Brands and Bullshit Page 9
Stay relevant and flexible. A well-managed brand is always making adjustments. Branding is a process, not a race nor an event so expect to constantly tweak your message and refresh your image. Successful brands don’t cling to the old ways just because they worked in the past; instead, they try to re-invent themselves by being flexible which frees them to be more savvy and creative.
Align tactics with strategy. Convey the brand message on the most appropriate media platform with specific campaign objectives. Because consumers are bombarded by commercial messages every day, they’re also actively blocking out the great majority of them. Invest your branding efforts on the right platform that communicates to customers via the right channels.
Measure the effectiveness. Focus on the ROI (return on investment) is the key to measure the effectiveness of your strategies. Often times it is how well your organization can be inspired to execute the strategies. It could also be reflected in brand valuation or how your customers react to your product and price adjustments. Ultimately it should resonate with sales (and repeat sales) and that means profitability. But don’t just focus on increasing sales when you could be getting a profit boost by reducing overhead and expenses as well. Give yourself options to test different marketing tactics, make sure they fit your brand authenticity and align with your strategy.
Cultivate your community. Community is a powerful and effective platform on which to engage customers and create loyalty towards the brand. In an active community, members feel a need to connect with each other in the context of the brand’s consumption. Brand communities allow companies to collaborate with customers in all phases of value creation via crowd-sourcing such as product design, pricing strategy, availability, and even where to offer the product or service.
WHATEVER YOUR BRAND STRATEGY, BETTER BE AUTHENTIC
Regardless of your brand strategy, ‘authenticity’ is an aspect of branding that’s important to consider in order to be relevant in today’s marketplaces. Brand authenticity is not a trendy marketing buzzword. In its most simple sense, brand authenticity means honesty. Layer transparency and integrity onto that, and you have a business approach that is as rooted in reality as it is inspired. There is already authenticity at work in every business or organization. It is the set of core beliefs that drives the brand and the activity. It’s the stuff that just happens, naturally and truthfully. No pretending, no falsehoods, no saying your brand is something that it isn’t, or stands for something that it doesn’t. Authenticity is the glass wall at the sausage factory. Are you cool with what consumers will see when they look into your world? Are you excited to share it with them?
When you really think about it, authenticity comes down to giving people a reason to care. Consumers want to care - they want to believe that their purchase is making a difference somewhere, somehow, and that the brands they are supporting with their hard-earned dollars are living out the values that they believe in. People respond to honesty, integrity, enthusiasm and love, and they can spot frauds a mile away. It’s never too late to look for the authenticity that exists within your business and to capitalize on it with thoughtful, engaging marketing campaigns.
BRAND INSIGHT
This company got its start in 2002 when the company founder was trying to solve a simple problem but could not find a solution in the marketplace. So he created one. Initially the product was intended for serious action sports enthusiasts, a fun crowd but a relatively small target segment. Little did the company know just how much another trend, social media, would explode the popularity of its product. With the rise of social media, everyone was capturing images and video and sharing them online. The company’s sales grew rapidly and they focused on product marketing to fuel sales. But with the rise of social media, came the evolution of smartphones with better and better cameras. Now GoPro was in trouble. They had built a “product” based brand and not really crafted a strong emotional connection to their customers. Those customers were now leaving in droves. New potential customers saw no reason to buy a GoPro. Customers might have purchased their GoPro to takes photos and videos but obviously, they did not “love” their GoPro.
KEY TAKEAWAY
You better define and build your brand strategy from the beginning to create an emotional connection to your customers. You better be ready to adjust your products features or services when competition arrives. If not, you will be relegated to selling just a product. And products are way harder to defend and protect than brands.
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CHAPTER SIX
TEN BRAND BUILDING STRATEGIES.
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If you talk to several young digital marketers, they will say that building a strong brand entails creating a cool name, maybe a creative logo, then advertising and marketing that brand to potential buyers, and enforcing brand message consistency in all customer interactions. However, they would be wrong. Brand marketing can neither create nor build nor strengthen a brand. The brand is always a reflection of the quality of the product or service. If you build a “piece of shit”, regardless of the amount of branding or creativity in the marketing, it’s still a piece of shit. There are no exceptions to this law of branding. As a matter of fact, doing great marketing with a weak product will kill it faster than if you did no marketing.
To understand why this is the case, its first necessary to get a deeper understanding of “brand.” Most people think a brand consists of exterior elements: the brand name, the logo, the tag line, and the associated marketing. Thinking of a brand like this, however, is like thinking of your significant other as a collection of skin, clothes, and utterances. The essence of a brand is not the exterior elements, but how you feel about the product or service. It’s what’s inside. The purpose of the brand elements is not to create those feelings, but to remind you of them. If your feelings about the product are negative, those brand elements simply remind you of how much you dislike the product.
Your brand is like a bank account. When you delight customers, it adds value to the brand. If you have a string of great products, customers will forget the occasional flop. Apple is a case in point. Few people remember that they’ve had some real stinkers. I personally worked on a product launch to support Newton, an Apple PDA (personal digital assistant) like product. The problem was no one could really define it. Worse, the handwriting recognition software had serious bugs. It failed miserably. But Apple marched on. That is the power of a brand. So when you irritate customers, it extracts value from the brand, and eventually you end up overdrawn and even if you change your ways and come out with some great products, it may take years, if ever, for customers to forget the taint.
The only way to build a strong brand is to create and sell a product or service that delights your customers. If you fail at this basic step, brand marketing is not just a waste of money, but actively counterproductive. Therefore, if you want to build a strong brand, put your time and money into creating and selling the best product or service possible. Then, if you’ve got some left over, use brand marketing to help spread the word. But before you do brand strategy or marketing, let’s review what I call the brand “rainbow.”
UNDERSTANDING THE BRAND RAINBOW
Creating a brand is hard work. If it was easy everyone would have great brands. The reality is most companies create products, not brands. Today’s marketers just want to move faster and get it done now. Crafting a great brand without sounding “artsy fartsy” is putting in the time and attention to actually building something great. Do you want to go to a restaurant that has an okay chef or a top chef? So that you have a clear understanding of the “stages” of brand development and some of the steps needed, let me walk you through the “rainbow” of brand development. Here are my five stages of a brand rainbow.
BRAND AUDIT: This is the first step that really sets the stage for the creation of the brand. Here is what’s important:
Company mission and vision
Company culture and values
Customer experienc
e & satisfaction goals
Sales process (intended)
Key products and or services
Market environment
Competitor landscape
Research and analysis
BRAND RAINBOW
BRAND INSIGHT: This is where you really set the values of the brand, determine the key differentiator (s) and look at your competitive advantage.
Core brand values
Brand attributes
Brand strengths and weaknesses
Opportunities and threats
Future casting (look forward five years)
Business category
Industry health
Target segment defined (who are the initial customers)
Brand differentiators
Key competitive advantage
BRAND POSITION: This probably forms the very core of the brand and its unique position in the marketplace. Done well, this is makes customers “feel” something of value in your brand.
Unique value proposition
Who are we to our target audience?
Why is that important?
What is our brand position?
What do we want customers to say or feel?
BRAND CREATION: These are the most visual elements of the brand; this is where great creativity and a unique promise create the brand image.
Name of the brand
Design of logo and identity
Create the narrative and personality
Create the tone and voice
Visual palette, colors, graphic standards, imagery
Key messages
BRAND COMMUNICATIONS: This is what most people think marketing is, that is, all the marketing tactics to either inform or sell something. Just anchor it in the brand.
Customer experience
Employee behavior
Brand manifesto
Brand signage (i.e. stationary, signage, wayfinding, etc.)
Product or service packaging
Marketing campaign elements (i.e. mobile, online, offline, etc.)
Word of mouth
Brand manual (i.e. guidelines, identity, voice, persona, etc.)
The one element that really ties a brand together and gives it its originating core is the brand story. We have all met people who have started companies that have become brands. And when they tell us how it all got started we are amazed. So, understanding how to tell a brand story is critical.
THE ART OF CRAFTING AND TELLING A BRAND STORY
What is a brand story? A brand story is more than content and a narrative. The story goes beyond what’s written in the copy on a website, the text in a brochure or the presentation used to pitch to investors or customers. Your story isn’t just what you tell people, it’s also what they believe about you based on the signals your brand sends. The story is a complete picture made up of facts, feelings and interpretations, which means that part of your story isn’t even told by you. Everything you do, each element of your business or brand, from the colors and texture of your packaging and business cards, to the staff you hire is part of your brand story and every element should reflect the truth about your brand back to your audience. If you want to build a successful, sustainable business and a brand that will garner loyalty, and if you’re lucky, become loved, you have to start with your story.
Why do you need a brand story? If you don’t have a story you are just another commodity. A replaceable cog in the consumer consumption machine. You have no way to differentiate your brand or your business. Creating a brand story is not simply about standing out and getting noticed. It’s about building something that people care about and want to buy into. It’s about relating to your audience and being human. It’s about framing your scarcity and dictating your value. It’s about thinking beyond the utility and functionality of products and services and striving for the creation of loyalty and meaningful bonds with your customers. A brand story is not just a catchy tagline that’s pasted on a billboard to attract attention for a week or two. Your story is the foundation of your brand and a strategy for future growth.
A brand story is how Starbucks created a whole new coffee category and elevated itself above its competitors. That story is the reason people drive further, passing Dunkin Donuts and 7 Eleven on the way to pay two times more for a cup of coffee every morning.
Think about the story of how Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple in a garage. Or how FedEx got its initial start via an economics paper by then student Fred Smith. Brands like Starbucks, Apple and FedEx are built on so much more than the utility and specifications of their products. Your product is only part of the story. A potential customer’s relationship with your brand will likely begin before they actually purchase your product at all.
Your story begins with the connection made when the customer hears your name for the first time, when he/she sees your logo, visits your website, reads your website “about us” page and experiences your interactions on social media. The signals you send about not just what you do and how well you do it, but about what you stand for, build the complete picture of your brand. Marketing often happens when you are not listening and your customer is telling a friend how your product changed his/her life. So know your story and then craft the right brand strategy.
10 STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING A BRAND
A branding strategy helps establish a product within the market and to build a brand that will grow and mature in a saturated or even growing marketplace. Making smart branding decisions up front is crucial since a company may have to live with the decision for a long time. The following are commonly used branding strategies:
COMPANY NAME. In this case a strong brand name (or company name) is made the vehicle for a range of products (for example, Mercedes Benz or Black & Decker) or a range of subsidiary brands like YUM Foods which owns Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut.
INDIVIDUAL BRANDING. Each brand has a separate name, putting it into a de facto competition against other brands from the same company (for example, Kool-Aid and Tang are both owned by Kraft Foods). Individual brand names naturally allow greater flexibility by permitting a variety of different products, of differing quality, to be sold without confusing the consumer’s perception of what business the company is in or diluting higher quality products.
ATTITUDE BRANDING AND ICONIC BRANDS. This is the choice to represent a larger feeling, which is not necessarily connected with the product or consumption of the product at all. Companies that use attitude branding include: Nike, Starbucks, The Body Shop, and Apple, Inc. Iconic brands are defined as having aspects that contribute to the consumer’s self-expression and personal identity.
BRAND IDENTITY VALUE. Brands whose value to consumers comes primarily from having identity value are said to be “identity brands.” Some brands have such a strong identity that they become “iconic brands” such as Apple, Nike, and Harley Davidson.
DERIVED BRANDS. Some suppliers of key components may wish to guarantee their own position by promoting that component as a brand in its own right. For example, Intel, positions itself in the PC market with the slogan (and sticker) “Intel Inside.” Gore-Tex positions itself and its product formula as a protector of products through waterproofing other brands clothes.
BRAND EXTENSION AND BRAND DILUTION. The existing strong brand name can be used as a vehicle for new or modified products. For example, many fashion and designer companies extended brands into fragrances, shoes and accessories, furniture, and hotels. Frequently, the product is no different than what is already on the market, except it has a brand name marking. The risk of over-extension is brand dilution, which is when the brand loses its brand associations with a market segment, product area or quality, price, or cachet.
MULTI-BRANDS STRATEGY. Alternatively, in a very saturated market, a supplier can deliberately launch totally new brands in apparent competition with its own existing strong brand (and often with identical product characteristics) to soak up more market share. The rationale is that having 4 out of 1
2 brands in such a market will give a greater overall share than having 1 out of 10. Procter & Gamble is a leading exponent of this philosophy, running as many as ten detergent brands in the US market. In the hotel business, Marriott uses the name Fairfield Inns for its budget chain. Cannibalization is a particular problem of a multi-brands strategy approach, in which the new brand takes business away from an established one which the organization also owns. This may be acceptable (indeed to be expected) if there is a net gain overall.
PRIVATE LABELS. Also called own brands, or store brands, these have become increasingly popular. When the retailer has a particularly strong identity, this “own brand” may be able to compete against even the strongest brand leaders, and may outperform those products that are not otherwise strongly branded. Costco does this with its “Kirkland” brand and Trader Joes sells its own house brand throughout its stores.
INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL BRANDS. These are types of branding that treat individuals and organizations as the products to be branded. Personal branding treats persons and their careers as brands. Be careful here though, because if the individual has a problem, the brand has a problem. Subways experienced this first hand.
CROWDSOURCING BRANDING. These are brands that are created by the people for the business, which is opposite to the traditional method where the business creates a brand. This type of method minimizes the risk of brand failure, since the people that might reject the brand in the traditional method are the ones who are participating in the branding process. Think of Yelp, Instagram, Craigslist, and perhaps Etsy.