Month: July 2006

5 Elements to Consider When Naming Your Business

A recent study among small business owners in the United States, sthow that the most stressful thing about starting a new company was not manufacturing of products or advertising to customers, but coming up with a name for the small business. Entrepreneurs spend weeks and even months trying to develop the perfect name.

Along with the Ingredients and Qualities of Good Brand Naming, Brand Naming Tips or Myths presented here before, here is a list of some other five things to consider when choosing a name for your business of product:

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Creating a Personal Brand

Mark Nead in alwayson on [tag]personal branding[/tag]:

As individuals and organizations, we are defined by our values and actions, and it is these values and actions which define our brands, personally and professionally. Fortunately you can’t fake character or values, and technology has become a driving force in demanding transparency and disclosure. Word of mouth marketing has overshadowed and replaced traditional advertising. If you subscribe to and remember one principle of branding, make it this: your brand is not what you say it is. It’s what others say after you’ve left the room.

A strong brand foundation and strategy is essential to the success and effectiveness of businesses as well as individuals. It helps build connections with your audiences and enhances your ability to “own” a category in their minds. This sets the stage for others to become your brand “ambassadors”, which is the most effective means to promote and grow your brand. Nurture the power of referrals with care and respect.


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Redefining the Role of Marketing

Addressing a press conference in Chennai on Monday, marketing guru Phillip Kotler, author of Marketing Management (12th Edition) (Marketing Management) and Principles of Marketing (11th Edition) (Principles of Marketing) expressed its opinion on the growing importance of branding in today’s world of Internet and media explosion.

Branding is critical for creating trust in the minds of consumers. The four P’s of marketing — product, price, place and promotion — were the corner stones of building a brand in the past. Today, one needs to redefine the role of marketing as creating, communicating and delivering value to the consumer (CCDV).

Today the consumer would buy a product or service or a combination only if he saw a value in it. So the central role of marketing was to deliver the value to the consumers. The marketing guru said the 4Ps, the most important factors of Philip Kotler’s theory, were more relevant for the manufacturing sector. But in the current economic system, this had been replaced with `CCDV’ marketing, which was creating value (instead of product), communicating value (in place of promotions) and delivering value.

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Top 10 Brands – Harris Interactive “Best Brands” Survey

Sony is leading the Harris Interactive “Best Brands” survey for the seventh year in a row. Apple is the gainer making in the top 10 this year, while the loosers of the year could be considered Kraft Foods which is loosing 6 places (from 3rd to 9th) and General Motors which dropped from No. 8 to No. 17.

“We would like you to think about brands or names of products and services you know. Considering everything, which three brands do you consider the best?” was the question asked and answered by 2,351 U.S. adults surveyed online by Harris Interactive® between June 7 and 13, 2006.

Survey responses were unaided and a list of brand names was not presented to respondents. The results from this survey cannot be compared to results of the Harris Interactive 2006 EquiTrend Brand Study results, as the methodologies for the surveys differ.

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6 Basic Steps to Achieve Brand Credibility

A big brand is a brand that customers trust and believe in. When consumers don’t trust a brand they do not buy or consume it. One of the biggest reasons for people buying a brand repeatedly is the credibility the brand has among the consumers.

In brand building, credibility is vital to the success of any brand.

There are many brands which claim to provide various benefits. However, a consumer does not believe these claims easily. He needs credibility. Here are 6 basic steps for building brand credibility:

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Branding Goes Mobile

Call it m-branding: the use of the mobile channel to create differentiation and build brand affinity as never before possible. When used correctly, it has five key advantages over virtually every other medium:

Immediacy

Consumers can use their cell phones to interact with brand promotions right at the point of impression. This usually involves entering a four- to five-digit code featured in a print, outdoor, or broadcast advertisement. Continue reading →

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Branding News Roundup – 07/07/2006

Death of Mass Marketing

Marketers typically employ online ad targeting — especially through behavioral, contextual, geographic and search methods — for direct response goals more so than for branding ones.

The focus is shifting, however, according to Advertising.com’s ongoing survey of U.S. web publishers. While only 19.2 percent of respondents cited branding as the main objective of online advertisers in 2005, that figure more than doubled to 41.5 percent this year.

Assessing the financial value of brands

Assessing the size or success of something as slippery as a brand involves a great deal of subjectivity. That is compounded by the fact that two competing factions are promoting two very different approaches to measuring a brand’s effectiveness.
On one side are accountants, armed with the financial wizardry of the capital markets. On the other are workers from the creative industries, the people who create and maintain brands and need to judge their own success.

Mark Ritson on branding: GM is risking death by brand overload

GM is economising on front-of-house systems, with many dealerships now merged into cost-efficient, but brand-killing, shared retail points. Target segmentation and brand differentiation are being replaced by cannibalisation and commodification as GM gradually destroys itself.

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