Bold Branding

After a longer break I am back with some new ideas on brand and branding. As you know this is one of my core topics, first of all, as I see a companies brand not as an marketing asset but as a vital element for any kind of communication. Therefore strategic brand management is key to marketing, business and communication success. Companies that do not take care of their brand are lost, as they get lost in the attention of the customer.

In this article I will show you how you can start rethinking your brand, how to deal with your brand in a digital world, how you can use the same mechanism that apply for corporate branding also for your personal branding and last but not least how you can achieve a real breakthrough branding for your business.

Start with the “Small Idea”

Rather than trying to come up with the next big thing, focus on identifying an exceptional small idea, a “simple, focused brand promise that defines what’s special about your brand.” Small ideas are straightforward and you can explain them in a sentence or two. For your simple idea to ring true, it must spring from your passion and values. To resonate with potential consumers, be authentic.

 You have the freedom to choose the business you want, so create a company with a purpose you find meaningful and fulfilling. Let your intuition guide you. As you develop your small idea, establish a work environment where everyone shares your mission. Promote and reward creativity, celebrate victories, allow mistakes, and hire people who fit with your brand’s personality.

 Small ideas offer something unique. To invent a breakthrough product or service, create a new category or introduce new technology in an existing category as a differentiator. Smartphone producers do this every six months or so to make their competitors less relevant. New ingredients or processes are as potent as new technologies.

 Zero in on a specific target group to make your product stand out. High- or low-end pricing will separate your offering, as will exceptional customer service. Empower your service representatives to do whatever it is necessary to keep customers happy.

Branding 2.0

Business branding encompasses everything you do to convey the worth, usefulness and value that your business or service provides. The way you interact, connect and engage with customers and employees at every encounter or “touchpoint” contributes to the growth of your enterprise.

 “Brand entrepreneurs” think strategically and creatively about building a distinctive personal and corporate brand. Celebrity chefs provide a good example of melding business and personal branding to elevate something as ordinary as food to a higher level of recognition and desirability.

 In business, you build “hard power” and “soft power.” Hard power, or “equity,” refers to tangible assets such as inventory, receivables and real estate. Soft power, which contributes to your brand reputation, includes intangible assets such as image, relationships, ideas, communication skills and magnetism. These assets differentiate you from the competition – making it hard for rivals to duplicate your concept – and provide personal and company panache.

 Brand entrepreneurs use their own stories in company marketing. Many company founders entwine their beliefs and reputation with their business philosophy and tactics. An entrepreneur must be a “persuader-in-chief” who connects with the target audience emotionally. Talk passionately and persuasively rather than focusing on data. Use stories to convey your message in a memorable, relatable way.

Own Your Position

Part of the branding process is positioning yourself in the consumer psyche to stand out from your rivals. Appeal to your customers’ identity or cite the pros and cons – or “consequences” – of using or not using your brand. This strategy will ignite people’s emotions by associating their values with your brand.

 Prevalent positioning techniques include the following:

1. “Own an attribute” – This is an aspect of your offering that provides a specific benefit. For example, Pantene says it formulates its products to make hair “so healthy it shines.”
2. “Target a specific group” – Apple’s “I’m a Mac and you’re a PC” campaign demonstrates the power of appealing to a particular age group or personality type. The ads contrast the hip Mac owner with the square PC person.
3. “Be the first” – The first company in a category can hold onto a leadership position because its brand is so closely associated with the product. For example, Dietrich Mateschitz created the category of “energy drinks” with Red Bull.
4. “Be the leader” – Be the biggest fish in your pond, whether in your community or globally. Or be the company on the cutting edge of your industry, like Microsoft.
5. “Be the maverick” – “For every Microsoft, there is an Apple.” A rebel brand carries élan. JetBlue upset the airline industry by offering cheap fares, snacks and flights from secondary airports.
6. “Have a magic ingredient or special process” – A new, different ingredient can open up a market, such as Cargill’s use of the stevia leaf in Truvia, an alternative sweetener. Google created an online search with the PageRank algorithm and now owns the market.
7. “Connect with a celebrity” – Celebrity endorsements are powerful influencers. Consider the popularity of clothing and accessories that the Kardashian sisters wear.
8. “Be a cheapener” – Offering the lowest price can give you the lead. Walmart does this best with its focus on buying low and selling cheap in huge quantities.
9. “Align with a cause” – People want to use their purchasing power to do good. Toms Shoes, which sells hundreds of thousands of shoes, donates a pair for every pair it sells.

Sense Appeal

Your brand’s personality derives from its “verbal and visual identity,” which are its DNA. Great names are memorable, catchy and “ownable.” Consider brand names such as Nike, Google, Spanx, Coke and Lululemon. No matter how fabulous your initial name concept, if you can’t own it on the Internet, drop it. To create an Internet-ready name, try putting two names together, such as YouTube or PayPal. Blend parts of words together, as in Microsoft or Skype. Or use an existing word in a new way, like Apple or Amazon.

 Encapsulate your brand promise in a slogan. Successful examples include BMW’s “The Ultimate Driving Machine,” Apple’s “Think Different” and Nike’s “Just Do It.” Your logo is the graphic representation of your name, the visual expression of what your brand represents. The “I Love NY” logo, which replaces the word “love” with a heart-shaped symbol, is everything a logo should be: “simple, bold, charismatic, different and timeless.” A logo contributes to the look and feel of your brand’s personality, encompassing package and product design, marketing materials, and the consumers’ online or in-store experience.

The New Media Age

Interactive, peer-to-peer communication powers the online world, from blogs, websites, podcasts and RSS feeds to social media. Using digital media to communicate your brand message means practicing “cyberbranding” to build relationships between your brand and your customers. Present your business and yourself via online media without the hype associated with paid commercials. When you communicate genuinely, people respond emotionally. When they do, they’ll begin to sell for you.

Interactive online media channels can serve as inexpensive market research tools. To break through the glut of brand messages, be clear about your marketing goals. Write a short, informative, creative brief to ensure that everyone on your team is on the same page. Most advertising focuses on creating a certain image in the consumer consciousness or engaging with current and potential customers. Today, using social media to promote engagement is a top priority. The formula is: “Interaction plus emotion plus community equals engagement.”

 Set up a profile on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn. Start a blog, update it regularly and make it easy for users to pass along content. Create mobile versions for people on smartphones and tablets. Cyberbranding, although inexpensive, is labor intensive, because the online media have an insatiable hunger for content. Invite users to share videos and photos, make comments, or post stories and experiences. Whenever possible, automate the process and repurpose content for use in several different formats.

“Breakthrough Branding”

Immersing yourself in the details of developing and running your new business is tempting, but your main job as chief entrepreneur is to focus on building your small idea into a successful brand. The following seven principles form the backbone of breakthrough branding:

1.  “Brand bold – for your business and brand you” – Build your business brand alongside your personal brand. Gary Vaynerchuk, founder of WineLibrary.com and the video blog WineLibraryTV, elevated his parents’ liquor store to a $50-million-a-year company, and his blog receives more than 80,000 views every day.
2. “Try to dominate the category or create a new one” – Identify an underserved or entirely new niche. Andrew Mason combined group buying and flash sales to create Groupon – well I know, this is a bit of an old example by now.
3. “Figure out how to grow and scale the business” – As you start a small business or develop an idea, consider how to expand it in the future. Scale up your business by basing your business model on systems, not individuals.
4. “Enchant your customers” – Provide consumers with an exceptional experience to drive growth and inhibit competitors from replicating your business model.
5. “Put ‘growth agent’ in everyone’s job title” – Building an incomparable company is a team effort. Empower every employee to contribute to the organization’s success.
6. “Strike the right balance between innovation and staying true to the brand” – Long-term success is hard to achieve. You must walk the tightrope between staying relevant and honoring what made you successful.
7. “Take advantage of good luck and bad” – Great ideas can spring from challenging circumstances. Bill Rasmussen lost his job with the New England Whalers hockey team and explored creating a cable sports channel; thus began ESPN.