The Branding Imperative

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What is a brand?

Lets start by defining the concept of brands and branding by first understanding what a brand isn’t.

Dispelling 3 prominent myths

First, a brand is not logo

Second, a brand is not an Identity

Finally, a brand is not a product

So what exactly is a brand?

A brand is the sum total of all that a business consists of: its services, products, capabilities, skill, people, culture, communications and interactions with its various publics.

Brand

A bundle of benefits

A compellingExperience

A name with power

A strong perception

A promise of value

... the and implicit explicit expression of an entity to achieve and distinction secure unique advantages.

Branding therefore is...

Brands..branding..branded..rebranding..???

People have too many choices and too little time.

Most offerings have similar quality and features.

We tend to base our buying choices on trust.

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Theory of inherent truths

Purpose Proposition Personality Positioning

VisionMissionValuesPhilosophy

PromisePoint of difference

CharacterTone of voice

Target audienceDemand Drivers

Brand Platform

Brand Essence

Great brands are built on inherent truths.

A brand must clarify its purpose and reason for being, it must identify the underlying character that defines its personality. Brands must decide their positioning and propostion and be true to it. The brand essence is the core of a brand(In other words the truth of the brand)It must be distilled and leveraged on to give distinction and sustainable competitive advantage

Great brands are not haphazard creations.....

Differentiation Collaboration

Innovation

ValidationCultivation

Disciplines ofBrand-building

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Intel Chips

Google Search engines

Citibank Strong corporate Banking

Differentiation

The underlying purpose of branding

is to achieve distinction so as to

secure unique advantages. A brand

must be different and unique to

stay in the mind’s of people. People are generally hot wired to notice what is different.

The Key to differentiation is;

Focus Focus Focus

Collaboration

Building a brand is a collaborative effort. Key stakeholders include,

management, advertising agencies, brand consultants and the

media. Other stakeholders

include staff, customers, suppliers, and the

enterprise public.

Collaboration is

1+1=11 Why?

Because the mathematics of collaboration is nothing short of

MAGIC.

Innovation

Creativity is fundamental to brand building. A brand must have a compelling idea that translates into relevant offerings. It must continually seek new and creative ways of delivering its promise and also search out what makes it unique at every point in time.

Validation

Validation here means bringing the into the creative audience process.

Senders Message Receiver

Creative ideas/concepts should be tested before the hit the market. There has to be some form of validation

Senders Message Receiver

The new communication is a dialogue

The old communication was a monologue

Cultivation

Having differentiated, collaborated, innovated and validated the next step is to nurture the brand. Begin to grow the brand through using the brand platform as the foundation. At this point, the brand is a living entity and must respond to its environment.

Brands are like people. If people can change their clothes without changing their character, why can’t brands?

By mastering the 5 principles of brand-building, the company creates a virtuous circle. With every turn around the circle, the value of the brand spirals higher and you build a sustainable competitive advantage

Begin to influence the character of the brand.

What makes a great brand?

Three principal attributes of great brands

A compelling idea: Behind every brand is a compelling idea, which captures

customer’s attention and loyalty by filling an unmet or unsatisfied need.

A resolute core purpose and supporting values:A

brands purpose and values remain in place even though the business strategy and tactics have to be regularly revised to address and take advantage of the circumstancess and largely unanticipated, world and business environment.

A central organisational principle: The brand

position,purpose and values are employed as management levers to guide decision-making.Once the enterprise understands what the brand is all about, it gives direction to the whole enterprise.

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Practices of great brands

Consistency in delivering on their

promise

Alignment of Internal and external

commitment to the brand

Superior products and services

An ability to stay relevant

Distinctive positioning and customer

experience

The importance of branding

Economic Importance Social Importance Political Importance

Strong brands result in growth and accelerated cash flows due to rapid market penetration.

Brands reduce the liquidity of a firms stocks.

From an investment perspective, the brand provides a more reliable and stable indicator of the future health of a business.

Creation of wealth and improvements in standards of living both nationally and internationally.

Brands are the most stable and sustainable assets in business.

Branding leads to more security and stability of employment.

A powerful political point about brands is their ability to cross borders, and potentially to bind people and cultures together.

If you think branding is insignificant... Think again

When the GDP of Thailand was around

in 2001, the combined $115 billionvalue of the world’s two most valuable brands(Coca-Cola and Microsoft) was $134billion.

Quote

Stelios Haji-Ioannou, Chairman of easygroup and founder of easyjet

“You can spend £15m on advertising, go bankrupt and your name can still mean nothing to people. Your brand is created out of customer contact and the experience your customers have of you”

Customers experience the brand in many ways-through the people who sell it, the product itself, the people who provide a f t e r- s e r v i c e s , t h e reactions to it of friends and colleagues and so on.

Bank A long and disorganized queue at the bank. A helpful or polite customer care officer. A cozy waiting room. Swiftness of service and genuine concern for client problem.

Car shop Design of the car show room, test drive to feel the car, car performance and drive value, after-sales support and ease of purchase.

People remember experiences

The brand experience Iceberg: A holistic perspective

Proposition Expections

Experience

People

Processes

Products

A holistic view of brands carries the implication that the brand is, or should be , no less than the DNA of the organisation, the fundamental building block and expression of its existence.Ideally, the customer should be able to experience, examine any product and the essence of the brand should shine through.

Unless a brand has a clear idea of the value it brings and to whom, it will have difficulty in ever making the brand stand for anything distinctive.

The brand experience iceberg: Proposition

Question: Why is it that some organisations are able to deliver on their brand promise and others fall short?

Answer: It lies in having a rigorous process for designing a customer experience that consistently delivers the brand promise

Customers have seen the advertisements and promotional activity and are interested- they have an expectation-now it is all about the experience. It is at this point the brand delivers or not. Employees are the conduit pipe through which all the careful product design, manufacturing, packaging and processes are finally delivered to the customers; they are the means to bring the brand alive

The brand experience iceberg: People

Four steps towards bringing brands alive through people

Hire people with competencies to satisfy customer expectations

Hire people with competencies to satisfy customer expectations

Train employees to deliver experiences that uniquely fit your brand

promise

Most importantly, drive the behaviours from the very top of the organisation.

Processes must be designed to be aligned with the brand promise to deliver a compelling brand experience. Processes help bring the proposition to life. Having formed a brand, it must do what it says it does or can do. Jeff Bezo, as CEO, Amazon.com confirmed the need and importance for processes that deliver on the promise when he said

“It has always seemed to me that your brand is formed, primarily, not by what your company says about itself, but by what the company does”

The brand experience iceberg: Processes

The promise, the people who deliver the promise through the offering, the processes designed by the people to deliver the offering and now the offering, product or service. Interaction with the offering, whether product or service will determine if the promise is valid.Products must create and deliver experiences connected with the promise.

“Fulfilling dreams for people from all walks of life who cherish the common values of freedom, adventure and individual expression, involves much more than building and sell ing motocycles. The secret to our enduring brand lies in delivering an experience rather than just a collection of products and services” - Harley Davidson

The brand experience iceberg: Products

Managing the brand experience process

Internal comms

External comms

CustomerExperiencedesign

Creat brand platform

Proposition

People

Processes

Products

CustomerexperienceAudit

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Managing the brand experience process

Customer experience Audit

Begin by measuring the current experience of the brand. What isthe total experience customers have of the organisation and the brand.

Create brand platform

Build the foundations of the brand.Some of it must have already been done. It involves clarifying the brand promise and positioning,defining the brand architecture,personality and all other elements of the brand platform.

customer experience design

Having audited the current situation and created clariity through the brand platform,one can now design new experience that will consistently deliver the brand to the target customers.Design should be done based on; proposition,people, processes and products.

External communications

Communicate the proposition externally.Make sure the organisation is ready to deliver the experience before you raise the expectation by going live.

Internal communications

At this point,you are ready to communicate internally.Many organisations rush out a new advertising campaign and end up over promising and underdelivering because people are not fully prepared.

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