Branding Strategy Insider

Brand Quote

"If you love somebody,
 Set her free…
 If she comes back, she has brand loyalty
 If she doesn’t, reposition the brand in new markets."

 - Author Unknown

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

 

 

The Brand Management Checklist

Increasingly, the brand is becoming the key source of differentiation that guides a customer’s purchase choice.  The brand is also the focal point around which an organization defines how it will uniquely deliver value to that customer in a profitable manner. The brand embodies the “heart and soul” of an organization.  In effect, its promise is delivered through its products, services, and consumer communication, creating the total customer relationship and experience.  If the brand is well-conceived and consistently delivered through all business processes and customer contacts, the organization will grow and prosper.

Are you a part of a brand building organization? The following checklist will help you assess your organization’s readiness to build brands.

•Do the CEO and other corporate officers embrace the brand as a key corporate asset that must be built and leveraged?

•Is your CEO’s primary perspective that of brand marketing (versus finance, operations or something else)?

•Has your CEO “internalized” your brand’s essence?  Does he or she “live” your brand’s promise?  Does he or she personally reinforce the brand’s intended personality?

•Does your CEO have a long-term vision for the brand?

•Does the CFO understand that the brand is an important corporate asset?

•Have you calculated the dollar value of your brand as a financial asset? Are all corporate officers aware of this value?

•Do people in your organization know the difference between brand management and product management?

•Does a brand management process drive product decisions (rather than a product management process driving brand decisions)?

•Are there brand “evangelists” in your organization?

•Are there brand champions in senior management?

Branding and Cultural Differences - 2

Earlier in the year I touched on how marketers can get into trouble when they introduce their products to new countries and don’t pay close attention to cultural differences.  Here are more examples of botched international slogans, names and campaigns…

Brand: Parker Pen
Slogan: ‘It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you.’
Slogan in Spanish: ‘It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant’

Brand: Electrolux (Vacuum Cleaners)
Slogan for their American campaign: ‘Nothing Sucks like an Electrolux’

Brand: Clairol
Name: Mist Stick (Curling Iron)
Name’s translation in German: ‘Manure Stick’

Brand: Pepsi
Slogan: ‘Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation’
Slogan in Chinese: ‘Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the Grave’

Brand: Colgate (Toothpaste)
Name: Cue
Name’s notoriety in France: A notorious porn magazine

Brand: American Airlines
Slogan: ‘Fly in Leather’
Slogan in Spanish: ‘Fly Naked’

Brand: American Dairy Association
Slogan: ‘Got Milk’
Slogan in Spanish: ‘Are You Lactating?’

Brand: Coca-Cola
Name: Coca-Cola
Name’s translation in Chinese: ‘Bite the Wax Tadpole’ or ‘Female Horse Stuffed with Wax’ depending on the dialect.

Can you think of more?

Sponsored By: The Brand Positioning Workshop

Overcoming Common Brand Problems - 18

This dagger goes straight to the heart...

Common Brand Problem Number 18: Not delivering against the communicated brand promise

Analysis: Again, this is a symptom of viewing brand management as only a communications exercise. United Airlines’ 1997 advertising campaign, “United Airlines Rising” backfired. While the company was trying to communicate that its service was rising to meet consumers’ expectations, flight attendants were involved in a labor dispute, and threatening CHAOS (“Creating Havoc Around Our System”) and the customer relations department was so unresponsive to complaints that it prompted a disgruntled customer to create the website www.untied.com, featuring United Airlines passenger complaints.

Key Point: the communicated promise must be delivered in product, service and total customer experience. Internal brand strategy education and communication may be necessary to ensure all employees are helping the brand deliver its promise. Tying employee compensation to delivery against the brand promise will help.

Sponsored By: The Brand Positioning Workshop

The State Of Branding Q & A

The State of Branding from Brad's perspective ...
(compiled from recent interviews)

How has the publics' perception of a brand changed within the past 20 years?

•People have gotten savvier about advertising messages and claims.
•People increasingly hold brands to their promises.
•Younger people actually feel more of an emotional connection to brands then they do to traditional institutions such as schools and churches (especially compared to previous generations).  Brands say something about them.  Brands have badge value.
•Brands have been under attack by “copy cat” generic and store brands.
•Brands are increasingly becoming a way to break through the clutter of product proliferation and the purchase decision difficulty that it creates.

How does the increased globalisation of markets affect the standing of
brands?

•Brands from certain countries and regions still have a particular cache within certain categories (such as Swiss watches, Italian designer clothes, French wines, American jeans, etc.), however, to survive, most brands will need to go global.  This requires a common brand essence that transcends country borders, supported by products and marketing programs individualized to the needs of specific countries and regions.

What, at the moment is the biggest threat to brand equity?

There are many.  I have identified 33 in my book, Brand Aid.  Here are some of the more serious threats:

•A driving focus on quarterly profits to the detriment of brand and product investment.  (One manifestation of this is focusing marketing dollars on sales promotion rather than brand building, providing an immediate sales lift at the expense of brand equity.  Another way this plays itself out is when companies gradually and incrementally lower product quality while raising prices over time.  Categories in which this has occurred have experienced major price corrections.  Witness Marlboro’s Black Friday, the rapid emergence of deep discount greeting card stores (from 0% to 20+% of the total U.S. market in just over 5 years), Malt-O-Meal cereals, and HMOs.)

•As all brands within a category increasingly deliver against most category benefits, the consumer becomes indifferent between brands and makes her purchase decision based primarily on price.  (Brand managers must continually refine the brand positioning, especially as previous points-of-difference become points-of-parity.)

•Senior managers lose track of what the brand stands for and what makes it different in the marketplace.

•Brands make a promise in advertising but then don’t deliver against the promise at its points of contact with consumers.

•Hollow brands, ones that have no soul, no point of view are quickly vanishing.

Are brands losing their power as consumers become less deferential to
authority and more interested in personal ritual and creating their own
lifestyle?

Our 10 Most Popular Posts - 2006

2006 took our minds in several directions in the branding universe. A look at our FeedBurner statistics helped us identify the 10 most popular posts of the year on Branding Strategy Insider, and hopefully the most meaningful.

Thanks to those who suggested or inspired these topics...

10. Brand Value: Cracking the Pricing Code
9. Brand Research: Impact Report
8. Exploring Ideation & Creative Problem Solving
7. Counting Down the 40 Most Common Brand Problems
6. Brand Quotes
5. Brand Identity: The Importance of Color
4. Attention Auto Dealers: Change the Voice in Your Head
3. ExxonMobil vision is perilously short-term
2. Achieving Brand Differentiation

Number 1. The Strongest Brands

Thanks for reading and connecting.

Best wishes,

Derrick Daye & Brad VanAuken

Sponsored By: The Brand Positioning Workshop

Small Business Branding Q & A

Originally published in Maine Today...

Q. Many of us throw branding, marketing and advertising into the same bucket. Can you help us sort out the differences?

A. Marketing is a discipline (or set of activities) ultimately designed to generate and increase revenues.  It includes a wide variety of sub-disciplines, strategies and tactics.  For instance, all of the following can be components of a marketing program:

•Marketing research
•Customer knowledge/analysis
•Competitive knowledge/analysis
•Product
•Packaging
•Pricing
•Branding
•Marketing communication (including advertising)
•Distribution
•Promotion
•Publicity
•Media relations
•Industry analyst relations
•Signing
•Merchandising
•Cause-related marketing
•Event marketing
•Trade shows
•Sales support
•Web sites
•Customer relationship marketing, including data base marketing and direct marketing
•Viral marketing
•Guerilla marketing

A marketing plan should promise specific revenue or market share increases in return for specific levels of funding for particular marketing strategies and tactics.

The marketing function can be organized by brand, customer, customer need segment, product category, functional sub-discipline (such as advertising, promotion, etc.) or some combination of these.

Advertising is paid for marketing communication.  It is a marketing sub-discipline as noted above.  Advertising’s major benefit is to increase awareness.  It also communicates the brand’s (or product’s) relevant point(s) of difference and can achieve other ends, depending upon the objective.  For many consumer product categories, it can actually elicit a sale.  For most business to business categories, it can only increase awareness and preference and put the brand in the consideration set.

A brand is the personification of an organization or its products and services.  Brands are designed to build relationships and emotional connection with customers.  Brands are also the source of promises to customers.  They should promise relevant differentiated benefits.  So, branding is the process of creating an identity for an organization or its products and services for the purpose of creating relationships with customers and making promises to customers.  Branding is a sub-discipline of marketing, but given its increasing role at an organizational level (organizational branding versus product-specific branding) and the resulting need to manifest the brand promise at each point of customer contact, branding should influence virtually every activity in the organization.  Branding is the source of (1) customer goodwill and (2) a significant portion of the financial value of a company.

There is increasing evidence and consensus that strong brands deliver the following business benefits:

•Decreased price sensitivity
•Increased consumer loyalty
•(For manufacturers) increased bargaining power with retailers
•Independence from a particular product category
•Increased flexibility for future growth (through extension)
•Increased ability to hire and retain talented employees
•Increased ability to focus the organization's activities & resources
•Increased market share
•Increased stock price
•Increased shareholder value

In summary, marketing is a broad set of activities designed to generate and increase sales (in the short-.medium- and long-term).  Branding is designed to increase sales and market share in the long-term by establishing relationships with customers.  Both rely on advertising as a very powerful tool.

Q. Small businesses don't have budgets like P & G to invest in their brands. How can they apply branding concepts to their business?

Brand Facts

What are The Most Important Tasks of Brand Management?

•Develop and execute brand plans, including brand marketing plans
•Build brand awareness
•Position the brand for sustainable competitive advantage
•Transform the organization’s leadership team into brand champions
•Transform all employees into brand champions
•Measure and actively mange your brand’s equity
•Actively manage the brand’s identity, including enforcement of its guidelines and standards
•Legally protect the brand
•Always keep the brand customer focused
•Design and implement plans to create emotional connection between your brand and its customers
•Develop and execute brand loyalty programs
•Know your customer. When/where possible, evolve with their needs and desires.

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

 

Overcoming Common Brand Problems - 17

We're at Number 17 in our list of the 40 Most Common Brand Problems...

Common Brand Problem Number 17: Viewing brand equity management as a communications exercise, but ignoring it in other business processes and points of contact with the consumer

Analysis: Too often, organizations relegate brand management to a specific department (advertising, marketing, brand management, etc.) or agency.

Key Point: Brand management is an organization-wide process, especially if the brand is a corporate brand. The brand promise must be delivered at each point of contact with the consumer including customer service lines, retail sales associates, etc. For the brand promise to be clear to your consumers, it must be well understood by everyone in your organization—from the CEO to the receptionist. It must be manifest not only in consumer communication, but also whenever and wherever the brand name and logo are used. Companies are rightly beginning to design the total enterprise in support of the brand promise, including putting mechanisms in place to develop a brand building culture.

Have you witnessed Common Brand Problem 17?

Sponsored By: The Brand Positioning Workshop

Brand Quote

Peter Drucker advised that since the purpose of a business is to generate customers, only two functions do this: Marketing and Innovation. All other functions are an expense.

Have a Brand Quote to share? Email Us.

Sponsored By: Brand Aid