Branding Strategy Insider

Overcoming Negative Brand Perceptions

Brand perceptions are much more often created by the product or service experience itself than from marketing communication. Marketing communication is much more effective in building brand awareness than it is in creating or changing brand perceptions.  That is not to say that marketing communication cannot be used to help change perceptions, but it can’t do it alone and it can’t do it in the absence of real changes in the product or service experience. So, when a brand perception is negative and requires a change, that change is likely to include one or more of the following:

• competitive strategy
• business model
• vertical or horizontal integration
• hours
• pricing strategy
• distribution strategy
• product functions, features and styling
• product line breadth and depth
• bundling/unbundling of products and services
• product/service customization
• amenities
• customer service, including problem handling
• technical support
• internal culture
• employee hiring criteria
• employee training
• performance metrics
• common measures
• internal systems and procedures
• capital investments

Changing Brand Perceptions

No doubt about it change is hard. Humans resist change until they absolutely have to. Like a bad habit, you won’t kick it until it threatens your very existence. So it is with changing a brand’s perception in the minds of customers.

Once a customer’s mind is made up about a brand it’s next to impossible to change it. Marketers embarking on the journey of brand transformation must recognize it's an inside-out process not for the faint of heart.

Brands become what they have proven themselves to be. Mental perceptions are hardened by experience. People can’t form new perceptions without a new experience. Like the chicken or the egg, what comes first?

Brand owners are the first to resist change.

There is a long period of denial before brand owners will change their own thinking. It can take years of sales declines before brand owners will wake up and deal honestly with a brand that is losing ground. This is especially true of iconic brands that once were leaders.

There’s a sense of complacency that cripples organizational action. Long before the cash starts drying up, iconic brands lose relevancy and customers. It’s hard to see this happening in real time. The dynamics of organizational thinking tend to favor the status quo.

If you’re going to change brand perceptions, the process begins by changing from within.