The Interbrand survey focuses on brands that are ‘global’ – in their words, global brands are ‘available in many countries and, though they may differ from country to country, the localized versions have a common goal and a similar identity.’

Although it can be extremely successful, this is not always the best strategy to adopt. A global brand brings with it an extra set of challenges and costs associated with achieving the consistency and scale of a global brand along with the intimacy of a local brand. Choosing the right communication strategy for each country (and culture) is a critical but complex task.

Companies competing well in several markets may be seduced into a global branding strategy which does not match the business strategy for the organization. If this happens, the company will find itself doing neither the local nor the global aspects very well. Conversely, if it makes sense for the business strategy to be global, then, of course, global branding is also going to be critical.

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From the NYTimes on new & young branding and brands:

It is really a process of attaching an idea to a product. Decades ago that idea might have been strictly utilitarian: trustworthy, effective, a bargain. Over time, the ideas attached to products have become more elaborate, ambitious and even emotional. This is why, for example, current branding campaigns for beer or fast food often seem to be making some sort of statement about the nature of contemporary manhood. If a product is successfully tied to an idea, branding persuades people — consciously or not — to consume the idea by consuming the product. Even companies like Apple and Nike, while celebrated for the tangible attributes of their products, work hard to associate themselves with abstract notions of nonconformity or achievement. A potent brand becomes a form of identity in shorthand.

Between the old concept of brand awareness and the new concept of Emotional Branding, a dialogue must take place that involves this changing of consumer reality in the decision process and brings a dimension of personalized relationship into the equation.

Here is a list of 10 very important rules of emotional branding from the interesting Mark Gobe’s book Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People:

1. From Consumers To People: Consumers buy, people live.

2. From Product To Experience: Products fulfill needs, experiences fulfill desires.

3. From Honesty To Trust: Honesty is expected. Trust is engaging and intimate. It needs to be earned.

4. From Quality To Preference: Quality for the right price is a given today. Preference creates the sale.

5. From Notoriety To Aspiration: Being known does not mean that you are also loved!

6. From Identity To Personality: Identity is recognition. Personality is about character and charisma!

7. From Function To Feel: The functionality of a product is about practical or superficial qualities only. Sensorial design is about experiences.

8. From Ubiquity To Presence: Ubiquity is seen. Emotional presence is felt.

9. From Communication To Dialogue: Communication is telling. Dialogue is sharing.

10. From Service To Relationship: Service is selling. Relationship is acknowledgment.

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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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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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 →

While discussing earlier about the concept of branding and how to define it I just found a very nice blog post on the matter which I’ll quote here:

When you have a great (or bad) experience with a restaurant/ airline/ hospital/ website, what do you tell your friends about? Do you echo the messaging from their advertising? Do you say, “Hey, try them, because they had the coolest logo”?

The brand is the customer experience.

And that’s all it is. It’s not primarily a story, or a logo, or a style, or even a value proposition. Primarily the brand is just what customers tell each other about: their experience.

So if you want to create a good brand, the best – perhaps the only – investment to make is in the customer experience. This means learning from customers through direct observation, and crafting a strategy built from that customer input

Once the customer experience is set, the other elements – aesthetic style, consistent messaging, value proposition, iPod-ness, Coke-ality, all of those wonderful ideas will take care of themselves.

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The Denver Business Journal is running an interesting article presenting five essential steps to take for branding a professional services firm.

The key point of the article is however expressed in the beginning:

To most of us, the term “brand” conjures up an identifying symbol, a catchy phrase, or a trademark that a company uses to identify and advertise its product. However, the true purpose of a brand goes well beyond sending a series of impressions into a target market to create a response. A brand makes a promise; it pledges quality to the user. Brand success is critical in the professional services firm where the people are the product and the brand must be lived to ensure that the promise is fulfilled.

Than, the five proposed steps, are no less interesting:
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“Brand loyalty will diminish as the defining metric of success. Marketing strategies will become more varied. Some brands will be so strong that they will exist independently of specific products and services. Other brands will make a splash and then disappear. And a new kind of ‘generic’ brand will emerge: not bland, low-priced generics but anonymous, unmarked — yet highly stylized — products that are meant to take on the identity of the person who buys them. People will brand their own clothes, their own shoes, and so on.”

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