The problem is that the logo is not understood by many in the first place–even some designers. It is not simply a commodity that you can purchased to make your business appear better than it really is. It also is not an adornment that everyone needs, in order to look legitimate. The logo is actually a promise, an investment, and a part of a branding strategy.
As a result your branding strategy, and marketing efforts need to reflect what your audience needs to know to be attracted to your services, and eventually become loyal customers. The logo is a part of that strategy. In some business cases the logo will be more critical than in other business cases. But the fact remains that the logo must reflect who you are, and it must communicate to your market at an emotional level.
Category: Strategy
Brands vs. Tomorrow’s Major Consumers: Teenagers
GenWorld Teen Study just released by Energy BBDO has interesting information for marketers, giving them some suggestions on how to reach tomorrow’s major consumers: teenagers. Conducted in 13 countries, the study found a worldwide generation is being guided by one ethical code: authenticity.
[..] unlike the Gen-Xers that preceded them, this new generation believes there are causes worth supporting, with 70% agreeing with the statement, “I would fight for a cause I believe in.”
So what does this means for brands? In a statement, Walker said, “The days of a Nike-style mega brand that dominates an entire generation may be over, but so is the enclave-ization of the teen world into stereotypical Skaters, Goths, Geeks and Cool Kids. Welcome to a world with as many different definitions of cool as there are individuals.”
The PDF copy of the report can be seen HERE (PDF, 2.6 MB)
Cornerstones of branding strategy
Tampa Bay Business Journal has an interesting article on branding putting up a list of five cornerstones of a brand strategy.
It’s time to get moving, step up to the plate and get your business ready to rock and roll in this new year. Your branding can simply make your business forgettable or unforgettable
Great brands can be worth their weight in gold. Just as ineffective names can make you just another noodle in the bowl of soup.
- Determine your organization’s Unique Selling Advantages.
- Research and solidify your customers’ Unique Buying Advantages.
- Craft your Big Idea to get attention.
- Hold everyone accountable through Integration.
- Marketing Integration is essential
Read full Your brand belongs on the asset list article
Key Branding Trends in 2006
Robert Passikoff is president/founder of Brand Keys, which has published the Customer Loyalty Index of leading companies in 26 product and service categories since 1996., has an interesting article over at Chief Marketer about what he calls the five key trends that will determine the difference between success and failure for brands and marketers for 2006:
1. An emphasis on “engagement.”
Inserting itself between traditional marketing activities and an increasing demand for return on investment assessments, engagement will become the Holy Grail for marketers and advertisers. Defined as the outcome of ad and marketing activities that substantively increases a brand’s strength in the eyes of the consumers, engagement will be used more and more to allocate marketing budgets. Continue reading
Branding Is Strategy
Few independent business owners have the time and resources to dedicate to the level of detail big corporates do in their branding. But there are plenty of things the big companies do well that small-business owners should consider as they strive for long-term survival:
1. Establish a strong brand position
Defining a market position is the most critical step in developing a brand. You must know who you are before you can get to where you want to be. Brand positioning characterizes the way a company wants its target audience to think about its brand. It is the core message you want to deliver in every medium, and it creates clarity, consistency and continuity in the way the organization speaks to the market. Essential to an effective positioning statement is the concept of narrowing rather than broadening a company’s focus. The secret to a good brand-positioning strategy is a clear message that talks about your strengths and explains to customers why your product is the best in your category or industry.
2. Use market research to create a strategic plan
When most of us think of market research, we think of statistics, focus groups and expensive surveys. In most cases, that is overkill. Market research needs to answer only a few key questions — the simpler, the better. Big businesses take feedback and apply it to a strategic plan. They evaluate sales and segment performance, predict sales growth, compile market trends and consumer insights, identify key drivers from the previous year’s successes and failures, set firm marketing objectives for the coming year, estimate costs and craft tactical programs and marketing initiatives to achieve those objectives. Good planning allows companies to continuously measure, refine and optimize their marketing mix. You should demand that all programs have financial benefits and amplify sales. Spend wisely, and know your cost per generated lead.
3. Everything you do communicates, so be consistent
The perception of your company and brand is defined by the interactions people have with your company. Your message must be consistent and compelling at all points of contact with customers.
Take a look at any coupon, print ad, television commercial or Web site for IBM Corp. Every message is marked by a vivid blue color, graphic elements influenced by the geometric shape of the logo, a single-minded tagline, uniform font type in headlines and the same tone across all printed material.
4. Being unique is crucial, even if you’re coming in second
Companies that grab market share first often grab the glory, but they aren’t always the last one standing. At one time, The Procter & Gamble Co. was second to Union Carbide Corp. in marketing disposable diapers. Dell Inc. unseated Compaq Computer Corp. by marketing to the upcoming college generation. The secret to second-mover advantage: You can’t propose just a me-too idea; you need a unique angle to spin. Me-too businesses rarely survive. They usually end up in price wars because they don’t have anything unique that establishes value in the minds of their prospects. They are left with only one competitive weapon: price. Unless you have a significant cost advantage over your competitors, you will lose.
5. Speak to the consumer and create value
Does your marketing material directly address the value of doing business with your company? Can it answer any consumer’s basic question, “What’s in it for me?” Some companies forget communication is about getting consumers to see brand benefits for themselves. To get that across, a brand must speak from the consumer’s point of view, not the marketing department’s. Remove all those meaningless benefits from your Web site and other communications materials. Replace them with the added value customers are after.
Chinese Brands Going Global
While many companies outside of China contemplate the riches to be made, they must be aware of the increasing competition originating from that country into global markets.
This is the caption phrase of a recently released Interbrand white paper on The Strategy for Chinese Brands.
This paper, the first in a series of two, examines this “Chinese Brand Strategy,” current perception issues, lessons from the best global brands, and the impact of leading Chinese brands. A second paper will examine Chinese what brands must do to be globally successful and how entrenched players must respond to the increasing competition.
Many Chinese brands, says the study, are quickly embracing practices common for the best global brands:
Recognition
Well-performing brands enjoy strong awareness among consumers and opinion leaders. These brands lead their industry or industries. This type of recognition represents the nexus of perception and reality, enabling brands to rapidly establish credibility in new markets.
Consistency
These brands achieve a high degree of consistency in visual, verbal, sonic and tactile identity across geographies. They deliver a consistent customer experience worldwide, often supported by an integrated global marketing effort.
Emotion
A brand is not a brand unless it competes along emotional dimensions. It must symbolize a promis that people believe can be delivered and one they desire to be part of. Through emotion, brands can achieve the loyalty of consumers by tapping into human values and aspirations that cut across cultural differences.
Uniqueness
Great brands represent great ideas. These brands express a unique position to all internal and external audiences. They effectively use all elements in the communications mix to position within and across international markets.
Adaptability
Global brands must respect local needs, wants and tastes. These brands adapt to the local marketplace while fulfilling a global mission.
Management
The organization’s senior leadership must champion the brand, ideally with the CEO leading the initiative. A leader’s continual articulation of the brand philosophy and the brand’s view of the world is meant to give the business strategy a recognizable face. The commitment is crucial, allowing for a unique positioning that transcends local idiosyncrasies and appeals to a universal aspect of human nature and experience.
Get the full report from Bnet
7 Rules for Great Marketing
For marketing executives seeking to build their brand in today’s frenzied, message-cluttered jungle, resting on their laurels seemed to be enough until not long ago — especially if they were meeting their goals, seamlessly executing ambitious programs, and keeping staff members happy enough to ward off corporate raiders. Nowadays, conditions are vastly different. To prove your worth as a marketer and brand builder, you need to tap into your entrepreneurial side.
Seven rules for marketing and brand building, based on a fundamental for entrepreneurial success, are now essential for compelling customers to embrace your brand.
Embrace 3-D marketing
Entrepreneurs are obsessed with building lasting, face-to-face relationships, a principle that only 3-D marketers can leverage to full advantage. 3-D marketing—encompassing events, exhibits, displays, merchandising, premiums, target market research, prospect follow-up and much more—enables marketers to truly “touch” their customers in ways that traditional mass marketing does not. It’s the most powerful tool in the marketing arsenal for creating customer relationships and building brand image on a face-to-face basis.
Make ROI your mantra
Entrepreneurs are notoriously impatient to maximize the return on every investment they make. Amazingly, in the world of 3D marketing, executives often forgo measuring ROI until called to the carpet — and by then, they have no assurance that they are looking at meaningful indicators of brand participation or brand loyalty.
Dive into your industry
Stellar entrepreneurs study their target industries in minute detail, zero in on the marketplace needs they’re uniquely positioned to fill, and develop brands that showcase their added value. Do you know what your brand is, what it isn’t, and what it needs to be? How should you be promoting your brand so that it resonates with a changing marketplace of prospects and buyers?
Focus resources through end-to-end planning
In the new world of 3-D marketing, you must champion end-to-end planning processes—beginning with market research and message development, graduating to creative conceptualization and implementation, and ending with customer follow-up and results measurement. As part of your marketing effort, you should be spearheading an end-to-end planning approach for each one.
Remember the vision
Entrepreneurs are “big idea” people with a compelling vision and the drive to see it through. Too often, marketing executives lose their dedication to understanding their corporation’s vision and strategy—and advancing them through several integrated tactics with a common set of underlying messages.
Seek new paradigms for achieving teamwork and synergy
The teambuilding spirit typical of entrepreneurs is a requirement for marketers, who should be taking it to the next level. Do you, for instance, organize on-site “pep-rally briefings” of your sales team just before major events—reinforcing the brand messages most likely to draw customers in? While sales would normally lead these meetings, your intimate branding knowledge should be compelling you to initiate this out-of-the-box approach.
Honor the team members
Like entrepreneurs, you depend on your team to help you shine. Learn to nurture and empower the people who work with you every day—encouraging them to take your ideas further, to continually focus on overall returns, and to develop new approaches. As the rules for brand-building success take a dramatic turn, you’ll need their talents to help you capitalize on future opportunities—and to maintain the luster of your brand.
via MarketingProfs.
5 Branding Misconceptions
The mass-market, advertising-agency model still influential in brand management, is fast becoming obsolete. Brands are changing in many ways and the traditional role of brand as a proxy for quality has diminished. Branding remains crucially important, yet it increasingly finds its power through a tighter integration with business design. Overcoming five widespread misconceptions and myths about branding can help organisation to win in the brand-building game.
1. Brands are built mainly through advertising.
In today’s increasingly service-oriented economy,something has replaced advertising as the key to brand building: the customer experience. This represents the sum of a customer’s numerous interactions with a company, each of which is a moment of truth that can, to varying degrees, enhance or erode the brand. And a positive customer experience, so crucial to the health of brands in service industries, also plays an increasingly important role in product businesses. The purchase of a product, which used to be the final interaction between company and customer, now is often only the beginning of an ongoing relationship that includes after-market service or the creation of customer “solutions” that incorporate but overshadow the physical product.
2. Brands are used primarily to influence customers.
Although most brand strategies are developed, quite naturally, with the customer front and center, they will fail to generate sustained growth in profitability and shareholder value unless they target not only customers but also investors and current and prospective employees.
Besides the three primary stakeholders—customers,investors,and talent – there is a fourth constituency that,although it plays no direct role in driving profitability or value growth, is crucial to a company’s health. This is the group of regulators, media, and public interest organizations that can affect a company’s real or de facto license to operate.A company that ignores this audience in positioning its brand risks a hostile response when it seeks their support.
3. The key to successful brand management involves understanding the effectiveness of the brand in today’s marketplace
While achieving such an understanding is a worthwhile aim, on its own it risks creating a dangerously complacent view of a brand’s health. More important is being able to anticipate a brand’s relevance to the most valuable customers of tomorrow. One way to look over the horizon and glimpse future brand pitfalls and opportunities is through the discipline of pattern recognition. Analyzing a library of brand patterns that have played out in the past can suggest how and when a brand should evolve.
4. Brands are symbolic and emotive and therefore are managed primarily through creativity rather than analysis.
While brands appeal to the heart as well as to the head, they can be quantified and analyzed with much the same economic rigor as other business assets. One means of doing this involves a detailed assessment of something we call brand equity.
5. Brands are the responsibility of the marketing department
Because brands derive their power from the value that they symbolically represent, there must be real value in the branded products or services.Otherwise,a brand will simply create false promises — a surefire way to erode its strength. It has long been true that a product must deliver on the brand promise. But in an increasingly service-intensive economy, employees, not just the product, determine a company’s success in delivering on the brand promise. Giving employees the tools and leeway to satisfy the customer across the entire customer experience can tremendously protect or enhance a brand’s strength. Delivering on the brand’s promises requires the involvement of virtually every employee in all areas of the organization, even those who have no direct customer
3 Important Elements of a Brand Strategy
Brand strategy is one of the most fraught areas of marketing, though clearly also one of the most important. There are many problems with definition. The key point is you can’t have a strategy without a clear objective. Restating a goal is not strategy, execution is not strategy, and tactics are not strategy. A brand cannot function without a strategy and the function of brand management is to implement brand strategy.
A brand’s longevity and strength has to be built less on price and more on differentiation. In markets cluttered with messages, and where a certain level of quality of product and/or service is expected by customers, brand owners have to find ever new ways to foster loyalty.
Targeting
In order to decide how best to choose target customers for your brand, you need to answer questions, such as:
- Which customers are important to the market?
- Which are important to my brand?
- How can I get more customers or do more business with each of them?
The current preoccupation, rightly, is analysing which customers deliver the most value and hence profit the company most. These may not necessarily be the largest number of the brand’s customers – in fact it rarely is. In most brands, there is some variation of an 80/20 rule, where the minority of most loyal customers deliver most value to the company.
Advances in technology have made it easier to collect, store and utilise more reliable data on who your customers are, how much and how often they buy from you, what else they buy etc. The key strategic choice to make here is whether you are targeting the most valuable customers to keep their custom, targeting infrequent customers to make them more brand loyal, or trying to gain new customers?
All those targeting objectives are important to building a strong brand, but the emphasis may vary depending on the lifecycle of the brand. A new brand needs to establish itself in the marketplace, but over time customer loyalty will grow and the brand should reward its most valuable customers. Recruiting new customers, however, is a never-ending task and one which will ensure the brand’s longevity.
Values
Consumers buy brands because their values align with the brands’ values.
To keep brands fresh, relevant and at the forefront of customers’ minds, it is vital to be able to have strong links between core brand values and positive customer experiences,which are brought to life in innovative
products using the best technologies.
Core brand values are what differentiate you from your competitors and can be expressed in a small number of words, although the words have to be meaningful in terms of the context of the brand. Positive customer experiences are the fulfilment of the brand promises. To maximise the impact you make on customers, it is important to explore the full richness of the context in which the product is being used, focusing particularly on the benefits which customers experience.
Proposition
A proposition is what you choose to communicate about your brand to the market and various stakeholders in your brand.
This communication entails more than just the physical product or advertising. All the intangible communications of the brand, its customer service, its availability, its pricing policy, have a bearing on how the overall brand proposition is viewed by customers.
Tag: Brand Strategy
Seven Steps for a Brand Strategy
Successful brands are built on the twin foundations of awareness and relevance. If target audiences are not aware of you; if they don’t notice your message in the cacophony of messages they receive each day, then you will never have a chance to be relevant. And if they become aware of you—if you capture their attention—and fail to deliver relevance,then they will learn to ignore you. The seven-steps branding strategy outlined here will help provide the structure you need to assess and develop relevance and create awareness.