digital media communication, your brand will increasingly be
about what is searched for digitally. If a brand is an asset, then a great brand translates into a
great story that end-users can identify with. Individual and national brands were enhanced in
the recently completed world athletic championship. Usain Bolt of Jamaica was an individual
brand that propelled his value and that of Jamaica as a country that not only produces fiery
jerk chicken but also exceptional sprinters. Kenya was not left out because if you talk to
anyone outside Kenya, the brand Kenya is synonymous with long distance running, as was
confirmed in the mentioned world athletic championship.
Digital Environment
Media communication is now moving away from push marketing to pull marketing. Push
marketing refers to messaging that is disseminated outwardly in the hope that the audience
will decipher your messaging, case in point a television broadcast. Pull marketing has more to
do with inbound marketing where you are pulling your audience to come to your repository of
information. A case in point is sending out e-mail messaging that encourages your audience to
visit your website to get more information about your products and services.
The core characteristic of any digital environment is that it is electronic. This is probably the
most exciting time to be marketing and selling your products. There is a shift from push to pull
marketing which is creating both challenges for marketers and opportunities to engage
consumers in new ways that start lasting, profitable relationships with them.
Battle of the 3 screens:
This battle in the digital arena has been taken to the 3 screens in developed countries. The 3
screens are television, computer and mobile phone. The television is a vestige of the old
media whereby communication is in monologue. A message is set up and broadcasted to the
masses without an interactive process. The dawn of a new era comes with new media that is in
the form of a dialogue with the intended audience, thereby eliciting direct feedback. In the
context of Kenya, new media is lead by cell phone usage. Broadband technology will hopefully
expose more people to computers and laptops and thereby take a more interactive process.

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Evolutions of brand building
In terms of old media, think of a bill board advertising Kenya as a tourist destination for Marlin
fishing in Watamu placed in the middle of New York Time Square, the busiest street in the
world. This is all very well and good as there will be traffic that will pass by, and, depending
on their level of interest, they will read and act on the message and perhaps book a trip
sometime in the future. The characteristic of the billboard message is that it is static. The
message will not change during the time the bill board is out there. The messaging is not
targeted and will only be broadcast to whoever passes by the billboard. Conversely, with new
digital media, think of John Smith, an American in Ohio who is on his computer and is doing a
search on “Marlin Fishing” on his search engine of choice such as Google. Let us suppose an ad-
copy on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) pops up showing Watamu in Kenya as a
destination for Marlin fishing. He clicks on the caption and he is taken to a wonderful web
page where he is given more information on fishing for marlin in Kenya. This process of
ensuring your information is relevant when people search for information related to your core
business is helpful in terms of sales and branding. If more companies and institutions in Kenya
embraced new media to disseminate their information about their core business, they stand to
gain by improving their sales and branding.
To examine the evolution of media, let us look at a Daily Nation article that is published both
in print and on their website. The article in print will represent old media whereas the web
article will represent new media. The article on the nation print media has the characteristic
of being a static monologue. It is static in the sense that you cannot change the write up or
recall the article in case of errors. Instead you will have to correct the errors in the following
publication. However the same article published online can be corrected quickly since it is in
digital format. The article on the internet also has a forum that creates a dialogue in that
people can give their feedback and comments directly to the editors and those reading the
article can see the various feedback and comments. If they like the article so much they can
even forward the article to their friends using various forms of digital media. They can e-mail
it, publish it on their facebook profile, or even use twitter to disseminate the information.
From that one article, a dialogue is created where the reader of the article can give immediate
feedback to the article, share it with friends and discuss the article with their peers, thus
creating a viral component of communication. This example shows that new media has various
touch points and is fluid and dynamic in engagement. That begs the question: if you had an
advertisement or message in this day and age, wouldn’t it be better to craft a message and
leverage the reach of digital media? Think of old media as the shot gun approach where you
shoot out the message and hope it reaches as many people as you want without knowing the
exact metrics of your target audience. New media is more like a laser gun where you pick out
your target and you are able to target your messaging to your intended audience.
Next publication I will tackle the characteristics of digital media and strategies you can
leverage to ensure your organization remains relevant in this new environment. The writer can
be reached by e-mail at kinoti@kinconsult.com or on twitter @kinconsult for any feedback or
comments.