Know-How Exchange : Branding

I wonder if this question has not been answer by some of the "big guns" on this site because it is such a huge question to answer ... there have been so many books written on this already. And maybe some of them have already written books ...

But as a "little gun", let me give you my 2 cents for some aspects of brand management:

1. Value Proposition
2. Differentiation
3. No "dilution" of the brand image
4. Communication
5. Consistency

Without a solid value proposition, some kind of benefit for your customer, your brand will go nowhere. That alone will not take you far, as you will have tons of competitors adding similar value ... so you must communicate why you are different than your competitors in an appealing and easily understandable manner.

Beyond that, Al and Laura Reis will tell you that you cannot extend your brand too far ... otherwise you will dilute the value of your brand. My favorite example of this from them is the Tab vs. Diet Coke naming. Coke had number 1 market share with Tab, but once Pepsi had Diet Pepsi, Coke decided that since 1/2 of their company's value is in their name, they should also have Diet Coke. Push the brand name! Right? Wrong, because the people that moved to drink Diet Coke were Coke drinkers, not Pepsi drinkers. So the cannibalized their Coke sales with Diet Coke, instead of stealing competitor's customers with Tab. If this is not too clear (sorry I am trying to multitask now), check out one of their books on branding.

Communication is critical, of course. It does not have to be expensive (i.e. viral marketing, guerilla marketing), but it does have to be clear and is best when targeted.

And the final is, of course, consistency - consistency - consistency. The 3 C's of branding. Not to be confused with the 4 C's, of course. Repeated application. Etc, you are trying to write a book, you understand.

I wish I could give credit for this doozy, but I can't ... however, the idea is not mine. There was a book which wrote that 3 important aspects of a brand are:

1. Customer expectation
2. Customer satisfaction with the end result
3. Customer observations at different points along the way as to how the result was obtained

I think this is a great idea. All three of these will play a factor in the success of a brand. I can tell you from my own personal experience, that #3 is often overlooked as businesses target at #2. But even thought I may be happy with the result, if I see the business messing up along the way, I will seriously contemplate if I will use them again. Could things have taken a turn for the worse in the end?

To me positioning is used in every part of the 1st 5, except the 5th. That comes, or not, regardless of positioning. But part of your value propsition, differentiation, etc will all be elements of your positioning. Positioning is, as the word implies, how you relate to your customer vs. your competitors. If you have no competitors, you just need to promote, not position. Tell them the value. For those of us not lucky enough to be in this "position", it is a jockying race.

Have fun writing!

First you must know/determine (if it exists) what your current brand image is.

Then you must identify your brand identity (your soul - aspiration) - this includes brand personality.

Once you have this complete (and this alone will take some time), you need to then develop your value proposition (functional, rational and/or self expressive) as they pertain to your target segment(s).

Then you'll need to drill down a little further and develop more specific brand positions by specific segment.

Hope this helps!

I would love to be able to answer that.But could you please clarify what do you mean by Essential planks in a brand platform with an example ot two.
Meanwhile i am going to keep thinking about branding.

Let me start off by saying that I don’t have any experience in brand management/marketing, but only a strong passionate interest in branding. Because of my interest, most of what I will say is CPG branding. I hope I understand what you are asking and not wasting your time.

Biggest plank I think is desire and ability on the part of the management to have a passion for creating/producing breakthrough products and for that what is needed is unending desire to listen to the consumer and be in consumer’s shoes.

Another element that is missing on lot of brands is the concept of Emotional Branding. Easier said than done, but for a brand to have a place in consumers mind, it has to be there. That requires strong commitment to produce unbelievable products and not produce me too products. I will give an example of Proctor & Gamble. Though I haven’t researched it, but from stories in the financial papers and trips to supermarkets show the tremendous commitment on the part of the current CEO Leafley to excel at what they do. Just the sheer number of successful products tells you there is renewed commitment to listening to consumers and solving problems and thus coming up with excellent new products and excellent branding.Dyson is another example of a breakthrough product and I believe in that case, reputation of the product for its excellent workmanship is a brand plank.
Another example I remember is reading an interview in WSJ about two years ago with the retiring Chairman of Unilever.He gave an example of how when he was a young brand manager in S. America, he went to people’s home to do a little survey on Surf (a laundry detergent).When he heard of a problem with water there, he knew he needed stronger detergent and that turned out be the formula for selling more detergent. Then he ended that saying that” There are no tired brands, but only tired brand managers.” That again takes us to commitment to produce breakthrough products.
That also means you have to hire people who are willing to roll their sleeves and try to talk and understand the consumer.
Another plank I would say is strong faith in marketing research and ability to defy market research when needed. I believe Starbucks, Cell phones are example of that.

Another plank I believe should be the ability of the brand to deliver a consistent message to the consumer. For example—If I position my shirt to be a LL Bean shirt, it must always convey me the message to be a rugged, excellent quality product (Of course that is my impression of LL BEAN).It should be sold in only certain stores and not in Kmart or Sears. It shouldn’t be advertised in Enquirer or something like that. Models in the pictures should look rugged. The whole point is that wherever I see or hear about LL BEAN, I as a consumer should get the same perception every single time. So we could say that the one of the planks of brand platform would be A VERY VERY CONSISTENT PERCEPTION OF THE PRODUCT TO THE CONSUMER and to achieve that you have to make sure 4Ps always deliver the same message to the consumer.Exceution of 4Ps has to be flawless. Another example would be that you can’t keep selling Kenneth Cole suits in Sears before you loose the core consumer (I believe that was the problem Sears had with Lands End).That also means if brand would be a person, it would always do the same thing every single time, walk the same way, talk the same way, more like a robot.



As far as Building a brand platform and Positioning are concerned, I don’t believe they are different. Positioning is creating or trying to create the perception of your product/service in the consumers mind. That is essentially what branding is. If you managed to Position the product/service the way you intended, that means everything in the process went the way it was supposed to be or you can say that managed your 4Ps with excellence. You did excellent branding.

My undertanding of the brand platform is that it is all the planned elements in whatever brand methodology you use, but it is the result of those methods illustrated with word sets, logos, imagry, example ideas, so you can turn soft, squishy brand language into something concrete that is quickly and easily explained to management.

That is what I have always called a brand platform so it would be useful to be corrected.

Martin,
I will admit again to having no branding/industry experience.But i feel a strong need to respond.Prcoess of emotional branding starts and ends with brand management.No amount of research and analysis can do that.Pardon me if i am not following you. I am reminded of a book that i read many years ago, RMANCING THE BRANDS.