Every Brand Has A Shelf Life

You live in a world fraught with competition for mindshare. Whereas back in the day, the power of mediated communications lay in the hands of a few, today it lies ubiquitously in your hands. With a smartphone, you join the 6.92 billion people who have access to it, and with social media, you are among the 4.8 billion users. It’s important for you to develop owned digital content since you consume media through Information Communications Technology.

In this peak golden era of the attention economy, I'd wish you were an online celebrity. ?? What I mean to say is that you have the opportunity to consider yourself a business brand capable of delivering information or technology to a broad base of global audiences who might be interested in buying your product, insights, or services.

Simply put, as long as you have social media, you have the advantage of enhancing your reputation and influencing the right perception among your stakeholders through mediated communications technology that can reach out to millions of clients and consumers. If you maintain consistency, this makes you a brand. You possess the ability to produce mediated communications that can yield a profit or enhance your reputation.

If you can provide new facts and figures, localized information for a global audience, a unique point of view, advice, or actionable guidance on matters of broad importance, you’ll gain credibility and keep readers coming back.

But remember, the more you cement your position and profile on the internet, the more you turn into a brand. According to Matt Arnold, your brand goes through a life cycle of five stages: consciousness creating, consciousness-raising, consciousness sustaining, decline, and death. If a brand is well-cemented, it turns into a renowned symbol or icon. And every brand has a shelf life, and yours is getting shorter and shorter. Depending on the industry, your brand needs a tune-up every three to seven years

Your brand functions as the rhetorical vision or symbolic drama that unites people organizes action, and fosters a common symbolic relation. According to the Symbolic Convergence Theory, understanding and developing your brand behavior involves creating meaning, motive, identity, and emotion, giving your content a soul-like feel. Just like a living organism, your brand follows a predictable life cycle.

A brand, like living organisms, can either build up immunity against competing visions or find itself teetering on the edge when faced with more compelling alternatives that challenge its very existence. In a dynamic marketplace, make sure your brand is the most adaptable and innovative so that it can rise above the rest and thrive in the ever-changing tides of consumer preference.

Prudence Zoe Glorious PR is a leading PR firm in Tanzania. For more on our PR excellence, visit prudence.co.tz