Activating a brand in the age of FOMO

One of the phrases we repeat most often at Soluble when talking about why we work from brands is that we seek to turn them into genuine business assets. And that's not possible with just a solid Brand Strategy, an Identity aligned and a sustainable technological product. It's essential to put it to work in what we call Activation.

We use the term Activation, not communication or marketing, because we care about leveraging every opportunity for connection that exists between a brand and its audiences. Always, of course, provided it will have an impact to achieve the objectives we have today and move us toward what will be our transcendence tomorrow.

This means we tackle everything from social media content planning to creative campaigns, from conversion landings to internal events. The design of an office itself is an opportunity to activate the brand that, from a strategic perspective, we're able to identify and capitalize on. Because if our brand adapts to each person, shouldn't our workspace adapt to what we need each day? That's what we did at Nae when we partnered with them on the design of their new offices in Madrid.

Simplicity and complexity, the two sides of digitalization

So it seems we'll have to do a lot of things. Right? Digitalization has brought us to a scenario where launching a brand is easier than ever. We have it much simpler: web creation, channel opening, content creation…

But these conveniences have also brought a layer of complexity. We have many more options and these change and evolve rapidly, but also the fact that the barrier to entry is lower has meant an increase in competition. And in noise too.

Standing out now is harder. Hitting the key of connecting with people is not—if it ever has been—a matter of luck. It's not enough to be in the right place at the right time; you also have to have the right strategy, message, and action.

From this starting point, the reality for most brands is feeling stuck in a dead end with few ways out. Many of them don't have the resources to be in almost every place they think they should be. It's part of a very common ailment in this age we live in. FOMO, short for 'fear of missing out,' which speaks to the fear of missing something, is very present in brand activation management.

Think twice and activate once

We like to work with an activation model that requires precise adaptation to each brand's reality, multiplying the chances of success and reducing risk while growing peace of mind (AKA a bit more happiness)—which often means reducing spend too. Thanks to the strategic work we do in initial processes with brands, we manage to be precise in our actions when we reach this point, without losing along the way the agility and capacity for improvement and iteration that any brand needs to have in 2023.

How is it possible? 'Back to basics' is a solid answer for any situation where we find ourselves overwhelmed. The first step to identifying a good activation is understanding where our audiences encounter or could encounter us in their decision-making moments. What are they thinking at that point? What do they feel? What drives them? This will give us the keys to knowing where we need to activate and what tone our message needs to strike in order to consolidate our relationship with those people.

From there, the projects to tackle will emerge, along with their priority level so we can decide which ones make sense to work on with the resources we have. It sounds obvious, but it's not always applied: you have to start with the channels or touchpoints where you'll get the greatest return. But when a brand takes action, the word "return" applies both to measurable conversion data and to a less tangible but equally enriching impact.

An agile, consistent, and autonomous rollout

At this point, the hardest part is done. Now it's time to deploy the actions, and we have tools that help us work in an agile and consistent way and even offer autonomy to organizations without them losing any of those elements. Work guides, templates, brand center, planning—key elements that we create and iterate on to make our day-to-day easier and keep moving closer, bit by bit, to that purpose of 'making people happier at work'. But that would warrant another post.

At any point in the life and activation of a brand, the most valuable tool will always be strategy. It will be able to answer our questions, ensure the proper progress of our plan, safeguard our consistency, and keep giving us the keys to the best investment of our resources to bring to life the brands we work with.

Ultimately: against FOMO, focus, strategy, and plenty of brand.