'Brand activation builds brand identity,' 3M Executive tells Vega

"Continuous interaction with consumers will increase their brand awareness and consumer loyalty. A culture of continuous innovation will elevate your brand to be the one preferred within the market. Clever brand activation will set you apart from the vast competition." This is the powerful message from guest-speaker Peter Leonard, 3M Global Market Development Manager, during a special address to Vega's Executives last Thursday.

Peter Leonard, 3M Global Market Development Manager (left), Lee Menzies, 3M, and Gordon Cook, Vega National Brand Navigator (right)
Leonard's message relates to 3M and their technological-savvy and innovative use of materials through a wide spectrum within the industry to help companies build a brand identity that will increase in awareness and interact with consumers on an aesthetic and emotional level.

Leonard's message can be encapsulated as follows:

It is no news that 3M is a corporation that holds a leading market position with "innovation technology for a changing world". In the market for over 107 years, 3M has managed to turn over $12 billion through 75 000 different products. What's their secret? The company focuses over a broad spectrum: from health care to office products and abrasives and adhesives, but still make sure that the product lifestyles are of a high standard by understanding the need of the customer. This makes 3M the third leading brand in the world - with Apple and Google being ahead of them.

The concept of innovation has now come to the stage where continuously using it as a point of differentiation within the industry is in danger of being a cliché. Peter Leonard confirms that this is not the case for 3M within the global market by stating that 3M uses powerful, dynamic and effective media solutions by emphasising a scientific basis within the global markets. 3M media solutions focus innovative thinking through keeping up with technological developments and implementing and investing in these new effective and efficient sources.

Along with techno-savvy characteristics, the changing audience behaviours and their needs are important aspects to consider when branding products. A good and keen strategy needs to take these elements into consideration to create an integrated, holistic and supportive model that will make your brand obtain that wow-factor and give a dramatic impact to all audiences. This is the point of difference.

3M aims to make the lives of consumers easier. Nowadays people do not have the time to go out and look for news about a product that makes their life easier, so through marketing research 3M have found that through the relationship between online and urban areas, cities are 60% of the gateway to successful advertising and increasing the awareness of a brand. 3M realised that outdoor media is the only true mass media these days as majority of audiences are moving towards the online realm. Media fragmentation and disruption is high on the increase, therefore it is important to strategise and implement a model that includes and focuses on both the offline marketing as well as the online marketing. This is the model that will ultimately make your brand integrated, holistic and supportive and dispose of any one-dimensional characteristics.

3M came up with brand solutions and brand activations that communicate a particular brand message with a decorative and very aesthetically pleasing approach. This will definitely help protect a brand or build up more brand awareness, if executed correctly and attentive to all details. A corporate identity must always be renovated smartly and never lose the initial brand essence. By doing so, the brand keeps its consistency and remains sustainable. Brand activations are a smart way for 3M to 'update' a brand's corporate identity, especially for mass-market firms. Dynamic and innovative ways are incorporated to customise rear projections, retro-fitting interiors, which gives way for a graphical imagery with an architectural finish - a great return on investment for a brand.

Through the incorporation of main material technologies, 3M manage to personalise and implement innovative brand solutions for mass-market brands. A good example is the retro-fitting interiors in the BP bathrooms. The idea behind this visual identity is the customer journey. A customer drives through different, beautiful landscapes, stops at a BP and sees a beautiful shop interior and then wants to use the bathroom. 3M introduced that the toilet is the last impression a consumer will have of the place, so why stop at the shop? Because as we all know, mud sticks and by incorporating a great visual within the bathroom though great use of light the customer will leave with a great, and more hygienic, idea of the place and an environmentally friendly feeling (this, of course, was before the Gulf of Mexico debacle).