Branding Strategy Insider

Brand Accessibility: Revenue Within Reach

We have tested our Brand Insistence ™ brand equity management system across numerous industries and organizations over the past eight years. Along the way we have found that the following five components drive customers from brand awareness to brand insistence regardless of the product or service category:

Awareness
Relevant differentiation
Value
Accessibility
Emotional connection

Over the years, I have focused on the ‘awareness’ and ‘relevant differentiation’ components quite a bit given their relative importance. But today, I will focus on accessibility. While it is clear that accessibility is important for retail brands, it is also important for every other type of brand. Accessibility is defined as how easy it is (or seems to be) for customers to interact with and purchase the brand. Certainly distribution channels and ‘location’ are important to brand accessibility, but so are hours of operation, wait times, product availability and process simplicity. Accessibility is driven by both spatial and time dimensions. A brand must be at the right place at the right time for a sale to occur. But accessibility is dependent upon even more than that.

I recently worked with a museum that was not ‘accessible’ to the general public in its geographic area because its gates, grounds and imposing buildings screamed ‘private – do not enter’ to the average person. So accessibility has an approachability aspect to it as well. Think of the personalities that have ‘turned you off’ over time. Perhaps they were too loud or too aggressive or too egotistical or prematurely intimate. Brands can suffer from the same problems.

Accessibility has the most pronounced impact on converting brand awareness and preference to brand purchase. For this reason, accessibility is something you should seriously consider as you manage your brand and its equity.

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

The Power of Brand Accessibility

Coca-Cola used to focus its strategy on the three A's: availability, acceptability, and affordability. While these provided for tremendous growth, they also led to lowered entry barriers. Today, Coca-Cola's mantra is the three P's: preference, pervasive penetration, and price-related value.

If you were another soft drink company, you might define your competitive frame of reference as the cola market or the soft drink market or even the beverage market. But Coke thinks of its business and its market share in terms of “share of human liquid consumption.” This makes water a competitor. In fact, a Coke executive has said that he won't be satisfied until “there is a Coca-Cola faucet in every home.” Coca-Cola's mantra is “within an arm's reach of desire.”

An indication of Coke's drive for accessibility, beyond the vending machines that seem to be everywhere, is illustrated in a recent trip I took to Peru. We had spent several days traveling down Rio Madre de Dios on a riverboat, moving deeper and deeper into the Amazon river basin, jungle, and Manu World Biosphere Reserve. When we finally encountered a riverside village of indigenous people and thatched huts, what was waiting for us? A Coke sign and fresh Coke.