Branding Through Press Releases – Part I

Quick reference

• 00:05 Press releases are a great tool to build your brand credibility.
• 00:10 There's so much we need to discuss about branding.
• 00:13 Your brand credibility can be conveyed in four ways through press releases.
• 00:18 By using the logo or the image and then through marketing campaigns,
• 00:23 the vision of an organization can be shared as well as a couple of internal
• 00:27 operations that can be made known.
• 00:30 So, let's go ahead and look at each of these in detail.
• 00:34 The first way of communicating credibility is actually non-verbal and
• 00:38 that's just through a logo or an image.
• 00:41 Now given that this communication happens at a subconscious level,
• 00:46 the logo should be designed so as to convey the professionalism of the company.
• 00:52 A poorly designed logo, it goes without saying,
• 00:55 it will make people dismiss something outright.
• 00:58 So the logo should be included in a press release,
• 01:01 as well as on the company's website and on the product.
• 01:05 People will become familiar with this logo.
• 01:08 And eventually, they will come to prefer it over other brands.
• 01:12 Hence, why consistency is so important.
• 01:15 Now if you look at the new BP logo, it was launched back in 2000.
• 01:20 It was originally designed to win over environmentally aware customers.
• 01:25 And to achieve this aim at the time, what they did was they changed the slogan.
• 01:30 British Petroleum into Beyond Petroleum.
• 01:33 So, the greenness of the logo certainly communicates at
• 01:38 a subconscious level and it did achieve that result.
• 01:42 Now if you look at marketing campaigns, brand credibility is communicated
• 01:47 also verbally, for example, through the marketing campaign.
• 01:51 So here, the pricing and
• 01:53 the warranty of the product will affect the perception of the customers.
• 01:57 In fact, I relate quality directly to price.
• 02:01 So depending on the success of the marketing campaign, these aspects will
• 02:06 increase or can actually decrease the credibility of the product and the brand.
• 02:10 For example, a press release could actually announce an extension of
• 02:15 the warranty of the product and that will in turn.
• 02:18 Increase your brand credibility.
• 02:20 Let's take a look at the vision of the organization.
• 02:23 Brand credibility is communicated through the vision of the organization and
• 02:28 this should be clearly stated on on the website, and
• 02:31 in press releases where possible.
• 02:33 For example, there's the boiler plate area within a press release that gives
• 02:37 us an opportunity for that.
• 02:39 Really, there's three main aspects of the brand vision here.
• 02:43 We've got the values that will characterize us as a brand.
• 02:47 This is the companies beliefs about how business should be conducted.
• 02:51 For example, honesty or prioritizing customers needs and so forth and
• 02:56 then we've got the brand vision for the future and
• 03:00 they should spend ten years ahead showing how the company and
• 03:04 its products will fit in the changed future environment.
• 03:08 And then of course, we've got the purpose of the brand and this is not solely
• 03:13 related to profit, rather we should state how the brand is going to make the world
• 03:18 a better place and any of these aspects can be used to frame the press release.
• 03:23 For example, if a technology report announces that in ten years time,
• 03:28 70% of vehicles will need to be electric in order to reduce pollution.
• 03:33 How is the vision of your company going to fit with this change in the environment?
• 03:40 Now internal operations is interesting,
• 03:43 because brand credibility is communicated through internal operations and
• 03:48 this must reflect quite clearly how the company is going to deliver its region and
• 03:54 whether it has achieved what it had set out to do.
• 03:58 Business and performance reports are equally suitable topics for
• 04:02 the press release.
• 04:03 This will increase the brand credibility,
• 04:06 as well as provide some publicity on the matter.
• 04:09 Now if we look at the example of BP again following the deep water arise and
• 04:14 oil spill that was back in 2010,
• 04:17 BP actually developed a great deal of effort to regain brand credibility.
• 04:23 However, to truly live up to this green vision that they portray and
• 04:28 the green vision was to explore new ways of living without oil.
• 04:33 BP should not have invested in Deepwater Horizon and
• 04:36 continued to produce fossil fuels in the first place.
• 04:39 In fact, far from being authentic, their branding merely consisted in
• 04:44 creating a new acronym to appeal to environmental individuals.
• 04:49 The question is did they deliver on that?
• 04:51 So the crisis altogether with the discrepancy with BP's brand vision and
• 04:57 what they actually did may well, of course, a big loss for this company.
• 05:02 So this is certainly something to think about and I would encourage you
• 05:07 that you consider branding as part of your press release strategy, and think
• 05:12 every step of the way how can we also act in good faith towards our own brand.

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