Brand Activation
The Marketing Phrase That Makes Me Reach for the Mute Button
There are certain marketing phrases that immediately make my eyes glaze over.
“Let’s take this offline.”
“We need to socialise the idea.”
“Can you action that?”
And somewhere near the top of that list sits “brand activation”.
Now, before the brand activation specialists sharpen their pitchforks, let me be clear.
Brand activation is a real thing.
It’s just that somewhere along the way, it became one of those terms that people say with enormous confidence while everyone else quietly nods, hoping nobody asks them to define it.
So let’s do exactly that.
What actually is brand activation?
In simple terms, brand activation is any marketing activity designed to get people to engage with your brand rather than simply see it.
Advertising creates awareness.
Brand activation encourages action.
That action might be:
- Trying a product.
- Visiting a pop-up shop.
- Entering a competition.
- Sampling food.
- Attending an event.
- Downloading an app.
- Sharing content.
- Signing up to a newsletter.
It’s about turning passive audiences into active participants.
That’s it.
See? Much simpler than the LinkedIn version.
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Why the phrase irritates me
My issue isn’t with the discipline.
It’s with the unnecessary theatre that sometimes surrounds it.
I’ve sat in meetings where someone has announced we need
“a fully integrated omnichannel brand activation strategy”…
…when what they actually meant was:
“Let’s get people to try the product.”
Marketing has a habit of wrapping perfectly sensible ideas in language that sounds like it was generated by a committee with access to a thesaurus.
Sometimes plain English is the more impressive option.
So does brand activation matter?
Absolutely.
In fact, some of the best campaigns in history have been brilliant examples of it.
Red Bull handing out free cans to students.
IKEA creating immersive room displays.
Nike putting products on athletes rather than just in adverts.
They weren’t just telling people about the brand.
They were creating experiences that made people remember it.
That’s brand activation.
No complicated explanation required.
Final thought
If you enjoy saying “brand activation”, carry on.
I won’t stop you.
Just know that every time I hear it, a tiny part of me dies alongside the phrase “slide deck”.
Because good marketing is complicated enough without making the English language more complicated too.
