Branding Strategy Insider

BrandQuote

“An organization can only ‘walk the talk' when its managers deliberately shape its internal reality to align with its brand promise…(the brand's) values must be internalized by the organization, shaping its instinctive attitudes, behaviours, priorities, etc.”

Alan Mitchell, “Out of the Shadows” Journal of Marketing Management 15, No. 1-3, January-April 1999: 25-42

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

 

Brand Messaging: Choose Your Words Carefully...

Years ago, when I was the marketing manager for Hallmark’s greeting card products, we discovered something very interesting from an in-store merchandising test: using the exact words customers use in their purchase decision making process on point-of-purchase (POP) signing increases sales significantly. Web site usability studies have demonstrated similar results: using the exact words customers use in trying to find something on links significantly increases click-throughs and user satisfaction. In-store and online studies also both found that the order in which one is led through the process must also match how customers shop.

For instance, when sending a greeting card, most people think of the recipient first and the occasion next. So, one must first direct people to ‘father’ and then to ‘birthday.’ And one should be sure that ‘father’ works better than ‘dad’ or ‘pop.’ The type of card, serious versus humorous, is a tertiary consideration for most shoppers so it must be the third level of navigation. (For those shoppers for whom it is the first level, we offered the Shoebox brand in a separate display.) We are currently designing an Adirondack Youth Treks web site based upon how (and in what order) people look for information. So, people might click on ‘treks’ first, which will lead them to a page that has click-throughs for ‘backpacking,’ ‘canoeing’ and ‘combination’ treks. This may seem obvious, but how many organizations formally test different word choices and navigation paths for their web sites or POP signing? Optimizing the navigational words and paths affect sales significantly.

 

Sponsored By: The Brand Positioning Workshop

Positioning Your Brand

Perhaps the most important brand management activity is positioning the brand properly.  A well-positioned brand addresses important consumer benefits in unique and compelling ways.  It also creates an emotional connection to the consumer.  Finally, it provides flexibility for future growth (beyond current product and service categories).

The first step in positioning a brand is in-depth research.  The research should provide you with the following:

• Profound consumer insight
• A thorough knowledge of the competitive set
• An understanding of consumer benefits (by segment)

You should identify functional, emotional, experiential and self-expressive consumer benefits.  Of those benefits, you should understand which are “cost of entry benefits” and which are “differentiating benefits.”

In-depth qualitative research, including laddering, projective and ethnographic techniques may be required to achieve the desired insight.

Brand Management: More Than Logos And Campaigns

When I have joined organizations to head up their brand management or marketing functions, others in those organizations have often conveyed to me that my primary role must be one of the following:

• Advertising
• Naming
• Logo management
• Creating brochures
• "Air cover" for the sales force
• "Putting a pretty face on the product"

Having been immersed in brand management for such a long time and with the recent pervasive coverage of brand management in the general business press, it amazes me how many people still don't "get" what brand management is all about.

Brand Research

Customer Research - Projective Research Techniques

When conducting qualitative customer research, projective techniques overcome some of the limitations of direct questioning:

• people are not always conscious of their underlying motivations,
• people tell you what they think you want to hear,
• people are sometimes embarrassed to admit their real motivations, thinking that divulging them would reflect negatively on them,
• most people think of themselves as being completely rational in their decision making, so they discount or dismiss non-rational reasons for their behaviors, and
• some people fear how marketers might use the information "if they were to learn the truth about me" so they withhold that information to avoid being manipulated.

Projective techniques can help you better understand brand personality.  For instance, "if the brand was an animal/car/person/sports team/occupation, what animal/car/person/sports team/occupation would it be and why?"
 

Other projective research techniques that help you get below the surface include:

 

• sentence completion
• brand sorting (on a wide variety of dimensions)
• word association
• collages
• brand obituary/epitaph
• brand press release/headline
• consumer letters
• brand time capsule
• stereotypes
• thought balloons
• psychodrawing/modeling
• role-playing and reenactment

What techniques can you share?

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

Strong Brands Require Vision

A brand is much more than a logo or an advertising campaign.  It is the manifestation of an organizational vision.  In my experience in working with organizations from Fortune 500 companies and Internet start-ups to universities and museums, the one ingredient that must be present for the organizational brand to be truly successful is a clearly articulated, strongly felt and universally embraced organizational mission and vision.  And that usually requires strong leadership at the top, and to even greater effect, throughout the organization.

That mission and vision is often based on powerful intuition or a strongly held conviction.  Frequently that intuition is informed by careful and detailed analysis.  Ideally, the mission and vision focus on a deep consumer need that the organization has unique abilities to meet.  That mission and vision should be strongly encoded in the organization's mission and vision statements and in the organizational brand's stated essence, promise and personality.

BrandQuote

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

Charles Darwin

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

 

History Of Branding

We tend to think of branding as a modern day phenomenon.  Certainly, during the late 1990s and the early 2000s, branding emerged as a significant area of emphasis not only for companies and their products, but also for municipalities, universities, other non-profit organizations and even individuals.  Branding became ubiquitous.  Many of us also know that Proctor & Gamble and other consumer product companies began branding their products in earnest in the mid-to-late 1800s.  But more interesting to me is how far back in time branding goes.  For instance, companies that sold patented medicines and tobacco began branding their products as early as the early 1800s.  Around the same time, some fraternities and sororities branded their pledges (literally) during initiation rites as a form of identification and bonding, a practice that has long since been identified as hazing and therefore abandoned.  But that is still recent history -- relatively.

Brand Education Seminars & Speaking Topics

Around the world The Blake Project offers comprehensive seminars on many key branding topics.

They are designed to educate and empower executives, brand managers and marketing professionals to release the full potential of their brands.

Learn more about our Keynote Speeches, Brand Education Seminars and Workshops here.

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

Top Reasons To Reposition A Brand

Brand repositioning is necessary when one or more of the following conditions exist:

• Your brand has a bad, confusing or nonexistent image.


• The primary benefit your brand "owns" has evolved from a differentiating benefit to a cost-of-entry benefit.


• Your organization is significantly altering its strategic direction.


• Your organization is entering new businesses and the current positioning is no longer appropriate.


• A new competitor with a superior value proposition enters your industry.


• Competition has usurped your brand's position or rendered it ineffectual.


• Your organization has acquired a very powerful proprietary advantage that must be worked into the brand positioning.


• Corporate culture renewal dictates at least a revision of the brand personality


• You are broadening your brand to appeal to additional consumers or consumer need segments for whom the current brand positioning won't work.  (This should be a "red flag."  This action could dilute the brand's meaning, make the brand less appealing to current customers or even alienate current customers.)

Sponsored By: Brand Aid