For a brand to attract and engage with an audience in a saturated global market it needs to communicate its brand in a consistent, relevant and authentic manner across all channels to all audiences. The smartest way to maintain strength across your brand is to create a style guide with exact specifications, guidelines and examples.
 
What is a brand style guide?
A brand style guide (also known as a brand book or brand guide) is simply a reference tool that helps content creators maintain consistency by establishing what a brand must look, feel and sound like at all times. It’s one of the most important resources of your business. It sets a clear focus for all parties—employees, partners and investors.
 
A style guide should include all the essential guidelines for your brand’s identity voice and tone especially the elements listed below.

• Brand Position: Brand story, mission and values.
• Logo: Color, size, positioning and clear space.
• Color Palette: Print color (CMYK) and digital color (RGB) codes.
• Typography: Font type/s, size, color, spacing and alignment.
• Imagery: Mood, size, focus, clear space and background.
• Copy: Key words, word count and tone.
• Print Material: Specific specifications and examples.
• Digital Material: Specific specifications and examples.
  

A well-thought-out style guide is an essential reference tool for creating branded content. To clearly and effectively communicate with your target audience in a consistent and effective way you should always refer to your style guide, as it provides brand stability and strength.

Scopic works with businesses to create engaging and memorable brands, connect with us to find out more.

In 2018, audiences are actively spending more time consuming content produced by social media influencers than just passively sitting in front of the TV. Influencer marketing continues to strip revenue away from traditional television-based “celebrity endorsement” and Instagram with 900 million active users is a leading platform among marketers.
 
Marketing on Instagram with the right type of influencer can boost product exposure and drive sales far more effectively and efficiently than traditional marketing.
 
Here are three important benefits of influencer marketing:

Relevance
Influencers communicate in a voice and style that is relevant to a targeted audience.
 
Authenticity
Influencers have credibility with a targeted audience through the creation of authentic content.
 
Exposure
Influencer content is more likely to be liked, shared, tweeted, followed and this then leads to increased exposure.
 
If you are interested in Instagram influencer marketing, but need help identifying the right type of influencer for your business, and more importantly how much you should pay, then let us know.

Scopic works with businesses to identify more effective and efficient ways to increase exposure, contact us to find out more.

How many Japanese businesses will use the global attention that the 2020 Olympics and Paralympic Games will generate to connect with new markets and audiences?
 
The localization of Japanese brands is a necessity for local businesses (based on the target demographic) as the population continues to age faster than any other country on the globe.
 
The key objective of localization is to have a brand resonate with new market’s on an international level.
 
Japanese to English translation of a print ad, digital campaign or company website is only one small part of a number of pieces that are involved in the successful localization of a brand.
 
To truly capture and then engage with a local audience Japanese brands must also consider these key points:

• Evaluating the graphic design elements and images so that they better target the audience’s visual tastes
• Shaping the tagline and copy to better connect and engage with the local audience’s beliefs and expectations
• Adapting the design format and layout inline with local market standards and industry requirements

 
Remember, it is important not to strip away too much of the businesses brand identity during the localization process.
 
Keeping your branding globally consistent will ensure international partners and clients develop a strong connection and relationship with your business.
 
Japanese products/services are generally internationally associated with high standards in quality, so use this positive as a point of separation from the local brands in the marketplace.
 
Taking the time to research, plan and successfully execute the localization of a Japanese brand pre-2020 will positively impact on the business’s future growth.
 
Scopic works with businesses to help them communicate in a global market, contact us to find out more.

Taking the time to write/type a plan of attack is an obvious and essential step toward better meeting social media marketing targets.

To connect and engage with your target audience on social media—it takes more than just a few random and spontaneous posts/tweets across the day.

Here are four important components of an effective social media strategy:

• Define your objective :: increase likes/followers, increase website traffic, promote products/services or create sales leads.
• Identify your audience :: sex/gender, age, background, interests, location, preferred platform, preferred device (mobile or desktop) and social media habits.
• Plan your guidelines :: how many posts per day, what time, content type (text, image, video, audio, live), content length (300 word post, 15 second advertisement or 10 minute video blog) and importantly who will manage and monitor the platform/s.
• Find your influencer :: an influencer will allow your business to communicate in a manner that is more relevant and targeted to your audience. The right influencer has already built an existing relationship through content that is liked and shared. This will allow your business to quickly connect with a wider audience.

 
For convenience, find below social media strategy templates designed to help your business better manage its social media content marketing.

Scopic works with businesses to identify more effective and efficient social media strategies designed to increase exposure at a global level, contact us to find out more.

People across the globe will be fixed to their screens this Sunday (U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis | 3:30pm | USA time) to watch if coach Bill Belichick and Tom Brady can grab the honors at the 2018 Super Bowl LII.

Like years past, it won't just be the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles competing, but also the biggest global brands.
 
The Super Bowl is one of the biggest days of the year for major brands and they only have seconds to hold viewer's attention. The average TVC production costs over $1 million+ and brands will pay $5 million+ to get a 30-second spot during the big game.
 
Top five TVC picks for Super Bowl LII.

I. M&M'S   |   Human

II. Amazon   |   Alexa Loses Her Voice

III. Doritos&Mountain Dew   |   Blaze vs. Ice

IV. Kia   |   Feel Something Again

V. Sprint   |   Evelyn

Nielsen a global leader in consumer measurement and information offers a look at the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sales trends for 2018.

Consumer habits continued to evolve with technology in 2017. Shoppers are buying smaller items online and seeking out healthier, fresher options. These behavioral shifts should serve as a good predictor of trends and opportunities in 2018 for FMCG businesses.
 
Watch the video: U.S. FMCG Trends to Watch in 2018
 
Scopic works with you to create more effective communications to grow your business globally, contact us to find out more.

Another festive season is upon us, so be happy, healthy and safe—show some love to those you are celebrating with.
 
Scopic will be taking a short break from Friday, 22nd December 2017 to Monday, 8th January 2018.
 
Thank you from Scopic to all our clients for a great 2017 and looking forward to sharing another year with you in 2018.
 
Love!
Scopic Creative

Now we are in the last month of the year, it’s still not too late to start shaping your 2018 content marketing strategy. For B2C and B2B social media marketing to really engage in 2018, businesses must publish relevant, authentic and targeted content across selected platforms. To make this happen—you need to know and understand future audience trends.
 
But before we look at 2018, it’s probably a good idea to take a minute to review your social media content marketing wins and losses of 2017—where, when, what and how your target audience consumed your content—what were the results?
 
Okay, now you know what worked, and what didn’t work, let’s focus on the trends for the year ahead.
 
1. Be Visual
Research shows that video will play a greater role in the content marketing mix in 2018.  It may take time to plan, capture and edit video content, but your audience is more likely to engage with video than just text or images. In 2017 90% of all content shared on social media was video, but remember, to make this happen, you need to catch your audience's attention in the first 3 seconds.
 
More Ideas: 7 Ways to Create a Killer Marketing Video
 
2. Be Influential
People will want more authentic and credible sources of information prior to making purchasing decisions in 2018. For this reason, building audience relationships and partnering with a quality social media influencer could really boost your sales. In 2017 74% of people turned to their social media network for advice on purchasing decisions, and 40% of Instagram and Twitter users made a purchase based on the endorsement of a social media influencer.
 
More Ideas: The State of Influencer Marketing
 
Final Thoughts
Using video and influencers may seem like a solution to the lack of social media traction your business made in 2017, but it’s important that you don’t forget key marketing fundamentals.
 
1. Be Targeted
With an explosive amount of content being published across multiple platforms, you will need to be more targeted with the content you create, and where you publish it in 2018. This requires you to even better understand your target audience's social media habits. Take the time to identify, what content and which platforms have your target audience’s attention. Once you understand where the attention is, you can then better create targeted content that snatches your audience's attention from the competition.
 
2. Be Ready
In 2018 businesses with the highest and most effective consumption rate of social media content will be those businesses that conduct A/B testing (split-run testing) of the content they create, and the platforms they publish it on. Through A/B testing you will start to better identify/understand your audience's habits and this knowledge will then shape the content created and the distribution platforms used.

Finally, social media content marketing winners in 2018 will be those that grab and hold the audience’s attention in the first 3 seconds—it's that simple.
 
Scopic works with businesses to create content that grabs attention and builds engagement, contact us to find out more.

With Facebook now driving the increasing popularity of Instagram, it's fast becoming one of the leading social media platforms—current global community of 800 million. For this reason, a growing number of businesses are actively adding Instagram to their social media marketing mix.
 
To maximize the power and exposure of Instagram, these businesses need to utilize the use of Instagram hashtags.

Hashtags are basically words or phrases, that follow the symbol “#”. These #hashtaged words or phrases work to cluster and link your posts to topics with the same hashtag. The benefits for businesses and marketers is that hashtags are searchable and can be tracked. Using the most popular and trending Instagram hashtags can be a powerful way to increase exposure and draw attention to your posts, but don't over do it, use three to five as a guide.
 
Here are Instagram’s 10 most popular hashtags of 2017:

1. #love
2. #fashion
3. #photooftheday
4. #photography
5. #art
6. #beautiful
7. #travel
8. #happy
9. #nature
10. #picoftheday

 
Read Instagram's full report here: Instagram’s 2017 Year in Review

Branded Hashtag Idea: Create a hashtag that reflects your brand or campaign message. An easy example could be your business name, product tagline, or the name of a current campaign. Use it consistently on Instagram posts to drive exposure and awareness. An added benefit of using a consistently branded hashtag is that you will be able to track and analyze results.

More Ideas: Hootsuite's - The Complete Instagram Hashtag Guide for Business

Scopic connects businesses and audiences through creative communications, contact us to find out more.

You already know, to connect and engage with your audience on social media—it takes much more than just a few random minutes across the day—you must consistently produce relevant and targeted content.
 
Here are four key components of an effective social media strategy:

• Define your objective -- increase likes/followers, increase website traffic, promote products/services or create sales leads.
• Identify your audience -- sex, age, background, interests, location, preferred platform, preferred device (mobile or desktop) and social media habits.
• Plan your guidelines -- how many posts per day, what time, content type (text, image, video, audio, live), content length (300 word post, 15 second advertisement or 10 minute video blog) and importantly who will manage and monitor the platform/s. 
• Find your influencer -- an influencer will allow your business to communicate in a manner that is more relevant and targeted to your audience. The right influencer has already built an existing relationship through content that is liked and shared. This will allow your business to quickly connect with a wider audience. 

​For convenience—see below two social media strategy templates designed to help your business amplify its social media exposure—an editable template for social media strategy planning and an editable social media strategy calendar.

What is a brand style guide?
A business’s brand is one of its most visual assets.  Business branding reflects the core personality and culture of a business. It sets clear direction for employees, and creates meaningful connection points for target audiences. For a brand to be truly engaging and memorable, it must strongly communicate its brand in a consistent way across all channels to all audiences.
 
The smartest way to maintain consistency across your brand is to create a style guide with exact specifications, guidelines and examples. A style guide is simply a reference tool that helps maintain consistency by demonstrating what a brand must look, feel and sound like at all times.
 
Essential Elements of a Style Guide:

• Brand Position: Brand story, mission and values.
• Logo: Color, size, positioning and clear space.
• Color Palette: Print color (CMYK) and digital color (RGB) codes.
• Typography: Font type/s, size, color, spacing and alignment.
• Imagery: Mood, size, focus, clear space and background.
• Copy: Key words, word count and tone.
• Print Material: Specific specifications and examples.
• Digital Material: Specific specifications and examples.

To clearly and effectively communicate with your target audience in a consistent and effective way you should always use your style guide as a starting point.
 
Scopic works with businesses to create brand style guides that provide clear direction for employees and partners connect with us to find out more.

As business becomes more globally competitive, Japanese companies need to better align with local English-speaking markets in order to expand and grow in the future.
 
We work collaboratively with businesses to create effective branding, communications, marketing and sales solutions that positively impact on future growth at a global level through our Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) partner services.
 
Outsourcing certain business processes offers a number of advantages for Japanese businesses.

Cost Reduction: Outsourcing helps Japanese businesses control costs and increase profits. Business process outsourcing provides a comprehensive range of business services at reduced costs including lead generation, email marketing, telemarketing, inbound customer inquiries and order taking.
 
Experienced Professionals: Recruiting new English-speaking employees and training them in product knowledge and services requires a lot of time and money. Through utilizing the services of business process outsourcing, Japanese businesses have the ability to have their marketing and sales divisions communicate directly with global customers in English in real-time.
 
Core Business: Outsourcing increases the time that Japan-based management and employees can better focus on their key domestic responsibilities. Business process outsourcing offers a flexible and customized way to grow Japanese businesses across new English-speaking markets without having to neglect core Japanese customers.
 
As a global partner, business process outsourcing partners add reach to Japanese businesses on an international scale through the integration of branding, communications, marketing and sales solutions.

If you like what you see and are interested in finding out more, then connect with us via email and we’ll get back to you on the same business day.

Business Outsourcing Inquiry
global@scopiccommunication.com
Communications Inquiry
hello@scopiccommunication.com

Japanese Webpage 
www.scopiccommunication.com/japanese

With so much attention on social media marketing and the role of influencers it is easy for businesses to overlook email as an important part of their marketing mix.
 
Findings from a recent Adobe survey (​Adobe Consumer Email Survey Report 2017) on email marketing indicate that consumers are sick of branded emails that are hard selling, uninformative and irrelevant.
 
However, there was a positive and that was consumers would still rather get an email offer from brands compared to direct mail, mobile apps or social media. As Adobe puts it, consumers still have a love affair with email, but these days a bit more balance in needed. 

As we hit the tail end of this year, it is nearly time to start evaluating your 2017 content marketing strategy.

​We know—you already know, to really connect and engage with your audience—it takes much more than just a few random minutes across the day—you must produce relevant, targeted, valuable and consistent content.

 So, which of these 2017 content marketing trends did your business embrace?

1. Going mobile
As mobile device users surge and speeds accelerate, people want more than just text-based content. Mobile users want to find mobile compatible content quickly and easily, so make the user experience stress-free with clear headings, bullet points and quality visuals that engage users.
 
2. Going visual
Research shows images/videos perform much better than just words on a screen, but don’t compromise loading time. An easy way to increase loading speed, is to compress/reduce images and videos to ensure audience attention is not lost while waiting around.

3. Going live
With live content marketing becoming more achievable on mobile devices via FacebookLive, SnapChat, PeriscopeTV and Instagram Stories live streaming continues to explode. Both large and small businesses will easily be able to share product launches, new campaigns and branded events.

4. Targeting content
To truly connect and hold audience attention businesses can no longer be everything-to-everyone across multiple channels of communication. With a massive amount of content being published across numerous channels, businesses need to be more targeted with the content they create. 

5. Test driving
Through testing engagement, businesses will start to better identify audience behaviors that will influence the content created and the distribution channels used. Winners in the race of content consumption will be those businesses that conduct A/B testing (split-run testing) of content/channels - measure engagement, analyze results then create content that is personalized.
 
How did your business measure up!
​
Scopic works with businesses to create quality content that grabs attention and delivers a positive user experience, contact us to find out more.

1. You launch your social media platform/s with no (long-term) strategy in place.
​Without a clear long-term strategy in place and a commitment to that strategy you are doomed to fail.
 
Three important components of your social media strategy:

• Clearly define your objective — increase likes/followers, increase website traffic, promote products/services or create sales leads?
• Clearly identify your audience — sex, age, background, interests, location, preferred platform, preferred device (mobile or desktop) and social media habits.
• Clearly plan your guidelines — how many posts per day, what time, content type (text, image, video, audio, live), content length (300 word post, 15 second advertisement or 10 minute video blog) and importantly — who will manage and monitor the platform/s.  

2. You feel that you don't have the budget to go social.
Obviously a bigger marketing budget if implemented correctly — traditional anyway — should provide greater results, but this is where social media is different.
 
If you have an iPhone, an Internet connection and a well-developed social media strategy, you can now communicate with a global audience like a big brand without the obscene marketing budget. 
 
Just remember — keep it real — genuine, informative, entertaining and useful to the audience you want to engage with.
 
3. You feel you don’t need a social media presence.
Sorry, but you are wrong.
 
Social media is not just a passing fad: 

• Every second there are 61,500+ Google searches
• Every day there are 4.5+ billion Likes on Facebook
• Every day there are 500+ million Tweets on Twitter
• Every day there are 95+ million photos and videos uploaded to Instagram

Fact source: www.internetlivestats.com
 
If you are not social — you are not visible!

However, you may prefer spending your marketing budget solely on traditional forms of marketing (print advertising and television spots) that are overpriced with a rapidly eroding (attentive/engaged) audience. If this is the case, it’s your money!
 
Scopic works with your business to craft communications and marketing solutions that drive accelerated growth in a multi-channel world, contact us to find out more.