A few weeks ago while getting started on a project, a client of ours was describing their brand. They started by saying they were in the tech/healthcare industry and that they wanted to have an animation about their product play at an upcoming trade show. Pretty common for us.
As we got started with learning more about the brand and how we could help exactly, they uttered a phrase I’ve heard many times while talking to similar companies:
“Our brand is a little boring so let’s not do anything too fancy.”
Yeah. This is how people feel about the companies they work for sometimes. I couldn’t help but wonder why they felt that way. Did they try “something new” in the past but get stonewalled by senior management? Or were they just afraid to make something that didn’t appeal to a wide enough audience?
Now, most health companies do in fact have more conservative branding that simply wouldn’t match some styles of design or animation, but does a conservative brand have to be boring?
No. Conservative brands don’t have to be boring and frankly, they shouldn’t be.
“Boring”, doesn’t get people’s attention.
“Boring”, doesn’t make people talk.
“Boring”, doesn’t make people buy things.
All of which are the main goals of marketing and advertising in the first place.
So, how can your conservative brand less boring? Here are 3 ways to delight your audience:
1. Change how your content is viewed.
There is no right or wrong way to share information with people, but after so long of delivering content a specific way to your audience, you might be losing their attention. What do you think would happen if you changed up how they watch or read your content?
Despite what you may think, the web isn’t the only place your content can be viewed by your audience. Think about how the following ideas may work for your brand:
- Projection mapping – No surface is off-limits for video using projection mapping technology.
- Print – Wait, isn’t print dead? If you believe print is dead, then you just haven’t been using it the right way. A great message, no matter the medium will grow your audience.
- Email – You can/should deliver valuable content to your audience through email.
- Webinar – A more personal touch is to deliver your content to individuals with a webinar.
There’s plenty of other ideas out there but this should get you thinking in the right direction.
2. Tell a story.
Nothing connects people as story does. One of the go-to moves for conservative companies is to use a goofy explainer animation that details their product. Sure, it’s probably useful to some people, but you must connect with your audience on a deeper level to be less boring.
Boring brands tend to state facts and have a ton of legal copy on their end tag. Something all great advertising does is to make people feel things rather than simply be told things.
Check out this article for more info on telling a great story with your brand.
3. Don’t do something because everyone else does.
Lastly, don’t so something just because everyone else in your industry does something.
One of the rules of great advertising is that you should work to separate your brand from your competition. One way to do that is to share content differently than they do, using a different tone, different colors, different audio, and different visuals.
Part of the creativity needed for working with a conservative brand is finding out how to stay on-brand while not being boring. It’s possible, you just have to look.
