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Retail Marketing

How to be smarter with localisation in retail marketing

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Papirfly
6 minutes read

The importance of localizsation

Growing a new brand to become a household name can take years, if not decades, to achieve. But with successful localisation, you don’t have to rebuild your brand identity and consumer trust completely from scratch when launching in a new market.

For a brand to be truly global, it needs to be able to reach consumers anywhere in the world, unlock doors to new markets, be prepared to take on local competition and tap into the buying habits of different audiences. 

As anyone in touch with the modern marketing landscape will know, this takes more than just translating the copy on your products, communications and assets into the relevant languages — as we’ve already covered on the Papirfly Knowledge hub, doing this puts you at risk of making some embarrassing marketing faux pas.

Even at a time when marketers are well aware of the importance of localisation, a study from the CMO Council revealed that despite 63% of marketers being unsatisfied with their localisation efforts, 75% allocate less than a tenth of their budget to improving them.

For successful localisation in any local market, it’s essential to factor in a number of considerations, including:

Cultural sensitivities

Probably the most obvious and definitely one of the most important things to consider before releasing any kind of marketing material in a different market is the associations, nuances or dual meanings it may have there. 

Certain imagery that works well in one local market may be inappropriate or offensive in another. The tagline you’ve been running from day one may not translate as intended or it could even be a local term for something else entirely. For the sake of a few extra checks with local teams, there’s nothing worse than having to pull your hard work because it’s offensive to the very audience you are trying to engage.

There are a surprising number of occasions when big-name brands have got this wrong. Including the time clothing retailer GAP had to apologise to China after releasing a printed t-shirt showing an incorrect map that missed out several of its claimed territories. As well as being aware of long-standing cultural nuances, the impact of significant local events can change the meanings and associations of certain words and phrases. For example, retailers in Australia have to be sensitive about how they promote Black Friday sales as this is also the name given to one of the most devastating bushfires in the country’s history in 1939. It’s one of the reasons that Black Friday sales have only recently taken off and remains predominantly online.

Localising your message

Even when you’ve checked that your translated marketing materials say what you intended, it doesn’t mean they have the same meaning to local consumers. Your brand may be universally recognised, and your products purchased for the same reasons (taste, quality, price etc…), your messaging needs to be unique in every market to get those selling points across in the best way possible.

To get this right, it’s vital that you understand your audience’s buying habits, behaviours and pain points. This will help you tweak your messaging in a way that remains on brand, but resonates better with local consumers.

Seasonal changes and local events

To stay relevant and front-of-mind, brands need to respond to what’s happening in every market they operate in. This means reacting to seasonal changes as well as bouts of unusual weather such as heatwaves, snow and storms, with relevant product promotions.

Being aware of location-specific events like sports contests, music festivals and local traditions create opportunities for brands to respond with promotions of relevant products and messaging.

Hyperlocal culture

A single localisation strategy for each country may not be enough to reach all the different audiences within it. Even when the language doesn’t change, cultural nuances can be completely different between counties, states and regions.

This means that a blanket approach to localisation won’t work. To avoid excluding swathes of consumers, make use of regional teams who understand the needs and wants of audiences in their local area.

Local teams

From an outsider’s perspective, it is almost impossible to gain an in-depth understanding of particular locations and pick up on all the cultural nuances that often become the central idea of the best advertising campaigns.

The best way to make sure that your brand is landing in a local market is to employ the expertise of teams who work there. 

In 2020, Deliveroo used hyper-localisation as the premise for its ‘virtual neighbourhoods’ to ensure they had 100% coverage in every area in which they operate. By building maps around local restaurants, they have been able to accurately geo-target campaigns for specific areas. It also meant they could automatically create new campaigns for local audiences whenever they launched in a new location.

How to make localisation seamless

The points above may seem like a lot to consider, especially if you are planning on taking your brand to every country across the globe. When you have a solid localisation strategy in place, innovative tools can help take the stress away from head office and give local teams the autonomy they need to implement your strategy with innovative features:

Integrate your PIM/ERP with marketing tools 

Bringing your product information management (PIM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) together and making them accessible in one location, empowers local teams to take control of pricing, stock levels, SKUs, variations, inventory options and distribution.

Working from a centralised portal, teams can more easily work together to make informed decisions using relevant data, while keeping senior-level teams in the head office in the loop. It’s a failsafe way to ensure that product variables are consistent.

Common product variables that are important for your marketing 

Capitalise on direct marketing

In unusually hot weather or the upcoming final of a major sports event, marketing teams need to respond fast to meet the sudden changes in consumer demand. 

These are often market-specific and local teams need to achieve fast turnaround times while ensuring that the materials they produce are the correct format, accurate and on-brand. With intelligent templates, pre-set to on and offline formats, they have everything they need to bring asset creation in-house and work within the strict parameters of your brand.

Don’t forget in-store assets

So that local stores are ready to promote local events, stock clearances and take full advantage of other time-sensitive opportunities, retail teams need a seamless way to produce printed in-store marketing materials.

Using simple creation software they can create professional in-store materials in minutes, define templates that are set up in the correct standardised formats for print and digital, and are pre-populated with the most up-to-date brand elements such as logos, colours and taglines.

Embrace local formats

As well as automated formatting for standardised social media assets such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, the tools you are using to localise your brand needs to account for local formats.

This means that teams can instantly set their marketing materials to the correct sizes for the local newspaper, print and digital format sizes.

Empower your local teams

Two key components of successful brand localisation are accuracy and speed. When you have a clear understanding of different markets across the globe, and your local teams have the tools they need to achieve great work, your brand can react fast to changing demands in specific locations.

However, these two key components come with two key challenges. When your internal teams are overworked or you rely on outsourcing from external agencies, both speed and accuracy can grind to a halt.

The best way to overcome these challenges is by empowering your teams with a simple way to produce assets in-house and automate repetitive, time-consuming tasks.

Automate content delivery at speed and scale

Tools like BAM by Papirfly™ have a suite of innovative features that help teams to create digital and print assets within dedicated templates. Easy to use and always on-brand. No expert skills are needed. As well as making your team’s lives easier, these features give marketing managers in head offices complete oversight of live campaigns and the ability to react quickly to take advantage of trends and opportunities.

Get smart with localisation and BAM

Table of contents:

  1. Cultural sensitivities
  2. Localising your message
  3. Seasonal changes and local events
  4. Hyperlocal culture
  5. Local teams
  6. How to make localisation seamless
  7. Empower your local teams
Retail Marketing

Establishing good brand governance in retail

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Papirfly
6 minutes read

From online stores and social marketplaces to virtual shopping experiences and more, the number of retail marketing avenues to monopolise on has exploded, and there are more opportunities than ever for retail marketers to reach potential customers.

In today’s retail marketing landscape, pace, demand and scope have made setting a single set of guidelines and enforcing them globally very difficult to execute. In this article, we’ll explore the key elements of brand governance in retail, and where brand strategies should be focused on in the near future.

What does brand governance look like in 2021?

Applying more flexibility to brand governance does not mean going off-brand. While it’s necessary to adapt your guidelines for different platforms, sub-brands and territories, an underlying thread of consistency is still absolutely vital.

Brand trust and authenticity are delivered through consistency. When consumers become used to receiving your messaging, products and services in a certain way, you begin building a relationship. Should this messaging or brand be delivered differently, and without good reason, it could damage the way they perceive you. 

Research shows that a brand has a very short window to make a first impression, and it takes 5-7 impressions to start creating brand awareness.

To monitor every piece of marketing material or campaign asset across the world to make sure this first impression is right the first time, every time is a nearly impossible task. But the demands that have been placed on teams during the pandemic has meant that consistency for consumers has never been so important.

Where should marketers focus their attention?

Brand guidelines

Sure, you’ve already got a set of brand guidelines. But when was the last time you really looked at them? Since they were first created, has your business made any big decisions that could now make them redundant?

Could company decisions have impacted your brand guidelines? 

  • Has it made any major changes?
  • Started rolling out new seasonal marketing?
  • Realigned its core values?
  • Launched new products?
  • Updated its approach to customer service?
  • Introduced new sub-brands or initiatives?
  • Opened shop in new locations?

If the answer is yes to any of these, then your guidelines are probably in need of an update.

Your teams may already be crystal clear on how your brand presents itself, but what about your company as a whole, including teams in other markets and departments? To achieve global brand consistency it’s vital that everyone in your company has access to up-to-date and relevant brand guidelines.

The results of outdated brand guidelines or a lack of access to them, will quickly lead to inconsistencies in your product information, pricing and communications. Muddled messaging, unfamiliar looking product packaging and major price differences will leave customers feeling confused and your brand appearing unreliable.

Pricing

Brand governance and price positioning are more closely aligned than you might think. While governance strengthens brand consistency, price positioning strengthens the perceived value of your product. When you have multiple brands and products going to market across the globe, your pricing needs to align with the perceived value in each location. The implications of getting this wrong can undo all the hard work that has gone into your brand marketing.

Any good brand activation management tool will have a PIM and ERP integration feature that helps your teams to centralise product information including descriptions and prices, and allow you to import this data into your marketing (with all content correct) without needing any manual input.

Streamlined product data

Product data is all the information about a product that can be read, measured and structured into a usable format. It can do some wonderful things for retail marketers.

Organised product data can…

✅ Help you create competitive pricing online

✅ Compile product metadata
✅ Give sales teams relevant information

✅ Improve commercial decision-making 

The key to getting the best use of your data relies on your ability to organise what’s relevant to specific teams and make it easily accessible from one location. Again, most good Brand Activation Management portals will help you centralise this easily

In-store challenges

Retail marketing is always changing to adapt to new trends and consumer demands. But the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have caused monumental shifts in the way we shop in-store.

One of the top strategies for high street retailers has been to merge their online and in-store shopping experiences. More consumers now expect a seamless, hyper-personalised experience whenever they shop, and new technology has made this possible with app-based loyalty schemes, click and collect, personalised recommendations and more.

Effective brand governance is vital in implementing a seamless connection between these online and offline worlds. Without it, customers will be faced with misalignment between their experience shopping with a brand online and in-store.

Online challenges

Although the events of 2020 saw more consumers than ever before adopting online shopping as the norm, this hasn’t come without its challenges.

More online shopping platforms, along with competition from e-commerce giants like Amazon, mean that traditional in-store retailers have had to go above and beyond to meet the high expectations of consumers in the post-pandemic retail landscape.

Brand governance has played a vital role in making this possible. The core values of your brand are what attract your customers to your stores in the first place. Rolling out your brand’s messaging across multiple platforms and letting consumers see consistent, instantly recognisable traits both online and offline gives traditional retailers a physical, personal presence that giants such as Amazon have yet to establish.

Optimising approvals processes

Once a brand has solid governance and consistent alignment, teams need to be able to react fast to put it into practice. However, rushing to get a product to market on time is likely to increase the chances of error.

Having a clear approvals process where all changes can be monitored by key stakeholders not only makes life easier for your teams, but also means that you can react to demands, implement promotions and launch new products with speed and confidence. The key to a successful approvals process is ensuring it’s digitised where possible.

Which features to look out for when choosing a brand activation management tool

Template creation

If you have multiple teams producing retail assets, then templates are a failsafe way to ensure that everything stays on-brand, culturally relevant and consistent with specific campaigns.

Brochure creation


Never underestimate the power of print. With a creation suite built for producing both digital and printed assets, you can roll out a range of materials all with the correct branding, product names, features and prices. Bonus points for a localisation feature that can make your marketing tailored to local territories.

PIM & ERP system integration

As noted earlier in this article, keeping thousands of product variations consistent is much easier when you have up-to-the-minute product data at your disposal. With the right tool, you can use PIM & ERP integration to import information such as top-line USPs, and update packaging and cost information. 

Digital signage

When the pressure is on to roll out new assets in your stores, digital signage is a great way to get your messaging out there, and fast. A tool with capabilities to upload assets to in-store screens directly from one system will help cut to-market turnaround times even further.

What’s next for brand governance in retail?

The world is moving faster every day. Teams are producing more content than ever. Hitting targets rests on the shoulders of central marketing teams. It’s integral to increase speed to market without compromising brand governance and consistency. But with disconnected teams across the globe, multiple agencies involved and disparate budgets, bringing powerful production tools into the mix will be a transformative move for retail marketers everywhere. It won’t be overnight, but when technology is embraced, workflows are re-imagined, productivity is increased and teams can deliver more on-brand campaigns than ever before.

BAM makes brand governance possible

We hope this has given you some new and helpful insights into establishing strong brand governance, and how a Brand Activation Management (BAM) tool can revolutionise your retail marketing processes. The challenges faced by retailers are growing, and as the landscape shifts on a daily basis teams should make their production process digitised, streamlined and future-proofed.Learn more about the BAM by Papirfly™ solution for retail brands and marketers. 

Table of contents:

  1. What does brand governance look like in 2021?
  2. Where should marketers focus their attention?
  3. BAM makes brand governance possible
Marketing

Adapting your tone of voice to make an impact in every market

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Papirfly
4 minutes read

When your brand is accessible to consumers across the globe, it can become an overwhelming task to ensure that your marketing comes across as it was intended. Without a translation process, you risk undermining any attempt to instil trust and loyalty between consumers and your brand.

If your brand wants to be truly global, it needs to speak in many languages and adapt to the cultural norms of many different countries.

Brand translation blunders

Relying on literal translations of names and marketing taglines may seem like the most obvious pitfall in a global campaign rollout. But you’d be surprised at just how many brands have fallen victim to some embarrassing marketing faux pas as a result. In no particular order, here are 8 of the biggest mistakes to learn from:

#1 Canned and frozen foods company, The Jolly Green Giant, has been a friendly face in the US and the UK since the 1960s. However, when the brand was translated in Arabic, their beloved mascot inadvertently became the “Intimidating Green Ogre”.

#2 KFC’s long-standing “finger-licking good” tagline became much less appetising when it was directly translated into Chinese as “eat your fingers off”.

#3 In Italy, the quintessentially British gin and tonic didn’t sound so refreshing after a major translation fail by Schweppes… “gin and toilet water” anyone?

#4 Pepsi is another example of a big brand translation blunder. Its tagline, “Pepsi brings you back to life” became terrifyingly literal in Chinese, translating as “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave”.

#5 Parker spelt out the obvious when they tried to tell the Mexican market that their new ballpoint pens “won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you”. By confusing the Spanish for ‘embarrass’ with ‘embarzar’, they ended up reassuring audiences that their pens “won’t leak in your pocket and impregnate you.”

#6 Without a basic knowledge of Portugese Brazilian colloquialisms, Ford made the mistake of launching the Ford Pinto – ‘pinto’ being a local slang term meaning ‘tiny male genitals’.

#7 Coors is another brand that didn’t account for colloquialisms when its slogan, “Turn It Loose,” translated into Spanish as an informal term for having diarrhoea.

#8 Paxam, an Iranian consumer goods company, marketed their laundry soap in English speaking markets using the Farsi word for “snow,” resulting in shelves of packs labelled “Barf Soap.”

Translate the message, not just the words

Despite the numerous examples above, all it takes is a simple check by a native or fluent speaker to avoid an embarrassing, not to mention costly, mistake. However, this doesn’t guarantee that your brand won’t be lost in translation — even if your messaging is correct from a linguistic point of view, it can still fall flat and lifeless as a marketing campaign.

Most often, a basic translation will lack the humour, emotion or catchiness created in the original creative. This highlights the importance of understanding what makes the campaign resonate with local audiences and how to capture it in local dialects. 

We’ve already had a list of brands who have got translation horribly wrong, so to balance things out, here are some success stories:

Haribo

For years, confectionery brand Haribo has run its undoubtedly catchy jingle with the line ‘Kids and grownups love it so, the happy world of Haribo’. Retaining meaning is one thing, but ensuring that the tagline also hits the right beats in a memorable jingle presents a host of new challenges. Despite this, Haribo has managed to balance consistency and catchiness across numerous markets.

In Germany, for example, where the direct translation sounds odd and clunky alongside the music, the slogan was adapted to “Haribo macht Kinder froh, und Erwachsene ebenso”, meaning “Haribo makes children happy, and grownups too”. Not only does this roll-off the tongue better for German-speaking audiences, but it fits the tune perfectly. This meticulous consistency means that the brand sounds and feels the same wherever its products are being advertised.

Hawes and Curtis

In an article for Marketing Week, Simon Kinsey, Commercial Director at TranslateMedia, shared some insight on the differences between translating brand tone of voice in UK and German markets, using shirt makers, Hawes and Curtis as an example. 

“Germans expect greater formality in tone and they value seriousness far more than the Brits. In the UK it’s culturally important not to seem stuffy or over formal, and people are mainly obsessed with dressing in a way that’s appropriate for the occasion”.

These cultural nuances can be seen in the differences between product descriptions for each market. On the company’s German site, the product descriptions highlight ‘precision engineering’ and ‘excellent workmanship’, whereas on the UK site, there is more of a focus on shirts being ‘fashionable’ and ‘effortless’. 

By picking up on these subtle cultural differences between UK and German consumers, Hawes and Curtis are able to address which selling points resonate best for each audience.

Starbucks

Translation isn’t all about copy. Your brand’s visual language also needs to be understood as intended and accommodate local cultural nuances.

For Starbucks launching in Saudi Arabia back in 1992, this meant the iconic Siren was removed from their logo — instead, just her crown remained floating on the waves. The logo has remained the same since, despite the original Siren logo being present in more liberal neighbouring states.

For any brand launching in a new market, it’s important to consider and understand how cultural sensitivities can change the meaning of both written and visual elements of your communications.

Top tips for effective brand translation

Hire a native speaker who is also fluent in marketing

A reliable translator is essential for making sure that your message is understood, and for avoiding any embarrassing miscommunications. But to be sure that your campaign can make an impact, linguistic skills need to be combined with marketing expertise.

Understand cultural nuances 

Relationships between brands and consumers are built on emotional connections. These are best achieved when a campaign is able to tap into culturally relevant insights that resonate with your audience.

Avoid using niche turns of phrase

Colloquialisms are notoriously difficult to translate. For example, using phrases like ‘raining cats and dogs’ might be a common term in the UK but is likely to set your campaign up for confusion in any other market.

Use culturally relevant images

Imagery is its own language and will take on a different meaning in different cultural contexts. What may be striking and powerful in one country, may come across as insulting or insensitive in another. This is where research and local knowledge is invaluable.

Table of contents:

  1. Brand translation blunders
  2. Translate the message, not just the words
  3. Top tips for effective brand translation
Employer Branding

Culture without chaos: 5 creative ways to showcase your company’s way of life

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Luis Cupertino
4 minutes read

Emulating your brand’s core values has always been at the heart of securing and engaging top candidates. But as uptake in the hybrid working model increases, it’s becoming more important to find standout ways to communicate company culture without in-person interactions.

There is a common misconception that company culture is something that can’t always be accurately described, or that it can only be felt when you’re settled into a role. However, with new tools, better communication and the right approach, brands can showcase their company culture in practical, tangible ways regardless of where their employees are working from.

The current state of company culture 

In a study by Glassdoor, 77% of 5,000 respondents would consider a company’s culture before applying for a job there. Over half of them said it’s more important than salary when it comes to job satisfaction.

Building culture into the everyday fabric of your business will ensure that it’s present in all employee touchpoints — through onboarding, during their day-to-day work and even after they part ways with the business. This means that everything your brand makes, says or does has to be infused with its overarching purpose.

In a recent report, 90% of people said that brands must do everything they can to protect the well-being and financial security of their employees even if it means suffering big financial losses until the pandemic ends. And 66% of consumers consider elements like company culture and employee welfare as factors that determine whether they buy from one brand over another. 

This is part of an overall move towards value-based loyalty and further proof that company culture is directly linked to business success.

 

The human gap left by remote working

With the myriad of online messaging and video conferencing software available, it’s easy to rely on technology to bring your teams closer together. While these tools have been a game-changer for the modern-day corporate landscape in terms of communication and the streamlining of collaborative processes, they are not enough on their own to connect employees in a way that builds company culture.

To help employees feel part of your overarching brand purpose, you need to do more than make sure that everyone can jump on a Zoom or Teams call. Company culture is built on understanding the human needs of your employees, making them feel aligned with your goals and expressing authentic appreciation of their efforts.

 

Get your company culture noticed 

Your company culture may be ingrained into the thinking and everyday behaviour of long-standing employees, but to keep up momentum and instil the same values in new talent, it’s vital to bring fresh ways to make them seen and heard by everyone — for culture to be tangible, it first needs to be noticed. 

As remote working, hiring and onboarding becomes commonplace, companies have had to get more creative about how they share what’s great about working for them. 

In the case of company culture statements, the phrase “actions speak louder than words” rings especially true… for people to believe the values written on your company website, and for your employees to take them on board, you need to show them what it looks like day-to-day.

 

5 ways to prove your company culture

#1 Employee spotlight posts for new starters

new-employee spotlight post

As well as showing appreciation for individual employees, spotlights are a great way to give potential candidates the opportunity to learn a little more about the people they’ll be working with.

An employee spotlight can be created in a number of ways — from short quotes to videos — but generally they are a one-to-one interview covering topics such as company culture, accomplishments, success stories, passion projects, perks and benefits, and something unique about themselves in the context of their work. While providing prompts can be helpful, it’s important to avoid sounding scripted or forced.

#2 Behind the scenes 

employee behind the scenes post

Give the world an insight of what day-to-day life is like working in your company. By focusing on specific teams within your business, you can show the authenticity of your company culture and demonstrate how your employees practice what your brand values preach.

#3 Invest in tools that counteract loneliness for remote workers

tools that counteract isolation for remote workers

While we mentioned the fact that software shouldn’t be the only thing that brings your team together, there are a number of tools with less focus on productivity and more emphasis on wellbeing. For example, Fond gives remote employees somewhere to go when they need a morale boost from their team.

#4 Recognise and reward value-centric behaviours

recognise and reward value-centric behaviours

Give employees the opportunity to earn rewards for more than just work performance. This helps to reinforce culture by demonstrating that they are valued on an equal level to profits. This could include peer-voting (where employees can nominate co-workers for encapsulating what their brand stands for), written recognition in newsletters, or feature pages on your website.

#5 Teach your values in orientation and training

company values training

Incorporating company values into formal training or orientation is an effective way to communicate what matters. It means that new employees are familiar with what your brand stands for from the get-go and gives them context on how it can be instilled in the work they do every day.

Table of contents:

  1. The current state of company culture
  2. The human gap left by remote working
  3. Get your company culture noticed
  4. 5 ways to prove your company culture
Corporate communications

Social media and corporate communications – a perfect combo?

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Jessica Chambers
6 minutes read

When social media networks began, they were a means for people to keep up with friends and meet others with shared interests. But it was never going to be long before brands got involved in the hopes of securing these same powerful connections with their target audience.

As much as it can infuriate us sometimes, we can’t escape the influence of social media. Internet users spend over 30% of their time online browsing through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and the numerous other social media platforms available to them. Time that brands can harness to create a connection.

But what exactly is the role of social media in business communications, both internally and externally? And how can organisations bring both together to reap the greatest benefits from this partnership? 

How has social media changed business communications?

In many people’s eyes, the use of social media for corporate communications has dragged the processes out of the dark ages and into the future.

Between January 2015 to April 2018, 64% of FTSE 100 companies used Twitter to communicate their earnings news and other prominent business news to their audiences, something that even just a couple of decades ago would probably be reserved to shareholders and an internal memo.

This is just one example of how social media has changed the game for business communications. Organisations of any size, industry or reach now are compelled to employ these social-sharing platforms to inform and educate their audience, in a way that they never needed to before.

Like it or not, social media is everywhere, making it a vital component of how companies not only reach their consumers, but their employees as well.

And that really illustrates the significance of social media in corporate communications. It is not primarily about promoting a company’s products or services in a sales-oriented manner; it is about aligning your brand with your audience.

95% of adults aged 18-34 are most likely to follow a brand through social networking. While many judge success on social media by the number of likes they’ve received on Facebook or the impressions on their Twitter page, in many ways its true value comes in illustrating how your followers engage with the content you’re sharing on these platforms. That allows you to tell if your values are hitting home with your target audience.

These platforms are now essential in how your customers and your employees keep up with the news and developments surrounding your organisation – the bond between social media and corporate communications is unbreakable.

Is the pairing of social media and corporate communications a good thing? 

This close connection between social media and corporate communications presents numerous benefits for businesses looking for an efficient, cost-effective way to engage their customers, employees and more with their brand identity.

Allow your audience to visualise your brand

Central to the importance of social media in business communications is how these platforms allow customers and employees to visualise a brand like never before. Most people absorb visual information in a more effective way than written directives. This allows a means for brands to translate information that would previously be communicated in quite a stale, formulaic fashion in a more creative, engaging manner.

By utilising imagery, videos, quizzes, emojis and other staples of social media communication, your organisation can help others identify and understand the qualities and values of your brand much faster and more effectively. As an element of your corporate communications, this is arguably the most valuable role social media can play.

Link employees and customers

While your external communications are more widely associated with your consumers and the wider public, it can improve the way you engage with your team members around the world as well. By using social media for your corporate communications with compelling content, you make them fans of your brand in the same way you intend to do with your consumers. 

That improves the sense of belonging your employees feel towards your brand, making them more motivated and connected to achieving your objectives.

Employee advocacy

Following on from the previous point, if your employees are fans of the social media posts you’re putting out, they are more likely to become valuable brand advocates. Let’s face it – most people don’t want to be sold to, especially when they’re browsing social media. But, they are more likely to build trust and form a connection with a brand if other people show enthusiasm for it – even if those people work for that organisation.

Social media is an avenue for employees to celebrate, promote and emphasise their brand, which in turn boosts employee engagement, makes your brand more appealing to prospective recruits, and enhances how consumers view your organisation.

Improve collaboration

Finally, the ‘social’ aspect of social media in business communications makes these platforms useful tools for collaboration. Innovations like Workplace by Facebook and other social chatting tools like Slack mean that employees across all locations can share events, news and stories relating to your company. 

A more connected workplace is a more motivated, more productive and more informed workplace. By harnessing your social media platforms effectively, you can spread your business communications more effectively to those within your teams. 

Drawbacks of using social media for corporate communications

However, as always seems to be the case, social media acts as a double-edged sword. While it has immeasurably improved how efficiently and effectively brands can engage with their internal and external audiences and build better relationships with both, it also can cause significant damage to its reputation if not handled correctly.

Social media offers everyone a voice and an opinion, and that opinion might not always be favourable for your brand. One wrong step on social media or an ill-advised campaign can spiral out of control in a hurry, like when Doritos’ poorly-visioned development of ‘lady-friendly’ versions of their crisps. Within hours their Twitter timelines were ablaze with criticisms. 

Then there are examples like the Kendall Jenner Pepsi campaign, which was a not very well-considered attempt for the brand to be socially responsible. The combination of social media and corporate communications can be an effective way of illustrating your CSR work as a company and your commitment to causes your audience cares about. But it must be authentic and executed well, otherwise it can have a severely negative impact.

Staying on top of this constant, unrelenting stream of digital media is a challenge for even the largest global organisations, and can lead to an argument suggesting that social media hasn’t been the most positive innovation for business communications teams to contend with.

Nevertheless, the ties between social media and corporate communications are too robust now to cause a break, at least for the foreseeable future. So, it is important that your organisation accounts for this as part of your overarching corporate communication strategy in order to maximise the benefits these platforms offer your company while minimising the drawbacks.

Maximising the role of social media in your corporate communications

Here are a number of techniques and approaches to consider to amplify the value of your corporate social media:

Invest in social listening tools

By dedicating time and resources to monitoring and tracking what audiences are saying about your brand, you gain a deeper understanding of what communications they are interested in receiving in social media, as well an overriding sense of how aligned they feel with your organisation.

Join up your teams

Integrate your corporate communications team with those responsible for sharing your social media content. The prevalence of these platforms and their immediate responsiveness makes it crucial that your communications strategy is clearly understood by those producing and spreading materials across these channels.

Choose channels wisely

While Facebook is still the most dominant platform by a considerable margin, that might not correlate with your audience or the messages you intend to send out. Make sure you spend time deciding on channels that will most effectively fulfil your social media and corporate communications objectives, and experiment with these over time.

Entertain, educate, engage

As alluded to earlier, your use of social media for corporate communications should prioritise content that brings people closer to your brand, not as a direct sales tool. Focus on delivering value and information, enhancing your brand reputation and increasing its share-ability throughout your audiences.

Incentivise employee advocacy

Whether it’s by developing effective internal communications that engage your employees or actually introducing an incentive package for staff to spread your content through their personal profiles, encourage and motivate your team to broadcast the benefits and positives of your workplace to a wider, receptive audience.

Table of contents:

  1. How has social media changed business communications?
  2. Is the pairing of social media and corporate communications a good thing?
Brand Asset Management / BAM

Why you need brand asset management

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Papirfly
3 minutes read

Because you’re getting tired of not having brand control. You’re exhausted from continuously trying to get colleagues to use correct brand assets and following your brand guidelines.

Sounds familiar? If managing a brand was a one-person job and there were limited selections for brand presentation, branding would be simple. But reality is the opposite. Not only does branding concern everyone in the company, but there is also a huge number of platforms and channels where your brand needs presentation. Unless you are The Flash, you can’t possibly manage your brand without having a brand asset management system in the 21st century.

What is brand asset management system?

Let’s keep this short and sweet as we have written about this topic in earlier blogs, and you can also find everything you need to know here. In short, a brand asset management system is the solution that connects your brand assets and your brand guidelines with the purpose of streamlining your brand processes. It differs from digital asset management because it puts your brand in context and makes your brand usable for everyone.

Continue reading “Why you need brand asset management”

Because you’re getting tired of not having brand control. You’re exhausted from continuously trying to get colleagues to use correct brand assets and following your brand guidelines.

Sounds familiar? If managing a brand was a one-person job and there were limited selections for brand presentation, branding would be simple. But reality is the opposite. Not only does branding concern everyone in the company, but there is also a huge number of platforms and channels where your brand needs presentation. Unless you are The Flash, you can’t possibly manage your brand without having a brand asset management system in the 21st century.

What is brand asset management system?

Let’s keep this short and sweet as we have written about this topic in earlier blogs, and you can also find everything you need to know here. In short, a brand asset management system is the solution that connects your brand assets and your brand guidelines with the purpose of streamlining your brand processes. It differs from digital asset management because it puts your brand in context and makes your brand usable for everyone.

Continue reading “Why you need brand asset management”

Because you’re getting tired of not having brand control. You’re exhausted from continuously trying to get colleagues to use correct brand assets and following your brand guidelines.

Sounds familiar? If managing a brand was a one-person job and there were limited selections for brand presentation, branding would be simple. But reality is the opposite. Not only does branding concern everyone in the company, but there is also a huge number of platforms and channels where your brand needs presentation. Unless you are The Flash, you can’t possibly manage your brand without having a brand asset management system in the 21st century.

What is brand asset management system?

Let’s keep this short and sweet as we have written about this topic in earlier blogs, and you can also find everything you need to know here. In short, a brand asset management system is the solution that connects your brand assets and your brand guidelines with the purpose of streamlining your brand processes. It differs from digital asset management because it puts your brand in context and makes your brand usable for everyone.

Continue reading “Why you need brand asset management”

Brand Activation Management

Famous logo designs that have redefined global brands

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Papirfly
5 minutes read

Rebranding is undertaken for many different reasons; when a company is going through a big period of change, is coming out the other side of a scandal, or taking the advice of their marketing agency. Whatever the reasons, it’s a bold move for any team to take on.

Logos are iconic for many reasons, including that they become synonymous with products, feelings and, in some cases, an entire generation. Though a logo only forms a small part of a brand, when changed without warning, or without the right communication strategy, it can dramatically impact the perception of a consumer and, if not well-received, takes a considerable amount of time to get used to. 

In this article we take a quick look at 4 iconic logo changes that dared to be different and are still doing the business for their global brands many years after the big switch.

Zara

You may remember this one from 2019. Perhaps only the die-hard Zara fans were as devastated as the designers who took to social media to heavily criticize the new direction. 

Papirfly-Blog_Iconic-logos-Zara

Traditionally, having letters overlap would be considered a huge design faux pas, but as French agency Baron & Baron have shown us, not playing by the rules makes quite the statement. The agency is the creative brain behind Dior and Maison Margiela – both known as high-end, luxury fashion designers. 

Zara is very much becoming the fashion house of the high street, and no matter what your opinion on the logo change, it may just have helped them to solidify this position further. 

Instagram

Another social media rebrand that sent shockwaves through the digital world was the rebirth of Instagram in 2016. Users could not believe their eyes when they opted to replace their retro polaroid camera logo with a flat, neon-colored, gradient icon. 

At the time, Instagram faced widespread criticism that it was so simplistic that many from outside of the design world claimed they “could have produced something similar”.

The change was drastic, but absolutely the right move for them at the time. The irony is, after such a critical reception, many other brands have followed suit with stripped back, flatter logos in the last couple of years. Instagram took a risk as a trailblazer, and their gamble certainly paid off. 

Mastercard

Something must have been in the air in 2016 was certainly the year of the rebrand, with Mastercard getting its first new logo and branding refresh in 20 years. The design keeps the iconic overlapping circles, but is completely modernized with the removal of the dated stripes. 

Papirfly-Blog_Iconic-logos-Mastercard

MasterCard’s team had foreseen the major transition into the digital age and created a new logo that would stand the test of time…That is, until January 2019. Just when the world thought MasterCard couldn’t get any bolder, they went against every branding rule in the book and removed their brand name from the logo, leaving behind only the red and yellow circles. 

MasterCard opted for minimal in every sense of the word, and reconfirmed what we already knew – their identity is iconic enough that it needs no introduction. 

Premier League

Consumers will always be your biggest critics when you make a big brand move, but having a global fan base of loyal football supporters opens you up to a whole new level of scrutiny. A(nother!) rebrand that took place in 2016 saw DesignStudio responsible for the clean, minimal Premier League logo fans have now become firmly accustomed to. 

Papirfly-Blog_Iconic-logos-Premier-League

The initial controversy surrounded a miscommunication whereby it was rumoured that ‘Cecil the Lion’ would be removed in the new logo. The hearsay spiralled without being addressed properly and, when the rebrand did finally launch, there was Cecil front and centre.

Perhaps by keeping the rumours swirling, the agency helped to keep the new rebrand the hot topic of conversation. Free PR aside, if anything drastic is to change within your logo, you could consider a full communications strategy to make sure there are no surprises that could affect your reputation in the long term. 

Conversely, if you have total confidence in your new direction (as Instagram did), a sudden launch could be just what you need to raise your profile in the media and cause a stir online. The dust will always eventually settle as today’s big rebrand becomes tomorrow’s chip paper.

Why are rebrands such a big deal?

These rebrands are thriving a few years on. Yet it’s not always the case that bold changes guarantee success.

It’s worth considering that a huge portion of global marketing budgets is spent on brand recognition campaigns. In doing so, brands build a rapport with consumers over the years that forms ongoing loyalty and relationships. If a change happens too suddenly, it can feel as though they haven’t been considered in the process. It can come as a shock and suddenly the brand they’ve known and loved throughout their lives is unrecognizable. Of course, most of the time it’s only a new visual direction, but psychologically consumers may feel uneasy about what to expect in the future. 

The decision to rebrand is never taken lightly, particularly for global companies. A new logo requires a new set of brand guidelines, tone of voice guidance, color palettes, fonts and more. Having these assets created is the starting point – the rollout across the globe is where the real work begins. Every piece of internal communication, be it email signatures, letterheads, business cards and more, needs to be overhauled. External marketing, websites, employer brand documents, interiors, signage and every piece of collateral needs to be replaced over a period of time.

On the face of it, it sounds like a costly task many would want to avoid. That’s why it’s essential that companies decide carefully whether rebranding is right for them.

If you’ve decided rebranding is the way to go, then making sure you have the technology to roll it out is essential.

However, maybe your teams haven’t had the tools to make your current brand a success, in which case it’s a great time to review your Digital Asset Management and Content Creation solutions.

Whatever stage you’re at in considering your brand’s next steps, check out the insights from our rebranding experts.

Brand Activation Management

How campaign design templates unlock creativity, not restrict it

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Papirfly
5 minutes read

You don’t have to look very far on the Internet to find templates for any number of marketing mediums. Website layouts. Email designs. Business cards. Social media. You name it, you can find a template for it.

The reasons why they are so widespread are fairly obvious:

  • They can be massive time and effort savers for design teams
  • They help preserve brand consistency by locking down critical elements
  • They can be moulded to the ideal dimensions for digital and print materials, from social assets to billboard posters
  • They make creating perfectly branded designs accessible to anyone, regardless of design skills

Sounds fantastic so far. But, these advantages are frequently contested with this counter-argument:

“By placing firm boundaries on designers and promoting the duplication of the same layouts, templates greatly restrict creativity.”

While this assumption that templates restrict creativity is understandable, when they are used correctly, this is far from accurate. In fact, they can give designers the opportunity to work more creatively and feel more empowered in their role.

Why do many designers despise templates?

As highlighted above, a core issue that designers have with templates is how they limit the possibilities to produce unique, bespoke graphics.

Quite understandably, this “conveyor-belt” style approach to asset creation goes against their passion for producing innovative, one-of-a-kind pieces.

A quick counter to this argument is that competent companies already place these boundaries through their clearly defined brand guidelines. This is critical to maintaining consistency across all communications, a powerful marker of brand quality and essential for building trust among audiences.

With strict guidelines in place in place, designers can only push the boundaries so far in order to preserve their brand’s identity – any further and you can quickly lose recognition and trust among consumers. Good templates should manifest these guidelines, ensuring that anybody using them can’t stray away from the core foundations of your branding.

But, alongside these limitations on creative thinking, designers have further concerns about relying on templates, such as fears that templates will diminish the importance of their roles, making them dispensable if less-skilled workers can create graphics.

Again, this is an understandable concern. However, we would never advocate that templates exist to replace designers. A designer’s discipline extends far beyond just choosing from a predefined list of colours and patterns.

Without the unique insight and understanding that only a skilled designer can provide into any form of visual content, templates can result in a constant flow of bland, uninspiring and cookie-cutter assets.

We recognise that the core role of designers is being the overarching creative forces behind the brand. Rather than be caught up in the minutiae of producing repeat assets and making an endless stream of subtle tweaks, using templates ensures that designers can shift their focus to bespoke projects and creative thinking, while other, less-skilled employees can confidently work on day-to-day asset production.

Do templates actually benefit creativity?

Rather than cut off designers’ flow, there are many reasons why templates go a long way to freeing up designers’ time and preserving their creative energy, while empowering others to play an active role in asset creation.

No more mundane tasks

The use of templates means that those with minimal design skills can take responsibility for the more straightforward, mundane asset creations and tweaks. This removes the burden on your more qualified designers, who could be at risk of burning out or becoming disillusioned by making repeated adjustments or copies of old assets time and again.

More time for creative thinking

By freeing up your designers’ schedules, they will have more time to drive new ideas, research the latest trends and think conceptually, helping you stand out in today’s crowded market.

Not everything you push through your marketing channels necessarily needs to come from a template. While these can notably scale up the amount of content you produce for less time and money, for campaigns that need that extra creative spark or bespoke touch, you need your best designers on the case.

While your wider team uses templates to keep your content ticking over smoothly, you’ll have total confidence that all other collateral is going out perfectly on-brand.

Furthermore, this creative thinking time is likely to also form the basis for future templates, or helpful adjustments to your existing ones, which will improve the quality and attractiveness of your assets for your global audiences.

Conserving energy

It may sound frivolous, but even the prospect of your designers being able to go home on time and maintain more beneficial work-life balances, because templates have freed up their schedule, can greatly enhance their capacity to create and find inspiration for future works.

Designers can find inspiration practically everywhere, from films, television and books, to walking in the countryside. However, they are less likely to find new ideas when sitting behind the same desk, making miniscule amends to previous assets.

Let your templates do their job, so your designers can do theirs better, both inside and outside the workplace.

How to make the most of your templates

With all of these benefits for using templates in mind, it is possible to have too much of a good thing.

Using templates to replace the role of your designers is a recipe for disaster. This approach will inevitably hamper the uniqueness of your content, as only the insight of an effective designer can craft visuals that really capture people’s attention and illustrate your distinct brand identity the right way.

The solution is to have your design team play an active role in the creation of your templates, so that these receive their seal of approval, before they can be harnessed by other, less-skilled members of your organisation to apply as required.

That’s why a solution like BAM by Papirfly™ offers you more than cookie-cutter templates that can be downloaded or bought online. As well as providing an array of pre-built templates, our powerful platform enables you to structure your own smart templates across all forms of collateral, which can then be harnessed by your wider team to produce high-quality, on-brand results every time.

Create templates for every channel; social media posts, video, posters, brochures, banners, signage. All this and more can be housed within your platform, equipping your teams to produce an infinite amount of perfectly branded assets.

This means total consistency and content production that’s faster and more cost-effective than ever before. The ability to quickly amend or adjust collateral for your global markets and sub-brands, all while your designers have more capacity and less pressure, allowing them to work at their most creative, without burning out.

Empower your team’s creativity with smart templates

When used effectively and with the direct input of your insightful designers, templates can result in massive improvements to the productivity, consistency and ROI of your marketing output.

While your designers might immediately be hesitant about the idea due to the fears that we’ve pinpointed in this article, after using BAM by Papirfly™ these concerns will be replaced with celebrations for greatly reducing their share of mundane, repetitive tasks, and giving them the freedom to do what they do best: conceptualise and create great content.

  • Easy-to-use software and intelligent templates make creating exceptional assets simple
  • Provide your input on a wide range of fully bespoke templates
  • Reduce your dependence on external agencies to produce content that you could be creating in-house
  • Locked-down elements give you complete confidence that all content produced is consistent with your brand’s identity

Accelerated content creation is just one way that BAM can revolutionise your approach to marketing. Discover the full scope of our platform’s potential – get in touch with our team or arrange your free demo today.

Table of contents:

  1. Why do many designers despise templates?
  2. Do templates actually benefit creativity?
  3. How to make the most of your templates
  4. Empower your team’s creativity with smart templates
Corporate communications

8 brand tools every successful customer service team uses

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Papirfly
4 minutes read

Customers are the bedrock of any business. Large or small. Global or local. Startup or established. Your customers drive revenue and lend credibility to your company’s offerings.

Few would disagree with this statement. So, it is odd that numerous marketing teams tend to overlook the value that their customer service team brings to the table.

There should be no questioning the significance that strong customer service offers to an organisation:

  • 96% of customers consider customer service a key component of their loyalty to a brand
  • Increasing customer retention by just 5% can lead to profits increasing 25%
  • 72% of customers will share positive experiences with 6 or more people
  • 67% of customers would pay more for better customer service experiences
  • Investment in customer experience can increase employee engagement by 20%

But, its value doesn’t just extend to helping people and fostering better customer relationships. These teams can bring valuable insight to marketers and companies overall.

In a landscape that is increasingly guided by data, and appears keen to understand customers on a more detailed level than ever before, who better to provide this perception than those directly interacting with customers on a daily basis?

However, to help them acquire this insight, and to enhance their ability to build their brand’s reputation through strong customer support, they need to be properly equipped. Below, we highlight eight crucial brand tools to maximise the benefits your customer service team brings to your business.

1. In-depth knowledge base

Particularly in extensive global organisations, your customer service team can’t be everywhere at once. So, it is vital that customers have a way to serve themselves if they are in need of information. A robust, regularly updated knowledge base should be at the heart of this.

From a range of blog posts, FAQs and other resources on your website, to extensive sales collateral to inform your internal teams, a good knowledge base is a cornerstone of a successful customer service team. With this knowledge base, you are better-placed to:

  • Keep customers happy and informed
  • Consistently deliver support when your customers need it
  • Proactively respond to your customers’ concerns
  • Limit the amount of time devoted to phone calls, emails and other messages
  • Build your reputation as an authority within your industry

2. Empathy maps

When it comes to directly engaging with your customers, your customer service team is on the frontline. They have access to first-hand information about what your customers enjoy about your brand, what they don’t like, what they would like to see improved and what their pain points are.

Unfortunately, it is all too easy for the flow of that information to begin and end with a customer service rep. An empathy map can help ensure that the right data is gathered to guide the content your marketing team develops day-to-day.

Through these maps, you gain a categorised, clear layout of your audiences’ thoughts and feelings, including:

  • What problems they are looking to resolve
  • What their biggest fears and concerns are
  • What their goals and ambitions are
  • What content or support they would like to see from your brand
  • Where they are engaging with your brand
  • What they do, see hear, and say on a daily basis

With this knowledge collected by your customer service team and laid out during strategy meetings, your brand is better positioned to address your consumers’ needs and wants through your marketing.

3. Persona profiles

It is also important that your customer service team has a good understanding of your brand’s “ideal consumers”. Without this, they may be left in the dark about how to respond to a customer’s request or issue. Messages will need to be escalated up the chain of command, hindering your efficiency.

Creating persona profiles based on your insight into your preferred audiences – something your customer service team can help you gather – will give these teams a stronger sense of how to handle those who reach out to them.

Of course, every customer is unique, and personalisation is important. But these profiles can give your representatives a starting point to best guide this interaction. This can result in faster, more focused responses to messages, improving your customers’ experiences.

Download the full whitepaper

To explore our complete list of brand tools that help unlock the true potential of your customer service team, click here to get hold of our latest whitepaper.

Amplify the power of your customer service team

Equipping your customer service team with the right tools unlocks their true potential, not only in how they support your audiences, but in how they steer your marketing strategy.

The insight that these professionals offer on how your customers think, feel and act can be invaluable when harnessed properly. We hope that by emphasising these tools above, you too can get more value out of this important strand of your company.

Of course, a comprehensive platform such as BAM by Papirfly™ can help you take a massive step towards fully equipping your customer service teams with the resources they need to best perform their role.

For more information about the full capabilities of BAM and how it can positively influence every aspect of your marketing efforts, get in touch with our team, or book your free demo.

Table of contents:

  1. In-depth knowledge base
  2. Empathy maps
  3. Persona profiles
  4. Download the full white paper
Retail Marketing

5 quick marketing strategies to keep customers beyond Christmas…

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Papirfly
3 minutes read

Building brand loyalty is often spoken about as if there’s some kind of magic formula. The truth is, there are hundreds of ways to do it, and no one method can be suitable for everyone. It can take years, months or in some cases just a couple of minutes to build depending on the exact motivations of your individual purchasers.

Luckily, there are some very popular methods that can be tried, tested and tweaked to optimise your success. 

#1 Email marketing post-purchase

This is the simplest and arguably most effective way to keep the conversation going. Contacting customers any time past the return period will push your brand front and centre, encourage reviews and feedback, and remind them of what will have hopefully been a pleasant shopping experience. If the prospect had forgotten their purchase, this will give them a friendly reminder while helping to build brand familiarity.

#2 Use their data to personalise their experience and build a relationship

If your website required a customer to sign up and they gave you permission to collect information, you can do some very clever things to help them feel loved. This could include any of the following:

  • Recommending items similar to what they have purchased
  • Giving them the opportunity to save items or request to be notified when something is out of stock
  • Letting them know when sets of items have been purchased together frequently
  • Tailor promotions and content to them 

#3 Provide incentive for a follow-up sale 

If someone has committed to spending their hard-earned money with you at Christmas, consider that they may be looking to tighten the purse strings in the new year. This means their thought process for purchasing may be more considered. Give them an incentive to make a repeat purchase, but also keep them excited about the generosity of your brand with an early opportunity to access sale items or discounts. Even just 24 hours before it’s made public will be enough to make some first-time customers feel special and appreciated.

#4 Unlimited delivery

A popular option for large retailers is to offer a whole year of ‘free’ next-day delivery, for a small annual fee. The cost of the whole year is usually comparable to two single delivery costs, which makes it a very attractive deal for customers. This helps to breed loyalty because if a consumer is torn between your brand and another, and they hold what they see as unlimited delivery with your brand, they are more inclined to make the purchase with you.

#5 Memberships

Creating a points system or VIP account option with incentives can make you more attractive than your competitors. It might be that you can cash in your points for money off or rewards, receive a gift or discount on your birthday and get access to VIP sales or promotion earlier than regular customers.

Being reactive in retail

As we outlined earlier, what hooks each customer will differ depending on their motivations and circumstances at the time of marketing to them. There are many different ways to engage customers both digitally and in-store, but the latter can be difficult without any digitisation or data capture. 

The more data you have, the more opportunities you have to focus your messaging and tailor your promotions to your audience’s preferences. Beyond this, a strong brand, purpose and marketing strategy to stay front and centre will act as an integral foundation layer to all this additional activity. Over and above this, your team needs the tools to be able to react quickly to trends and opportunities, and shouldn’t be bogged down by limitations such as budget and time.

With Papirfly’s all-in-one brand management platform, your global teams get to create an infinite amount of digital and print assets, without specialised skills or needing additional budget. Videos, emails, POS, signage and so much more can be created within a dedicated brand portal, with predefined rules that avoid brand consistency disasters. 

Table of contents:

  1. #1 Email marketing post-purchase
  2. #2 Use their data to personalise their experience and build a relationship
  3. #3 Provide incentive for a follow-up sale
  4. #4 Unlimited delivery
  5. #5 Memberships
  6. Being reactive in retail