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 HOW TO PITCH A 360 CAMPAIGN & A REBRAND FOR A GLOBAL BRAND

A year ago I had a great opportunity to pitch a 360 rebrand for a big TV channel brand in collaboration with an agency called Pink pixel If you’re avid watcher of television or go on the internet a lot you’ve noticed that brands don’t stay the same they always have to recreate themselves to stay relevant and engaging to maintain a feeling of newness and freshness with their intended target market .

For instance a brand like Coca Cola, every few months create a new tagline or campaign coupled with a new TVC and a new tagline ,the tagline establishes the new campaign and reinforces their positioning. Mobile networks and TV channels also rebrand themselves in order to meet new business objectives. So there are many reasons for a channel or a brand to do a 360 rebrand it’s either to to establish dominance in their market or to cover new ground or to reinvent themselves so they can connect with their audiences in a better and innovative ways. 

So how do you rebrand for a TV channel or a brand ? I’m gonna go through my personal experiences ,this obviously not set in stone I’m sure other agencies and other creatives that do it in different ways ,A few years ago I had an opportunity to Pitch a 360 rebrand for a local TV channel which was BET Africa.( if you don’t know what BET Africa is the african versionf of the American channel BET, owned by Viacom Networks) 1 Diagnose the Brand challenges/Problems and uncover objectives.

Our brief was to come up with a new brand positioning,a brand a new tagline and a brand new look from the website, social media, print and digital platforms 2 Research brand USP’s, values and competitive landscape So the first thing we had to do was do as much research as we can to find out about the brand ,who the target market was, find out what their brand positioning was ,who their brand represents , how they want to be seen and research the competitive landscape(the competition) 

 So we did a deep dive into the brand , looked at the the content they have, the communication they’ve had in the past and then came up with a strategy for the rebrand.So before you do a rebrand for a brand ,find out what they’ve done before, research the brand, what were their biggest wins are, what were their losses, what they do really well what do they lack at and look at the competitive landscape, who are their competitors? what’s the difference between them and the competitors and what makes them stand out and how they engage with their target market. After gathering all that research we had to define who their target market is, develop target market profiles, from what channels they watch, what social media platforms they use etc.

We found out how they view themselves as a channel and what people want to see from the channel or the brand and what do they wish the brand would be 3 Define brand problem and brand goals So we had to try to solve a problem for the client, which was to develop a clear local brand identity for the channel so it could resonate better with local audiences.

We also had to find out what is their unique selling point, this refers to back to my first article here.Whenever you do something for a brand whether it’s an ad or a video you have to find out what the unique selling points are 4. Prescribe strategic creative solutions  

  So our creative solutions came from our conclusion that they could no longer recognize the supremacy of their brand being in Africa.   Since,The BET Africa is a black urban entertainment channel, they have more reasons to showcase and celebrate what it means to be black and urban,being African in is not just about melanin levels ,we are made of more than black, we’re about progression ,setting trends and discovery and today’s entertainment does not live on TV screens alone.  

  In order to remain relevant and top of mind they needed to be more interactive with the audience. So we looked at their competition,the various different channels in the landscape and we looked at what the competitors did not have.We delved into the brand more in terms of defining who their target market is ,their demographics ,is it males, is it more females and what are their personalities and we developed three different target market profiles for them Then the first thing we had to unpack was their mission , what their vision is and what they brand image is. We also had to work on new repositioning statement and tagline that would reinforce the idea that BET Africa, is the definition of urban black entertainment and a leader in this regards.All the brand engagement points and platforms have to reinforce this communication, it has to have the same voice ,the same tone and the same communication style 5. Prescribe a Social media strategy  

So we looked at different social a platforms that they need to engage in from their Twitter to the Instagram. Developing a social media strategy that is unique to the brand and each platform,because the way users interact on Twiiter is not the same as facebook,instagram or Snapchat, each platform is unique We looked at how their website could be improved and maybe even, push the idea of having a mobile app.We suggested brand ambassadors for the channel ,event sponsorships that they could sponsor and be part of ,these are all different touch points that they could actually change and engage in order to have a successful rebrand Some of the ideas we came up in terms of the philosophy of the brand audience is that they aspire to greatness and know how to have fun, this is helps define what the brand personality is and the tone of the brand could be 

6. Prescribe a strategy driven design solutions So after coming up with this strategy we had to create unique channel imaging, that would reflect the brand colour and tones.We came up with a bunch of primary and secondary colors inspired by their current look Each brand or business is different from an online store to a physical store,a service based business, each business has its on unique ways to communicate with customers, When we define what the business is, the objectives, the target market and how the users engage with the business and do all this leg work, we are able to give the business a specific creative solution for the business. Sometimes the solution might be develop a better functioning website,a better user experience, a better social media strategy or just a brand repositioning. 7. Prescribe Design Style guide In our case we had to develop a new on air channel imaging and channel imaging tools, these are tools the brands uses to interact and communicate with audience on air.   

 We created a style guide that defined what the look of the brand is ,from how their promos would look like on-air .(A promo is basically a small ad about a show ,if there’s is a new show ,a channel or agency will make a mini ad about the show… ”Real housewives of Atlanta premiere friday at 9pm…” you get the idea) The look of these promos would be inspired by certain content that they have for the classic content we would have like promos that have designs that have a respect retrospective and throwback feel and all these promos need to reflect all these colors that inform what the brand tone and brand personality and brand product offering  

 We developed IPIs , if you don’t know what an IPI is, it is a little graphic that plays at the top of a screen when you’re watching a show it will pop up and say you’re watching show X or show Y  

  Then we developed a new look to their PG Keys ,PG keys are basically are graphic elements that play before a program to tell you if the show has violence, sex or nudity those type of things, so we developed different types that are differently color coordinated in order to showcase the the tone of the show that you’re about to watch, so if the upcoming show is more for kids it was very light bluish 

  And as it got like more hectic it was orange  

 And once the age restriction was 18 and we’ll get more reddish pinkish so these colors kind of work like a robot you know green, orange, red,symbolically.  

 8 Create content that reinforces brand valuesAnother thing that you have to think about when you’re doing a rebrand is to create content that reinforces the brand values and the brand goals and what the brand aspires to be.Our solution for this segment was to create brand stories because we believed that their most valuable asset is their brand equity amongst the black audience . Brand stories would be 0 to 15 second little promos that would feature the various characters that you would see in different BET shows, people that the audience aspires to be and people that look like the audience  

 All these different brand stories items would have different tag lines that are inspirational/ aspirational and also einforce the new brand positioning.We also came up with brand stories that would celebrate black men.  

 We also wanted to develop content that celebrates black love which would showcase brotherly love ,black celebrities couples young and old showcasing couples that have been together forever like Snoop Dogg and his wife, Beyonce and Jay-z, Viola Davis and her husband , Michael B Jordan and Ryan Coogler(Black panther film director).  

  You could also do this on a local level whereby we have brand stories or graphic elements that showcase black love in the South African context, to international couples, Will Smith and Jada, Michelle Obama and Barack Obama obviously they’re more international to further reiterate the brand positioning and the brand communication 9. Develop a brand piece or TVCAnother solution was to have a brand piece that would showcase the greatness of the channel and the content of the channel 

 If you don’t know what a brand piece is, a brand piece is a piece of content that a TV channel or a brand will have that will showcase the different aspects of the channel or Brand in a big way,so for instance in a TV channel space this would showcase all the different content that the channel has to offer.So if you’ve ever watched like a promo an advert with the various DSTV content where they showcase all their content in one 60-second ad that’s what would you call a brand piece it has it’s very emotive and heartfelt usually 10 Develop print campaigns  

 We also designed the how their print campaigns would look like whenever they have a new show , this goes back to ,how the channel looks on air this will be reiterated again across on on the print campaigns whenever they have a new show.

We also came up with a solution that would echo across their social media from their Facebook account to their website and down to their Twitter account  

 11 Develop New Tagline:All this brought us to our creative solution and new tagline we pitched which was ”Believe the Hype”, this would be a powerful statement which would re-establish the brand in the market as leader as a force to be reckoned with, backed up by the new creative look and design and content that would reinforce this idea 

 So those are the things that you need to think about when you’re doing a 360 rebrand for a business or Brand If you like this article,please drop a comment below and feel free to reach out to me at lungile@www.ironheartfilmsstudio.co.za

 Written by Lungile Mayindi President/Founder/Executive Creative Director at Iron Heart Films

A multi-disciplinary design agency with an emphasis in video production, editing, content creation, narrative fiction films, branded content, motion graphics. Direction and design of commercials, main titles, show opens, promos, web sites, print collateral and motion graphics for entertainment and advertising clients.