McDonald’s. Harting. CorpoRank. Kellogg’s. Pampers. There’s something these top brands have in common (besides their success).
It’s their willingness to embrace the power of intellectual property, mascots, and comics. Comics today are more powerful as a marketing force than they’ve ever been.
Let’s look at three reasons why comics make communicating with audiences easier and put rockets under your marketing efforts.
How to make sure messaging is up-to-date?
Use the exciting modern format: Comics.
Comics offer ways to explore complex ideas in a visual way that’s entertaining as well as informative. Would you watch a dry but informative commercial? You might see its value, but the format might be off-putting, even if the message is relevant.
If you combine a relevant and valuable message with captivating communications, you’re delivering marketing that will likely drive incredible results and leave business targets in the dust! And comics are not only work for B2C, but it’s also effective for
B2B, or even internal communications.
When Duhno worked with CorpoRank we came to understand the true power of comics for communicating with clients and internal stakeholders.
CorpoRank performs assessments of company employees and third-party organizations on behalf of their prestigious clients. They had a powerful and important message to communicate: paying attention to happiness at work can squash employee turnover by 25%.
To help them show the power of their work, Duhno produced a series of engaging and professional comics that were shared with CorpoRank clients.
To their delight, CorpoRank were able to successfully communicate their value in a fun and engaging way. Comics turned powerful but isolated and theoretical ideas into a captivating set of stories with which their audience was more than willing to engage.
Comics are fast-paced stories that allow marketers and storytellers to deliver a powerful message in a way that numerous studies have shown resonates with the human mind: narrative.
By using a narrative form of communication like comics, McDonald’s can speak in a language that audiences are currently extremely receptive to and take the initiative by framing their own image through stories.
McDonald’s made fantastic use of comics during a hiring campaign in China, delivering fun stories to potential staff and recruits that captured their attention and held it long enough to convey important information.
The world of comics is a fun place to be. By placing your brand in that world, you’re positioning your brand so that people engage with it willingly.
Comics help you to get closer with your audiences. For example, Duhno recently worked with Harting, who produces a range of physical electronics products. Harting wanted to communicate the extraordinary value of their products to their audiences.
However Harting’s original content was certainly informative, but it didn’t have many of the advantages that come with comics:
Comics helped people visualize how a product or service works in their world. We understood Harting’s products and produced a series of comics to represents their fantastic value proposition.
The comics bridged the gap between Harting’s world and that of their target market. Harting were thrilled to discover that at offline events attendees were far better able to understand the value of each of their products.
McDonald’s also posted education comics in their Wechat account which describing the real life situation to engage with audiences. The comics also made use of the familiar characters for Chinese consumers to understand the purpose of the comics.
Pampers ran a fun campaign with a famous Chinese illustrator (Yichen DING), highlighting the benefits of their product while also building an emotional connection with new parents. The fun format of comics allowed them to show the emotional journey, which new parents are familiar with while making the content appealing to engage with.
Want to see something new and exciting? Of course! Audiences get bored of tired slogans and less receptive over time. They become part of the background noise.
Don’t get lost in the haze. Slogans have their place, but comics bring something new. They reduce your dependence on your other marketing assets, such as slogans and influencers, or KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders).
Comics are a good way for your existing communications offering and show the versatility of your brand.
If you’ve been inspired to see how you can make the most of comics in your communications, check out our duhno.com where you’ll find everything you need to put your comms and marketing strategy on rocket boosters!