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20 years ‘Pay attention to the brand’
What started as an idea in 1997 evolved into a consistent, public appealing initiative for brand products over the years: Since then, companies have decided to participate in the joint campaign of the Austrian Brand Association over 750 times.
More than 250,000 billboards, 700 ads and 2500 TV-commercials have shown the consumer and the trade the power of brands. Over and over again, the campaign showed that brands change lives, make it more diverse, colorful and happier; that brands do research and draw their power from innovating, not imitating. The creative implementations included turning the brand products into superheroes, or champions, everyday heroes or innovation leaders, or to line them up in form of an alphabet, to name a few campaigns.
‘Brands somewhat act like a sort of ally for consumers’, said Dr. Markus Liebl, new president of the Brand Association. ‘Without the consumer’s trust, there are no brands, without brands there is no competition on the merits, without competition there is no innovation and without innovation there is no prosperity’, Liebl continues.
As market research on these campaigns show, the campaigns and communication activities significantly strengthen the position of the manufacturer’s brands. With the initiative, the brand products gain importance for daily shopping – and it even manages to win back digressed customers to the brands.
In this consequence, the initiative is unique in Europe and has become a model for similar campaigns in other European countries.