Branding Strategy Insider

Leveraging Corporate Brand Identity

When most people think about a brand’s identity, they usually think about the name, the logo, and maybe the tag line.  But the identity consists of so much more than that: it includes typestyles, colors, symbols, attitude and personality, brand voice and visual style, sounds and other mnemonic devices, characters and other spokespeople, product design, package design, and the list could go on and on.  The most powerful brands have a consistent brand voice and visual style from product design and packaging to retail environment and external communication.

Companies such as Procter & Gamble practiced the traditional model of brand management.  These companies managed a large portfolio of stand-alone brands  (Bold, Bounty, Ivory, NyQuil, Pepto-Bismol, Scope, Folgers, Pringles, etc.) and marketed them separately.  While this was highly effective for those companies, it requires substantial marketing resources. 

Today, more and more manufacturing companies are discovering the power of using their corporate brand names (General Electric, IBM, 3M, Ford, etc.) to market their products.  These companies have discovered that it is highly efficient to leverage the corporate brand name.  The name offers quality assurance and familiarity at a minimum and a coherent umbrella promise (example: 3M – innovative solutions) as well, if executed properly.

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

 

Brand Marketing Planning

In the course of working with a variety of clients in developing brand marketing plans, I have witnessed a wide variety of abilities and levels of rigor regarding brand marketing planning.

To maximize the likelihood of success, brand marketing planning should include the following:

•    A consistent understanding and articulation of the brand’s unique value proposition
o    Including a discussion of any differentiating benefits that are becoming ‘cost-of-entry’ or ‘parity’ benefits
•    Clarity on the primary, secondary and tertiary target markets
o    Described in enough detail for media targeting and appropriate messaging
•    The plan should be research-based
o    Knowledge gaps should be identified
•    The plan could also gain its insights from the field sales organization and other outward looking employees and business partners
•    A thorough analysis of the marketplace in which the brand operates, including its competitive environment
•    An analysis of any trends that could help or hurt the brand
o    Including anticipating possible market disruptions due to new competitors, new technologies, new laws, new category definitions/formats, etc.
•    A full brand SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis
•    Marketing objectives organized by target market
•    Possible objectives for each of the following customer brand insistence drivers (as appropriate)

When Regression Means Progress

If there was a prize for the greatest marketing cliche of all time it would probably go to John Wanamaker. It was Wanamaker, followed by about 40,000 marketing executives giving boring presentations, who uttered the immortal words: 'I know I waste half the money I spend on advertising, the problem is I don't know which half.'

It was a fair statement for a 19th-century department-store baron. Advertising back then was a wonderful combination of art, sales and skulduggery. Today's marketing executives may also query which of their investments drive brand equity, sales and market share, but they have little excuse to be as ignorant or sanguine on the matter as Wanamaker was.

Multiple regression analysis is a marketing manager's dream calculation because it addresses the classic investment question that so many organisations find impossible to answer. Multiple regression analysis examines the relationship between a series of independent variables (the inputs) and a single dependent variable (the output). For example, it can enable marketers to study the impact of different media investments on the sales of a particular item. Alternatively, it can explore the relationship between various sales promotions and their impact on brand equity. Regression analysis can turn on the light in the darkened cupboard of marketing decision-making and apply rigour and strategy where before there was just instinct and inertia.

Regression analysis has been around for a century but its adoption in marketing has been severely limited by the relatively poor analytical skills of marketers. It is all too easy as a marketer to dismiss the power of techniques such as regression analysis on the basis that they are too complex and that, ultimately, predicting marketing success is impossible.

Brand Logo Basics

It is at least as important for a logo to be recognizable as it is for it to be readable.  Often, people are only able to get a quick glance at the logo, and then only at a distance.  In those instances, recognition, not readability, is all that counts.  That is why it is so important to integrate recognizable icons, shapes, type fonts and colors into a logo’s design.

Some logos were created during the era of big department stores and were designed as signatures to fit on the side of buildings.  So, these logos are more square in orientation than they are horizontal.  Many of these now seem outdated (if they haven’t been updated).  Hallmark’s logo belongs to this class. Others were designed as corporate logos to reinforce leadership and stability (AT&T, IBM).  Many of these now seem cold and sterile.  Some logos are more fun – communicating more of a personality (Apple, MTV, Ebay).

Today, logos must be designed with the foresight that they will be used in multi-media environments (from TV to the Internet).  That means colors, animation and sound sequences (like NBC, Intel, AOL, Harley-Davidson [engine sound], and Maxwell House) should be considered.

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

Licensing: Trouble for Brands

One of the current siren songs of marketing is the opportunity to earn some extra money by licensing your brand name. Someone comes up to you and offers you a deal you can't refuse. After all, you're playing with other people's money. It's also long-term trouble for your brand.

It all begins, in many instances, with a licensing agency that goes out and hustles your brand. Here's an actual example from a Web site:

"We are the licensing agency for Pratt & Whitney Corporation. Pratt is interested in licensing companies the rights to produce and market products under the Pratt & Whitney brand name. Categories that we are currently in discussions with companies include power generators, aviation tools (power, air, hand tools), pilot accessories, welders, air compressors, power washers, tow units, engine stands, aviation electronics (headsets, GPS, radios, etc), outdoor power equipment and small engines. If you are interested in becoming a Pratt & Whitney licensee to capitalize on the worldwide recognition of the Pratt & Whitney brand, then please contact me."

There you go. Instead of focusing on being the No. 2 jet engine in the world and figuring out how to sell against General Electric jet engines, they want to become everything they can think of and then some. Not good marketing, but it's someone else's money.

Advertisings Legendary Letter

It all began with this letter. Written 60+ years ago by a young copywriter/creative director to the owner of the big ad agency he worked for. It dealt with a philosophy that would be central to him throughout his career and would forever change the world of advertising. His name was Bill Bernbach.

His letter was met with no more than lip service by those who first read it. But Bill was a visionary, with a visionary's zeal. And he was a worrier. That combination was the driving force behind of the opening of his own agency two years later.

Soon after, Doyle Dane Bernbach would fire the first shots in Advertising’s Creative Revolution.

The letter is presented here with the idea that some of you can to use it to validate the kind of work you do. And for the others, it can serve as a guide (as it has already done for so many) to change the kind of work you do.

May 15, 1947

Dear ___________:

Our agency is getting big. That’s something to be happy about. But it’s something to worry about, too, and I don’t mind telling you I’m damned worried. I’m worried that we’re going to fall into the trap of bigness, that we’re going to worship techniques instead of substance, that we’re going to follow history instead of making it, that we’re going to be drowned by superficialities instead of buoyed up by solid fundamentals. I’m worried lest hardening of the creative arteries begin to set in.

BrandQuote - February 23

"Advertising doesn't create a product advantage. It can only convey it."

                       - Bill Bernbach, Advertising Legend 

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

Key Brand Management Considerations

What are the most important considerations in brand management?

•    Deeply understand the target customer
•    Promise one or two benefits that are unique, compelling and believable
•    Capture your brand’s promise in a tagline or slogan
•    Aggressively build awareness
•    Deliver on the brand promise at each point of customer contact
•    Market to your employees first – turn them into brand champions
•    Present your brand’s identity accurately and consistently

Sponsored By: The Blake Project - 2008 Brand Education Seminars

Mobile Brands Making Poor Call On Value

Marketing has always been about more than just sales. Getting the customer to sign on the dotted line is merely the opening volley in the battle, not the victory salute. Getting that consumer to stay with you longer and spend more are the real drivers of a company's success.

It is an obvious point, but one frequently missed by marketers. Take mobile phone operators, for example. For years, the four big operators in the UK have been fighting a war of acquisition intended to lure subscribers from their rivals and onto their network. But while O2, Orange, Vodafone and T-Mobile have succeeded in acquiring customers by the busload, they have all failed in the more lucrative challenge of retention.

With no new consumers entering the market and annual churn levels hovering around 25%, the operators remain engaged in a multimillion-pound game of musical chairs. Price reductions and special offers lure a consumer to one network just in time to replace the one heading across the road for the new handset and special tariff being offered by a competitor.

Great Moments in Design: Coca-Cola Bottle

Bottlers worried that the straight-sided bottle for Coca-Cola was easily confused with imitators. A group representing the company and bottlers asked glass manufacturers to offer ideas for a distinctive bottle. A design from the Root Glass Company of Terre Haute, Indiana won enthusiastic approval in 1915 and was introduced in 1916. The contour bottle became one of the few packages ever granted trademark status by the U.S. Patent Office. Today, it's one of the most recognized icons in the world - even in the dark.

Source: The Coca-Cola Company - History of Bottling

Sponsored By: The Blake Project - 2008 Brand Education Seminars