Branding Strategy Insider

What Brands Must Do To Succeed

We believe that brands must make promises to their customers. They must promise relevant, differentiated benefits. That is, they must offer unique value propositions. And, even more importantly, they must deliver on those promises/value propositions. Leading brands have a highly compelling brand promise and insure that the promise is delivered at each point of customer contact.

According to The Conference Board’s rigorous 1998 “Managing the Corporate Brand” study, the following factors are critical for brand strategy success:

Organization Support

•    CEO leadership & support
•    Distinctive corporate culture that supports brand promise
•    Ability to obtain support from a broad spectrum of employees
•    Alignment of brand messages across functions

Brand Presentation

•    Strength of brand identity system
•    Effective use of visuals/imagery
•    Ability to capture the brand in a slogan

As you move forward in building your brand, keep these points in mind:

•    The goal of brand equity building is to move consumers from brand awareness to brand insistence.
•    Awareness, relevant differentiation, emotional connection, value, and accessibility drive brand insistence.
•    Creating awareness is the first step in building a strong brand.
•    Strive to maximize brand impressions and accessibility.

Sponsored By: The Brand Positioning Workshop

When Your Brand Name Is Damaged

The Tea Party Bookshop in Salem, Oregon, has a generous selection of titles on personal growth and spirituality. There’s a poetry reading on the third Thursday of every month. And every once in a while, there’s a “pagan meet-up,” when folks are invited to enjoy a nice evening chatting with fellow pagans. (Well, this is Oregon.)

People who are angry about new Federal healthcare and happy about Sarah Palin wouldn’t necessarily shop there for books. But as the Tea Party political movement gained attention, they began calling and stopping by to ask what time the next anti-government rally would start.

The store’s owner reported disappointment, some interesting discussions, and mostly – confusion. And confusion, whether your name identifies a bookstore or a bank or a boat-builder, is the enemy of good communication.

Something had to be done. The store’s original name, based on the “independent, anti-corporate, more forward-thinking aspects” of the Boston Tea Party, had to go.

Brand Marketing's New Reality

If for one reason or another, you’d slept through the past five years, only to find yourself suddenly awake in August 2010, you’d quickly realize the world of advertising and marketing has fundamentally changed in three major ways. First, subconscious or subliminal communication (and research) has become part of the vocabulary of most marketers.

Second, power has shifted from brand owners to consumers - even the most powerful brands know that successful campaigns have to systematically engage consumers, who will in turn use their mighty word of mouth to spread the messages opposed to relying on big media budgets do the work.

Third, 2010 is shaping up to be dominated by guilt. Guilt for spending money in the midst of a debilitating global recession, guilt for polluting the world, and finally, parental guilt, as kids increasingly engage in their own online world, far removed from traditional values that were previously the exclusive domain of the family.

So what does this mean for a marketer in 2010? Don’t fall into the trap of believing that conventional research will do the trick. More than 80% of all the decisions we make every day are decided upon in our non-conscious part of the brain. Now if we can trust these numbers, and every study indicates that we can, then 2010 will be the year where marketers will be forced to investigate alternative research methodologies that tap into the subconscious processes involved in decision making.

The Brand Licensing Workshop

Brand licensing is one of the lesser known techniques for extending a brand into new categories.  The benefits of brand licensing are extensive and include:

•    Building brand presence by getting product to market faster with little to no investment or inventory risk. 
•    Accelerating the ability to gain additional shelf space or enter into new channels or regions. 
•    Delivering valuable and steady royalty revenue increasing cash flow and operating income. 

The Blake Project offers The Brand Licensing Workshop, a one-day engagement that is designed to deliver a detailed blueprint on how to launch a brand licensing program, enabling participants to take a significant step towards harnessing the power of brand licensing. In this highly facilitated workshop, you will learn:

•    Why companies license their brands and what the pros and cons are of managing it in-house
•    Who is needed on a brand licensing team and their roles & responsibilities
•    Who the internal and external organizations are that interact with the brand licensing team and what their roles and responsibilities are
•    What the brand licensing process is and how is it optimized within an organization
•    Where the brand licensing should reside within the organization and what resources are needed to build a best-in-class program
•    How to launch a brand licensing program and what needs to get accomplished in the first 90 days
•    How to identify and hire the right team members
•    Where to locate the best external resources
•    What is the best way to integrate brand licensing into the existing organization
•    Who should approve brand licensing deals

Exploring The Value Of Sub Brands

Regular readers of Branding Strategy Insider know we welcome and answer marketing questions of all types. Today, Christine, a VP of Marketing in Detroit writes…

"I was wondering if sub-brands are typically valuable for a company or if their value is dubious?"

Interesting question, Christine. If a sub-brand is designed to reach a market or market segment that the parent brand could not reach by itself, it is worth it. That is the primary reason for sub-brands from my perspective, to make the parent brand more relevant to a new or different market or market segment.  Having said that, if the parent brand itself could enter that market or market segment with credibility and no negative repercussions, it should do so without the aid of a sub-brand, primarily because it is simpler and more cost-effective to use one brand instead of two. There is another reason companies have sub-brands -- they have grown through mergers or acquisitions. The sub-brands are often previously acquired brands. In that instance, it is important to retain the sub-brand if it has high awareness and positive associations in the product/service categories in which it operates. If it has neither high awareness nor positive associations, it is a candidate for rationalization. That is, it could cease to exist as a separate entity.
 
There is another reason companies have separate sub-brands -- because there is a culture of creating new brands and sub-brands associated with organizational or legal entities within the enterprise regardless of the market need for such brands and sub-brands. This is an all too common occurrence but one that should be avoided not only for cost reasons but also for the sake of marketplace understanding. Finally, some organizations deliberately create different sub-brands for different customer segments or customer need-segments. Automobile companies often do this. The trick with that is to make sure the sub-brands are very focused and not overlapping. If they are overlapping in the needs that they meet or the customers to which they appeal, it becomes less clear what each sub-brand stands for and how that is different than what the other sub-brands stand for, creating significant customer confusion.

Have a question related to branding? Just Ask…

Sponsored by: The Brand Positioning Workshop  

Consumers Desire Authenticity In Advertising

We’ve seen it and heard it a thousand times – the flawless model posing in an ad for facial-blemish cream... an extremely powerful cleaner that removes every trace of dirt in one effortless wipe... the picture-perfect baby modelling the 100% waterproof diaper. In these scenarios, there’s not even a hint of a single red spot, a stubborn stain, or a bedraggled mother. This is the story of the past 50 years of commercials, and they all have one thing in common – they all feature perfect brands in perfect environments. En masse, we all must believe what we see, or do we?

Take for example the most watched videos on YouTube. Most are by amateurs whose work looks amateurish. We watch reality shows on television, and despite all predictions that they’re on their way out, they keep inventing ever-new situations.

Some months ago a major European cosmetic brand was forced to cut costs. They were not alone, but the only way they could do this was by reducing the length of their TV commercials. They aimed to cut their regular 90-second spots down to 30 seconds. The big dilemma they faced was which scenes should be cut out? Instead of taking the conventional route – opinions and guesswork – they used a neuro-scientific tool based on EEGs whereby brainwaves of consumers were measured and evaluated. By scientifically analysing the commercials they were able to assess which scenes were the most emotionally engaging.

Building Brands With Sound

Have you ever been in a café when suddenly, over in the corner, a baby starts giggling? If you have, you might have noticed that every woman, regardless of age, looked up, momentarily distracted from her coffee, magazine or conversation. It’s as if women are hard-wired to tune into this sound. Check out YouTube and you’ll notice that among the most-watched videos on the site, is one of a baby giggling. More than 107 million people have downloaded it.

There can be no doubt – sound is immensely powerful. And yet 83 per cent of all the advertising we’re exposed to on a daily basis (bearing in mind that the average person will see two million TV commercials in a single lifetime) focuses, almost exclusively, on the sense of sight. That leaves just 17 per cent for the remaining four senses. Consider to what extent we rely on sound. It confirms almost all our digital and electronic connections. We rely on it to dial or text on our cell phones. Interestingly, the revenue from the slot machines in Las Vegas fell by 24 per cent when the whirring and tinkling sounds was removed. Furthermore, experiments conducted in restaurants show that when music slower than the rhythm of a heartbeat is played, we eat slower and we eat more!

Can sound make us buy more, want more, dream more and eat more? Any 50-year-old American can sing a whole range of television jingles from the 1970s – they are all well stored in the recesses of our brain. Yet if you were to ask the same of the generation who have recently come of age, you will find them stumped. Have the magical tunes disappeared, or has the advertising world lost sight of the fact that people do indeed have speakers at home?

I decided to put these questions to the test.

Brand Positioning For Multiple Target Audiences

 
Today, another request from the BSI Email Bag. Ezra, a marketer from Manila, Philippines asks...

"Please help me address this concern about a brand's positioning consistency issue: How do you maintain a consistent marketing communications approach to both of your primary target market (couples) and secondary target market (cancer patients, pregnant women, with thyroid problems, etc.) when they have different sets of values and profile? Our product is in the oral care category, specifically natural-based toothpaste. Thank you so much for your great insights."

Thanks for your question Ezra, we're happy to help. This is a fairly common problem in brand positioning. Often, a brand and its products will have a different appeal to different audiences. First, I would craft an overall brand position that speaks to the unique benefits of the brand and its products, an overarching position that could work for most audiences. Then, I would tailor the brand message to the individual audiences as appropriate, emphasizing the benefits that are most relevant to each audience. The messages for each audience need to support or at least fit under the overall brand position. A marketing agency with brand positioning expertise should be able to help you with this. It is very possible to do successfully but here are the most common problems in doing so:

•    Defining the overarching brand position so generally that it is trite or meaningless

•    Crafting such different messages to each audience that it would not be clear to anyone how the different messages work together in support of the overarching brand position

The trick is to create a hierarchy of benefits and messages that work at an overall brand level but also with individual audiences. So for instance with a natural-based toothpaste, the hierarchy of benefits might look something like this:

Brand (natural-based toothpaste, no artificial chemicals, good for your body, good for the environment)

-----> Couples target market (natural, safe, used by those who care about the environment and themselves)

-----> People with specific medical problems (natural, safe, no complications, no side effects, the choice of people who suffer from ..., or recommended by physicians for those who suffer from...)

While I have not been briefed on your particular brand or its products, I hope this illustrates the point that I am trying to make about benefits and messages that support the overall brand position. 

Have a question related to branding? Just Ask…

Sponsored by: The Brand Positioning Workshop   

Building Brands With The Guilt Strategy

 
Forget about depression, fear, angst, anxiety or night sweats. Guilt, that most puritanical of all our human emotions, has resurfaced to become a 21st century emotional social and consumer pandemic. Parents who in lieu of spending time with their adolescent children leave them with a rented DVD or on Facebook; shoppers who care about buying organic, but who can’t afford the higher prices, and then feel immoral afterwards; consumers who splurge on wine or truffle oil, then a day later feel gross and wasteful for spending so much money during a recession; the list goes on. 

Today’s shrewdest marketers have recognized that old-fashioned Pilgrim-era guilt is (with the right twist) one of the secret keys to unlocking a consumer’s Buyology.

Consider a 40-something woman named Louise. For weeks she’s been strolling past a bright yellow jacket hanging in the window of her favorite upscale clothing store. The jacket may be calling out her name, but the price tag isn’t. Ever since the start of the recession, many retailers have reluctantly ignored the truism that if they discount merchandise, it can take up to seven years for prices to return to what consumers perceive as “normal.” But this store doesn’t offer discounts.

One day Louise comes in with an inspired new tack. She’ll haggle. She’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse. She spears a male salesclerk, clears her throat, goes red. Will the store agree to take 15 percent off the listed price? In return Louise gets only the blankest of stares. Still that much closer to buying the coveted coat, Louise’s guilt suddenly kicks in – “My husband will kill me,” and “My friends will think I’m an idiot if I didn’t buy this coat on sale, especially at a time when every store in the world is discounting,” and “Isn’t this a bit extravagant, particularly when my neighbors are having trouble paying their mortgage?” One by one thoughts like these flit through her head, yet are balanced out by her own brain’s dopamine arguing for the renewed confidence she’ll feel wearing the coat at work or at next week’s holiday party.

End of story?

HP Brand Was Slipping Before Hurd Ouster

Mark Hurd served as the CEO of HP since 2005. He was known on Wall Street as a cost-cutter. Cost cutters tend to be loved for their short-term financial gains, but there is a flaw to their management style in that they typically find it difficult to build the long-term value of their corporate brand.

I have no comment on Hurd's conduct that caused him to be fired but I do find it interesting that the board voted 6-4 to fire him based on the advice of a public relations consultant. Was the Board concerned about the corporate reputation of HP? Or, as Larry Ellison, CEO, Oracle, said, "the HP Board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple Board fired Steve Jobs many years ago."

If the board was concerned about the reputation of the company, they had a case. The corporate brand equity value (the value of its corporate reputation) has declined from 15.6% of HP's market cap in 2005 to 13.2% as of the 1st quarter 2010, which was worth $14.13 billion in brand equity value. Dropping 2.4% from market cap is significant, but the computer industry dropped 8.5% to 4.2% during this same period which averages half of the brand equity value of every company in the industry. So, during Hurd's tenure at the helm of HP he did a mediocre job of managing the corporate brand, but the industry did a whole lot worse.

Taking a broader view of the company, it is clear that HP's brand image hit its' high water mark in 2003. Leading up to that the brand had momentum and was energized. The decline of the corporate brand began in 2004 and picked up downward momentum through Hurd's tenure. The decline showed no abatement through the time of his dismissal.