Founders’ Club #35: Branding – Review

The April edition of the Founders’ Club this month was all about the brigk monthly theme “Successful Branding”. 18 participants got together on Monday evening to learn more about the topic and marketing. Mainly or precisely because of the current situation, changed market conditions have been recorded, which in turn affect branding. Founders’ Club guest speaker Norbert Gierlich, long-time acquaintance of brigk’s managing director Franz Glatz and branding expert, presenter, digital freak and stage rock star, gave up-to-date insights into a rapidly changing brand world.

The Munich resident is the initiator and CEO of Markenchamp, location manager of the bird studios and has also been working as a freelance moderator at Markenbeschleuniger for almost 10 years.

Home office meets lockdown. Two terms that have determined people’s everyday lives over the past year. Not only in private, but also in business and that also has an impact on marketing. No cinemas, no trade fairs, no trips, no major events … no advertising. The result: print numbers plummet enormously. Many companies face a major challenge because they have to rethink their core business.

In addition, the pandemic has resulted in a change in media usage. Audiovisual media such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, just to name a few examples, were winners of the pandemic. The streaming services were therefore able to record up to double-digit growth in 2020. This has resulted in a clear shift in advertising and marketing measures to this area. But linear television has also gained in importance again due to the population’s increased need for information. High-quality content is still the most popular, because as everyone knows: content is king.

The pandemic is affecting brands and marketing in many ways. The challenge of the rapidly increasing digital and virtual experiences is to build a bond with the consumer despite the spatial separation. The general meeting of Baywa in spring 2020 or the virtual showroom of Alpina are just two of many positive examples that have succeeded in doing this.

Hybrid forms will prevail in the future, but companies are forced to deal with both online and offline marketing in order to reach the desired target group.
After the entertaining and interesting lecture by Norbert Gierlich, there was a lively exchange on this topic. One insight that ran like a red thread through the entire evening is the importance of emotionalising and enthusiasm. Storytelling is the keyword. Especially at a time when changes are happening at breakneck speed, a rethink has to take place in many people’s minds.

Understanding the DNA of your own brand is the requirement for being able to communicate it to the outside world. This means adjustment. It is imperative to be open to new ideas, to use certain technologies and to develop hybrid forms of branding that address precisely the target group that is to be reached. The changing times cannot be stopped, the only decisive factor is how you deal with it.

We are already looking forward to the next exciting edition of the Founders’ Club. In May, everything is under the theme of “coworking”.