Digital branding strategies are evolving rapidly with the enhancements of technology. There are a lot of very different ways of promoting your brand digitally but the number of ways is ever growing. Recently Ofcom has lifted the ban on product placement within the UK which will open the floodgate for companies to advertise and have referenced various products and brands.
This embedded form of marketing has been around in the USA for a long time, but has not been adopted in the UK until now due to fears that consumers will lose trust in the programmes being created. As a compromise the television station must state at every interval in the broadcast, that product placement is apparent, and flashing “P” appears on screen when this occurs.
The reason for this sort of marketing is so that the characters on screen are associated with the product that has been implanted within the programme. Coca-Cola pay millions for their logo to be seen on the cups the judges on American Idol drink out of. The assumption made by the consumer is that these famous judges drink Coca-Cola and therefore if the consumers would like to be as successful as them, they too need to drink Coca-Cola.
The film “Minority Report” has also inspired new thinking about how digital branding is received. Currently when you see an LCD screen advertising a product or service you see an image. This is being adapted and improved so that when you walk towards an advertisement it reacts to you presence and personalises the message that you receive.