Branding… When campaign conversion fails
Unfortunately, this is a lame, lame excuse.
At one of the conferences I spoke at in the past two years, I talked a little bit about branding – it does work if you have a good concept of what you are doing.
Sticking an ad up on the site is not branding. Sending an email is not branding. Getting a radio or TV spot is not branding.
Getting all of them at the same time and properly coordinating things IS branding.
At the end, one casino operator said to me, “Branding is just an excuse for you portals to get more advertising money from us” or words to that effect.
My response was, “Have I ever asked you to advertise with Got2Bet?”
To which there was a muted, mumbled “no”.
That casino operator was one of our main affiliate programs at the time too – so to put it bluntly, he put his foot in it big-time.
Branding is a very detailed, comprehensive operation with a specific goal in mind. It can certainly be measured in general terms, but not specific terms.
I know that some affiliates, portal operators, and ESPECIALLY media companies love to talk about branding – which is why the casino operators complain. And most of these do not even have any inkling what branding is, so I don’t blame operators for thinking that branding is just spending money.
But the truth of the matter is, branding is an art. In the end, do not allow anyone to sell “branding” to you without a comprehensive plan and achievable, measurable objectives which do not include “visibility”, “clickthroughs” or “exposure” as selling points. The result must be measured by ROI in terms of increased activity and deposits over the specified timeframe – and must not fall back to the same levels after the campaign is over.