Ancient Egyptian Marcomm Rules
{five basic egyptian rules of marcomm}
More than just corporate culture, a successful marcomm campaign needs to develop an integral ideology. The more formalized and stylized the philosophy - the easier it will be to make strategic communication decisions. Questions of communication and brand equity building can then all be answered by the ideology rather than an individual. Take the @TheCapitolPn twitter account used for promoting the Hunger Games Film Trilogy as an example. With a distinct style, voice, point of view and ideology the @TheCapitolPn twitter handle is able to maintain consistent messaging and an effective integrative communication strategy. This perhaps could explain the wild success of Lions Gates' social media promotion campaign. (For more information please see my Hunger Games report in my portfolio).
| develop an ideology.
Your audience can't digest pure ideology, it upsets the stomach. Everyone from the Ancient Egyptians to the Bible has harnessed the power of storytelling. Rather than explaining the entirety of their belief system, the Egyptians relied on allegorical stories that spelled out basic beliefs. They embraced this technique for conveying brand message and explaining very complex ideas. The story format is easy and basic enough for your audience to follow. Additionally, it allows your audience members to invest emotionally in the story - increasing their attachment to the brand.
| establish a story.
If stories are your bread and butter, then symbols are your basic ingredients. Symbols give you the chance to boil down your main message into the size of a kernel. In symbol form your message becomes lighter, more powerful and unchained from the limitations of language. Example: You may notice that Apple retail stores never use bright neon signs "Apple Retail Store." They simply use the Apple logo that is universal and linguistically flat - everybody in the world knows what an apple looks like. Symbols can be words, logos, pictures, sounds - however your idea best condenses.
| condense into symbols.
The age-old rule always stands true - stay on message. The only way to build loyalty overtime is to maintain your messaging strategy constant. If you maintain it - they will come.
| maintain narrative.
In the modern digital area, you need to reach out and engage your audience proactively. In the Ancient Egyptian metaphor this would translate to slavery and all out blood-thirsty conquering - unfortunately not an option today, although highly effective at getting the message across. Instead focus on building the pyramids - the incredible viral works (photos, stories, contests, videos etc) that spread like wildfire, engage and win over key connected social users to your cause.