Information Technology Assignment: Branding In TheDigital Age Based On Innovation &Responsibility

Question

Task: Prepare a detailed research proposal on information technology assignment on the topic “Branding in the digital age based on innovation and responsibility”.

Answer

Introduction
The cutting-edge advances in the field of digital marketing are universally integrated with the responsibility for social justice including the proliferation of social media and the need to curb the fake news. Branding in the modern world is constantly shape-shifting in order to stay ahead of the technological variation and consumer trends. In the digital age, branding not only focuses on a competitive edge but also embodies uniquely within the customer-centricity strategy. Consequently, there is a striking correlation between brand innovation strategy and the responsibility to drive the brand forward. The study will intend to focus on the branding in the digital age based on innovation and responsibility to have a sustainable outcome.

Background
Finding innovative ways to deal with branding in the digital world is often difficult to control as it involves greater transition for strong identity and good reputation. As per the report, 378.2 bn USD has been spent around the digital advertisement in the world where the UK stands for 21 bn GBP in the current date (statista.com, 2021). Branding through the digital age has become the most prominent tools to maintain a strong communication with the customers and gain huge traffic surrounding the digital marketing chain. Digital innovation through artificial intelligence in terms of meta-analysis has already received huge excellence throughout the world. For instance, branding through Alexa and Google Assistant have unestablished personal connection with people in day-to-day lives. Marketers in the millennial and Gen Z demographics are under the consideration of influencer branding that holds great responsibility both on the micro and macro levels. With the rise of branding in the digital age, brands are concentrating more on their commitment and self-efficacy to make sure they deliver the correct message to their clients as their foremost responsibility. For instance, the solid user focus of Tesla towards customer relationship management by branding through digital channels and building on innovative ways of their automobiles have been their driving force for success (Rojas, 2020).

Problem statement
Branding aims to attract a wider clientele through the innovative promotional product offerings and the responsibility towards the customer responsiveness. The fear of pulling investment in the digital age of branding remains a concurrent challenge for the organization as a biggest hindrance to future innovation in terms of long-term success. Failing to comply with the CSR chain of branding has a negative impact on the brand equity level that highly influences the customers. The conflict of incompatibility between the original and new brand seems to disrupt the balance of the internal brand portfolio that might result in the failure of the company. As global customers in the digital age are more conscious about brand awareness, the branding organization need to be more responsible on their strategic competence to derive innovation (Rovai, 2018).

Research objectives and purpose

Objectives
To identify the factors that signify branding through innovation and responsibility
To analyze the challenges that meet with branding innovation in the digital age
To evaluate the impact of responsibility in branding with the advent of digitalization
To recommend strategic measures to improve branding through innovativeness and responsible nature

Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore branding in the digital age based on innovation and responsibility to create a greater market transition and growth for the global organizations. Brand innovation is an integral part of the digital marketing concept as it ensures a better study for understanding the dynamic perception of customer needs and avoiding market saturation. On the other hand, it is the foremost responsibility of digital branding to bolster their organization’s image by boosting the morality of employees and empower them to have a social responsiveness nature to lead a greater productivity in their workforce (Yoganathanet al. 2020).

Justification
The study of branding is well justified for its deliverables of good standards that creates an appealing nature both for the owners and customers at a large scale. It continues to uphold its strategy until it reaches the virtues of the product through greater customer engagement. As consumers are more aware of the marketing trends, tactics, prices and brand, they tend to look for a personalized branding level that not only delivers commitment level but also has an innovative way of satisfying their needs. Therefore, digitalized branding should be ready to associate with their brand innovation measures as one of their responsibility to get recognition from the clients and create an emotional connection with them to withhold a greater sales volume (Lidman&Romell, 2019).

Review of literature

Factors contributing to branding based on innovation and responsibility
Strategic orientation
In order to drive the business growth through explicit performance, branding acts with organizational activities to deal with brand innovation.
Start of brainstorming

Business leaders account for innovative pathways to their source branding nature in the digitalized age that empower employees and activate changes largely.

Challenges of brand innovation
Cash
The issues of cash solvency with the advent of digitalization has been the biggest challenge confronted by the brand managers. Price and margins come under strategic pressure that leads to competitive responses of branding.
Consistency
Many brands fail to impress customers due to the lack of unified message all across the platform that further decline their brand building program and price-value equations (Vasile, Mototo&Chuchu, 2019).

Impact of responsibility in the digitalized branding
Branding in terms of responsibility can highly correspond to employee engagement and keep them satisfied around the whole marketing chain. It is the responsibility of the brand manager to communicate with the customers that can have a direct impact on profit margins and gain better customer support throughout the environment.

Involvement of diffusion of innovation theory can help organisations to identify the pattern and speed that need to practice the business to add value to their operation. It is important for the organisation to adopt new innovation and promote it to the target customers that can accelerate their growth. The theory involves 5 adopter categories such as Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority and Laggards that define the different stages of innovation adoption.

Figure 1: Diffusion of innovation model
(Source: Naakka, 2021)

Improvement measures for branding
Establishment of a company culture
Innovation in the field of branding can be improved by creating a positive sense of culture that can refresh employee skill sets and lead to a higher satisfaction rate for the brand.
Invest on innovative ways of branding
Brand managers need to create a personalized content for their clients as a part of their strategic branding in order to attract potential investors and nurture a better relationship with the customers (Naakka, 2021).

Purpose of the review
Purpose of the review is to analyse the impact of innovation in branding by evaluating the role and responsibility of organisations to involve evolution in their branding process. Innovation is associated with creating a value proposition of the organisation so that they can enhance the attachment of the customers. Branding innovation is the essential corporate strategy that helps businesses to introduce new products and services in the market and develop sustainable business (Ebrahimi et al., 2020). However, organisations need to cultivate the perception of customers and involve innovation that can benefit the business. For instance, Facebook, one of the leading tech companies in the world, has redefined their brand and introduced a new brand Meta to enhance the engagement level of users. On the contrary, innovation plays a pivotal role in influencing the purchasing behaviour of customers, therefore, it is essential for organisations to nurture continuous improvement in their function that can meet the expectations of the customers.

Issues addressed
The paper has addressed the issues that are associated with branding and innovation. It is essential for the organisations to present the exclusiveness of their brand that can grab the attention of their target customers. Due to the availability of an excessive number of reputed brands, the customers often select brands depending on certain recruitment. Large number of substitutes has stiffened the competition for organisation and as the innovation is not limited to the technology domain only, therefore, organisations need to demonstrate the novelty as it is one of the principles of driving customer behaviour. It has been seen that digitalisation of organisation service has often created obstacles for their business as customers can share their views on open channels that can influence the purchasing behaviour of other customers (Trinchiniet al., 2019). On the other hand, the switching cost of the brand is negligible, which encourages customers to switch their brand easily. In addition to that, additional pressure on organisations to maintain continuous connection with their customers to increase the rate of customer conversion.

Methods employed
The study is based on quantitative data analysis that allows the researchers to collect first-hand data and address the issues in the research. Involvement of close ended questions encourage participants to deliver direct response to the question and form understanding of the role of innovation in branding. On the other hand, experimental research design helps in forming relations between dependable and independent variables within the research (GarcíaAvilés, 2020). In this research, engagement of level of customer depends on the level of innovation that is involved by organisations. Positivism research philosophy collects data by observation that provide opportunity to include information on the level of innovation practice in different organisations. 50 participants will be included in the research in a random manner that will deliver their opinion through the involvement of 5-point Likert scale. The Likert scale has allowed the opportunity to participants to generate their specific level of agreement through the five points of the scale-(1) Strongly disagree; (2) Disagree; (3) Neither agree nor disagree; (4) Agree; (5) Strongly agree. Inclusion of diffusion theory of innovation has helped in identifying the factors that impact on the rate of adoption of innovation. The theory emphasizes on generating strategies that can encourage organizations to attract different levels of customers.

Findings and gaps
Finding of the research has showcased that rate of innovation can impact the customer purchasing decisions. In the highly competitive market, engagement level of customers is very much dependent on the communication strategy that is involved by the organisation. Digitalisation of the organisational activity can provide a chance to organisations to exchange opinions with their customers and involve suggestions as per the requirement. Therefore, it can be concluded that the inclusion of innovative strategies can improve the performance level of organisations that add strength to their brand. With the demonstration of the innovation to their customers, organisations can promote the notion that they manufactured innovative products and that help in strengthening the bond with customers. Communication of new ideas to customers can act as the key motivator for the organisation (Castaldiet al., 2020). The big brands like Apple, Facebook and Microsoft have involved new innovative strategies to attract customers towards the brand. It has been seen that loyal customer of Apple Inc. organisation have purchased products without any hesitation as they have established a strong brand reputation. In order to strengthen the reputation of a brand, organisations need to allocate resources to their strategies that can realign with the corporate culture. The involved strategic framework develops product solutions and delivers experience that can form an international brand portfolio. One of the gaps in the research is that there is only a limited number of participants within the research due to time and budget constraints. On the other hand, the research only includes close ended questions that limit the expression of their views. Inclusion of open-ended questions can encourage them to share their opinion in a broad perspective. Lastly, the impact of Covid-19 restricts the conduction of face-to-face interviews and research only depends on the online mode of interview.

Operational definitions
The research focuses on identifying the factors that are associated with innovation and analyse the current changes that brands are facing to introduce innovation in their performance. The research has included diffusion of innovation theory to acknowledge the importance of innovation in organisational function that finally enable them to address the specific need of customers. Quantitative data collection process has included 5-point Likert scale to collect the opinion of participants about the role of innovation.

Reference list
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Ebrahimi, P., Hajmohammadi, A., &Khajeheian, D. (2020). Place branding and moderating role of social media. Current Issues in Tourism, 23(14), 1723-1731. Retrieved on: 1.11.21, from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13683500.2019.1658725

GarcíaAvilés, J. A. (2020). Diffusion of innovation. The International Encyclopedia of Media Psychology, 1-8. Retrieved on: 1.11.21, from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781119011071.iemp0137

Lidman, E., &Romell, A. (2019). Understanding Self-Branding in the Digital Age: Insights for Swedes. Retrieved on 5 November Retrieved from: https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsfpid=diva2%3A1320655&dswid=5126 Naakka, N. (2021). Co-creating Value in the Age of Digitalised Businesses-Case Study: The Dog Food and Treats Industry. Retrieved on 5 November Retrieved from: https://www.theseus.fi/handle/10024/499823

Rojas.,F. (2020). Eight Digital Marketing Lessons We Can Learn from Tesla Forbes Retrieved on 5 November Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2020/12/10/eight-digital-marketing-lessons-we-can-learn-from-tesla/sh=13ae286548c8

Rovai, S. (2018). Luxury Branding and Digitalisation: The Case of European Brands in China. Contemporary Case Studies on Fashion Production, Marketing and Operations, 89-104. Retrieved on 5 November Retrieved from: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-10-7007-5_6statista.com, (2021).

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Vasile, S., Mototo, L., &Chuchu, T. (2019). Using “Memes” as a Marketing Communication Tool in Connecting with Consumers within the Age of Digital Connectivity. Retrieved on 5 November Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tinashe-Chuchu/publication/351444390_Using_Memes_as_a_Marketing_Communication_Tool_in_ Connecting_with_Consumers_within_the_Age_of_Digital_Connectivity/links/ 609ae120a6fdccaebd251b71/Using-Memes-as-a-Marketing-Communication-Tool-in-Connecting-with-Consumers-within-the-Age-of-Digital-Connectivity.pdf

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