Braille-ant campaign a trend setter for 2012

This campaign made headlines on the SAfm morning slot the other week, among others, and continues making local and international news. It has also stimulated streams of conversation on Twitter and general social media environment.

It is evident that it has been well thought-out and of, thus gaining support within the relevant sphere and being well-received. This is what many campaigns should aim to reach and based on this, important lessons should be learned and incorporated in 2012 drives:

1. Identify a gap in the market and address it

   A lot of brand communicators or marketers forget that consumers comes in layers or, rather, with uniqueness. Within society, there is an important group that is commonly overlooked and that is people with disabilities. Perhaps marketers are not quite sure how to sell to this group, which they don't have to do exclusively but can include in their strategies.

   Wimpy's Braille burger campaign managed to speak to the universal audience although blind consumers were the primary focus.

2. New challenge: explore other markets

   This campaign should start a trend and is hopefully an eye-opener to industry players that they should explore other available market opportunities. Strategies must incorporate ways of communicating and selling to like groups as they make some portion of consumer spending.

3. If possible, engage industry institutions

   In order to address certain social issues within a campaign, it is important to engage with relevant institutions to:

   1. produce proper marketing communications

   2. ensure that it is not offensive
      
   3. get substantial support, and
      
   4. to generally understand the market that is being dealt with.

4. Slot in "care" in your strategy

   Consumers generally accept products that "care" about something, either their individual needs or of others', the environment, animals, etc. This should be in addition to the corporate social investment.

5. Ensure that the campaign has a potential to be newsworthy

   Don't leave it all to the creatives to create a nice campaign; allow the public relations gurus to provide possible news angle as they are aware of current affairs. Additionally, they have established relationships with media.

6. Be one step ahead of your competitors

   Always keep in mind that there is always something that hasn't been done yet, and aim to achieve this; simultaneously, your brand becomes a trend setter and will definitely be recognised for it. Perhaps it is worth reinventing the wheel sometimes, with the objective being to enhance its functionality.

7. Brainstorming sessions with fresh ideas

   In relation to the previous point, storming sessions are mostly about things that have been done and dusted. Hence, some campaigns don't present anything fresh and are similar to others.

8. Incorporate social issues into campaigns to create conversation

   Interesting campaigns start a conversation and, now with social media part of consumers' lives, interaction is vast. All marketers should ensure that appropriate and interesting messaging is sent out for a conversation to start between consumers, which is more authentic than one-way communications (marketer to consumers) or two-way (marketer and consumers).

9. Controversy is not always the answer to publicity

   A significant number of brands tend to follow the controversial route to gain some attention. It usually works for a short period and is not sustainable.