7 Brand Principles Muscle Company Earnings

Easy to say isn’t it? Brilliant as an opening line by a CEO, CFO, COO or of course the Chief Marketing Officer: “when we boost our brand’s short and long term value, competitive dominance and market demand, we will boost our overall earnings."

"As we know & like to say repeatedly, a brand is a promise. A promise with no accidents, no mistakes! A brand is not a thing, it's your entire future!"

Brand currency is also a mettle which needs to be shined, primped, pruned and protracted competitively each and every day. Brand prowess and its market effectiveness is fueled by four highly focused and must-have marketing tactics: relevancy, communications, speed and mirroring product assets understanding that products make brands, brands can only umbrella as the heart and mark of product disciplines. The ribs under the umbrella of any brand is its products, its services and its effective customer engagements.

A brands greatest strength and determined birr is concentrated and empowered by its products FAB’s (features, advantages and benefits), services, support, infrastructure, supply base advantages and most importantly, the wide ribs of the brand umbrella: emotional capital, the anoesis flame needed to build brand infatuation. 

The goal for all CMO's is to drive brand infatuation versus competitors. A simple most important and viable metric formula to measure brand campaign effectiveness and brand infatuation success or failure is:

Brand Campaign Performance ROI = Campaign Revenue X Profit Margin / Cost of Advertising

This simple ROI calculation is an incremental campaign metric to be juxtaposed against previous campaigns and results. The protracted formula is also useful for measuring pilot marketing campaigns, A/B splits, incremental brand value and sales measurements inclusive to consumer enhanced sale drive periods. 

Brand guardians such as CMO's, CFO's, COO's and CEO's should focus and measure their brand value ROI (return on investment) with respect and in congress with the following 7 guiding principles:

1. Brand Asset Centricity: Brand equity measurement, an intangible asset value, is determined through the incremental value of marketing as it pertains to increased or decreased brand awareness and purchasing to a given buying audience.

2. Brand Equity: Defined as incremental cash turns accrued to branded product offerings measured above and beyond cash flows resulting from same product offering, absence of brand. Equity must be measured from a pecuniary standpoint to be realized.

3. Brand As Income: That brand equity can be measured and ascertained as future cash flow based upon expected competitive product earnings and profit pools related to maturing brand and product performance.

4. Brand Awareness: Managing, leading and measuring customer brand funnel stages in the language of: awareness – consideration – intention – purchase.

5. Brand Shaping: Marketers can only shape (market and advertise) consumer perception, drive engagements, or motivate sales by first establishing formidable and targeted market centric awareness, purpose and clarity of  brand position.

6. Brand Diagnostics: It is critically important to evaluate primary brand  performance and or under-performance with respect to specific marketing and advertising investments inclusive to competitive shelf pull and editorial exposure.

7. Brand ROI: Measurement is critical in the heat of driving brand awareness to evaluate customer behavior as a key articulator, course corrector and accelerator of marketing strategies.

Smart ways to brand ROI review and effective reveal include:

- Short term ROI: Measured lift results especially during product launch’s, consumer drive periods and competitively launched and threatening product introductions.

- Pre and post campaign research: To reveal metric progressions or slimsy decreases in forecast to inventory turns, price elasticity and future product forecasts.

- Juxtapose brand attribute metrics: Versus competitors based upon market data, shelf share data reported as “A, B,C products versus your brand” and market sell through results (from 3rd party research reporters).

- Careful expense, asset and investment metric review: Drill down into each spend touch point to determine impact on conversion rates and optimization of the overall medium marketing mix.

- Measurement: Must be tied to both strategic objectives and increased performance metrics. The ultimate brand ROI victory delivers greater awareness, impact, influence, conversion and customer valued propositions.

Remember, brand is the end game to boost earnings smartly. Brand infatuation, the heralded end game, can be born, matured and effective as a mighty competitive weapon when created, measured and muscled by smart daily exercising analytics. The dismal, remora alternative, brand evaporation, is clearly not the end game; it is simply the end of a brand.

Peter is author of Green Reign Leadership: Available Here