Brand Management

Years ago, I worked for Hills Bros coffee. We were the #3 brand having a tough time competing against the market leaders (Folgers and Maxwell House), struggling in many markets to keep our product in distribution. But we had one market, Chicago, where we were runaway market leaders with 4x the share of anyone else. In that market, nothing that Folgers or Maxwell House tried to do succeeded in dislodging us.

We believe that the ultimate goal of brand equity building is to move the consumer from brand awareness to brand insistence.

Brand insistence is reserved for those brands that have been carefully designed to posses these characteristics: relevant differentiated benefits for their target customers, ability to build strong emotional connections, have a high degree of awareness, are perceived to deliver deep value for the price and are easily accessible.

Customers, consumers, clients – whatever we call the people who buy your product or service, no business would be around for long without them.

Now, when it comes to identifying your customers, consumers, or clients (let’s call it your audience from now on), there are two schools of thought:

Ask anyone who has even a passing interest in New Orleans brass bands and they will tell you they know of The Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Ask pretty much anyone else, and you’re likely to get a shrug of the shoulders were you to mention their band name. You see, fame’s a funny thing really isn’t it. We all know of the type of fame you see in your Pacino’s, Beckham’s, and Beyonce’s of the world. But what’s easily forgotten is that there is a different type of fame – what we might call ‘niche fame’.

Clearly, products and services link to our feelings and behaviors. But just how tight are these linkages, and how important are they to marketers?