CRACKING THE BRAND CODE: BLUEPRINT YOUR BUSINESS!

Introduction.

Lately we have seen an increasing awareness of the power and value of brands. According to Interbrand, the total value of all 100 Best Global Brands is about USD $2 trillion. Apple alone, as the world's most valuable brand and business, is worth about USD $ 234 billion. In another study of Brand Finance, Amazon is is ranked number one with a value of $ 220 billion.

In both studies, Google is number two. And Tesla is the fastest growing brand. Although brands represent great value to their owners and huge investments are made in the design, launch, and ongoing development of brands, there is considerable debate on what constitutes a brand. Brands are much exploited, but still too little explored. A clear statement as to the nature of a brand and how the idea of ‘the brand’ has developed is crucial, both for the valuation of a brand as an asset on the balance sheet and for positioning the brand strategically. A brand is more than a logo, color palette or a slogan. It’s the driving force behind your business. Corporates and startups alike should crack the brand code to fully apply its power! 

The new brand world.

According to The Economist, 'brands have developed from simple trademarks to one of the major organising principles of modern life'. Today, brands can be defined as integrated marketing ideas, concepts that drive the business, internally and externally, the (missing) link between a company’s core competencies and its markets, streamlining the interaction between supply and demand. According to Interbrand, brands can help:

• Attract Capital, creating a robust, compelling equity story for future business performance to build confidence among investors and the financial community.
• Enhance M&A or Spin-off Success, helping maximise and sustain value from a merger, acquisition or spin off by finding the best ways to mobilise customers and employees in the change.
• Identify New Revenue Opportunities, reframing businesses challenges from the customers’ perspective, identifying a deep, compelling customer promise which can grow it into a living ecosystem of products, services and experiences.
• Drive Portfolio Growth, helping businesses create focus where they will have the most impact on customers and their performance overall.
• Enrich Customer Experiences, in the age of algorithms and aggregators, experience is the differentiator. By deeply understanding customers, interactions can be designed that matter – that shift expectations and generate growth.
• Launch New Offers, when the power of thinking meets deep customer understanding and rigorous economics, sparks fly – and innovation can cut through the clutter, driving returns.
• Mobilise Talent, great results start from within – from the right culture to the right capabilities. Brands help attract and motivate the best talent by designing strategies that provide clarity, commitment and governance.

Martin Kornberg says we live in a Brand Society in which brands have the power to transform both the organisations that develop them and the lifestyles of the individuals who consume them. Brands function as a medium between producers and consumers in a way that is rapidly transforming our economy and society. In this new reality brands are a new way of organising production and managing consumption. 

Blueprinting business.

More than a logo, visual style, advertising campaign, communications concept or marketing program, a brand should nowadays be conceptualised as a creative business idea. In the book Brand Culture, Heilbrun states that a brand must be viewed not solely as a sign added to products to differentiate them from competing goods, but as a semiotic engine whose function is to constantly produce meaning and values. And Franzen raised awareness for the 'Brand as Gesamtkunstwerk' metaphor and the process of integrated branding which aim is to maintain consistency through all activities of a business. A Gesamtkunstwerk is the external manifestation of an inner body of thought that can claim to be a coherent and appealing whole. More than just a Mark, a modern brand provides Meaning and can be consistently experienced through all its Manifestations. Like a Genetic Code or DNA of a business it Directs, Navigates and Activates the total way a business is done, seamlessly integrating its Why, How and What. Modern branding is about the blueprinting of business and The Brand Coding Canvas can be used as a framework for this: a well defined brand can be creatively directed, 'codified' by and experienced through all 10 C's of the model:

The Brand Coding Canvas 

1. Concept

How can the concept of your business be defined? Apple believes in the 'crazy ones', because 'the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do'. And wants to honour them and help them 'think different' by providing 'tools for creative minds', H&M is about 'fast fashion', Method are 'the people against dirty', Airbnb makes you 'belong everywhere', the Paris Region wants to be the 'source of inspiration', claims company Van Ameyde is 'securing your story', equipment lease startup Beequip wants to 'equip entrepreneurship' and make 'business blossom', and KLM-spinout SkyNRG wants to enable 'future friendly flying'. To develop concepts that drive the business and create more share of the future, the Disruption? Methodology can be a great tool. Here's a presentation about it at the Cannes Festival by Jean Marie Dru of TBWA who originated the idea. And here's an interview with Jean Marie, introducing his newest boek Thank You For Disrupting. The Gatorade concept 'win from within', that repositioned the brand from a sports drink to a sports fuel company, is shown as a great example.

2. Cause

Starting and surviving in today’s economy is hard, but the companies that figure it out have something in common according to Fast Company: the pursuit of purpose, alongside the pursuit of profit. A purpose mobilises people in a way that pursuing profits alone never will. For a company to thrive, it needs to infuse its purpose in all that it does. So, what's the cause of your business? What's your mission, why, purpose, idea(l) or even infinite game? What's your scaleable inspiring idea, your MTP, Massive Transformational Purpose, as Salim Ismail calls it in his book about Exponential Organizations (ExOs)?

Tesla wants to 'accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy', Unilever wants to 'make sustainable living commonplace' and IKEA is on a mission to 'democratise design'. Coke aspires to 'inspire happiness', Tiger beer urges people to 'uncage', Google wants to organise the world's information to 'organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful'. SkyNRG enables 'future friendly flying' and the Swiss Hero Group is passionate to 'conserve the goodness of nature'. Staples 'makes it easy to make more happen' and 'deleting dull' is what Fatboy's quest is all about. EY is committed to 'building a better working world' and Deloitte's purpose is 'to make an impact that matters'.

3. Culture

How much do your employees live the brand through the culture of your business? Winning outside should begin inside. Identity is destiny. Culture is a commitment, a way of being and becoming, not a poster on the wall. Next to your 'why', also a unique 'way' matters. A strong brand is a promise made and kept. Look at the vibrancy of the Zappos culture: 'to live and deliver WOW'. You can’t be special, distinctive, and compelling in the marketplace unless you create something special, distinctive, and compelling in the workplace. How does your brand shape your culture? How does your culture bring your brand to life? Or as HBR states: Brand = culture and culture is brand. Read here how Starbucks's culture brings its strategy to life. Starbucks’ culture is powerful because it is tightly linked to the company’s distinctive capabilities and its Third Place concept. The feel of Starbucks stores isn’t created merely by the layout and the décor — it exists because the people behind the counter understand how their work fits into a common purpose, and recognize how to accomplish great things together without needing to follow a script. To compete in today’s fast paced landscape, brands must be better from the inside out. They must embrace a cultural shift. Call this new model Brand Culture and feel the potential it has to transform companies into truly amazing brands.

4. Communication

How do you consistently and creatively communicate your business using 360/365 (integrated, interactive & social) storytelling programs on-, offline, internal and in- store, via owned, earned and paid media? See how the small but beautiful Swedish Stutterheim turned melancholy into a masterstroke. Overall, brands tend to avoid any whiff of negativity at all costs, gravitating instead towards positions linked with joy, positivity, usefulness (and, occasionally, sex). But the rainwear brand does not see melancholy as negative; in fact, quite the reverse. The brand's architects see it as an essential human condition and a wellspring of creativity.

Some other beautiful examples of big communication ideas are Nike's Just do it, Apple's story behind the legendary '1984' commercial and it's newest cinematic journey through one of the world’s biggest museums in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Hermitage, taking in 45 galleries, 588 masterpieces, and live performances, filmed entirely on iPhone 11 Pro in one continuous take on one battery charge. Alibaba's campaign: 'To the greatness of small'. Airbnb's campaign 'Don't go there, live there' and the beautifully animated commercial 'Fu'. According to AdAge these are the top 15 campaigns of the 21st century and more specifically for The Netherlands, the most memorable campaigns can be found here.

Last but not least, the international business bank NIBC represents another interesting example. The communications concept THINK YES is 'back to the future' inspired by the bank's history, being founded in 1945 to provide finance for the visionary entrepreneurs who helped rebuild the Netherlands after World War Two. The mentality campaign THINK YES aims at positioning NIBC as an enterprising bank. As a business bank and a bank for business. The merchant bank of choice for decisive financial moments. A specialized bank that, from its origins operates shoulder to shoulder with those people starting and running businesses: entrepreneurs. NIBC wants to be(come) known as a trusted partner for enterprises and enterprisers. Because it has a mentality that matches the way enterprisers work. NIBC and enterprisers think in a like minded way, which is referred to as the ‘Yes Mentality’ and which is expressed through the THINK YES theme and manifest: 'There is a bank for optimists, go-getters and visionaries. For those who don’t take no for an answer. Who see what others do not. Achieve what no one else thought imaginable. Because our clients believe in themselves and their ideas. And that it can be done. We are committed to serving people who persevere at decisive moments. Who know that YES is possibly the most powerful word on earth.'

More specifically the brand's tone of voice is a consistent way of conveying a brand’s message to its audience. Some good examples of brand voices can be found in this great blog of Arek Dvornechuck.

5/6. Communities & co-creation

How do you offer different opportunities and incentives for consumers to engage (communities) and participate (co-creation) in your business? Because for all consumer-facing businesses, a prevalent, engaged brand community is nowadays a great asset. A Harvard Business School study states that 'too often, companies isolate their community-building efforts within the marketing function. That is a mistake. For a brand community to yield maximum benefit, it must be framed as a high-level strategy supporting business wide goals.' Look at how Starbucks really builds engagement with its Third Place concept via My Starbucks Idea. 

7. Channels

With the rapid growth of digital consumption and what seems like daily proliferation of social media channels, brands and businesses are faced with more choices than ever when considering how they want to reach their consumer. We are entering an omni-channel world, where consumers seek an omni-channel experience, in which the traditional boundaries between on and offline and manufacturer and retail businesses are fading. Have a look at the presentation of retail expert Ibrahim Ibrahim about this subject here.

Omni-channel experience is a multi-channel approach to marketing, selling, and serving customers in a way that creates an integrated and cohesive customer experience no matter how or where a customer reaches out. Here are some examples of brands with brilliant omni-channel experiences.

In the New Brand World everyone is now competing with everyone and only the smartest will thrive. Yuri van Geest labels these businesses Exponential Organizations, whose impact (or output) is disproportionally large compared to its number of employees because of its use of networks, automation and/or its leveraging of the crowd. Think of UBER, Amazon, Google, Alibaba or Airbnb.

These new companies are also called platforms and sometimes seen as the future of branding. According to Nick Srnicek’s Platform Capitalism, they are characterised by providing the infrastructure to intermediate between different user groups, displaying monopolistic tendencies driven by network effects, employing cross-subsidisation to draw in different user groups, and having a well-designed core architecture that governs all interaction possibilities.

8. Content

How can your business be experienced in a unique and unmistakable way? Not only through media content, but moreover through every product or service? Like an iPhone or iMac is unmistakably Apple. What's your way? Your character, your handwriting, your way of doing? It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it. How do you design the content of your business? How well is your Design Thinking mindset developed? Great content management is about Information, Inspiration, Identification, Interaction as well as Innovation. As Steve Jobs used to say and Brian Chesky as CEO of Airbnb now says in an interview with PandoDaily: 'design is not how things look, but how they work'. Look how Porsche explains its design DNA, that makes it the one and only. 

In a broader context we could also speak of a brand's tone. Think content wise beyond comms to experiences, culture and technology. Here, tone doesn’t have a 30-second space or email copy. It’s lived, mediated, or enacted by humans. It's the total way a brand can be experienced through content.

9. Corporate social responsibility

With our planet in a rapid state of decline—climate change, loss of biodiversity, disparity of wealth, obesity, water scarcity, the list goes on—companies will increasingly be viewed as either part of the solution or problem. How businesses authentically can be ideal or purpose driven and position their corporate social responsibility programs in a way that is meaningful and relevant has never been more important.

How to be the best for the world is now the game of the name. According to Accenture we go from Marketing to Mattering. Look at how G-Star & Pharrell developed their RAW for the oceans program. Or at Unilever that tries to activate more consumer social responsibility with its Sunshine Project. Or what about The Kingfish Company, that is on a mission to create the future of fish. It wants to inspire chefs and home cooks buy into the purest, freshest and most delicious sustainable seafood. To innovate and push the conventions of gourmet food and dining. And to do so sustainably; together building the blueprint of a new food system – the best of and for the world, making most sense for the plate, the palate and the planet.

10. Context

Living companies, businesses and brands are not only true to themselves (identity), but also insightfully adapt to the changing environment of consumers, competitors and culture (innovation). Identity and innovation are like the yin and yang of a sustainable business. Michel Jansen speaks of the Brand Prototyping Process that offers a solution to the paradox that faces every brand: the need to stay the same by continually adapting! Take a look how the International Business Machines corporation (didn't) change(d) over time.

Sasha Strauss, stresses that today's online, real-time, right-now environment means your company's message can easily get lost in the sheer volume of information overload. Your brand has mere seconds to communicate and make an impact about how you and your business are truly unique. For this "new normal," Strauss presents seven rules to steer entrepreneurs toward success:

• Assume nothing. Give yourself permission to not know all the answers and therefore, explore with curiosity. We don't need to guess anymore; we have access to data and insights to help us make informed decisions.
• Empathise. Your audience is key to your success. Show concern and truly care for others. Think about them as people rather than transactions.
• Advocate. Be the supporter, believer and enforcer in helping others succeed. Don't make it about you. Make it all about them. Stand by them and with them.
• Build relationships. We buy from people and organisations we trust. Invest in building indelible connections.
• Curate. Our world is overwhelmed with choices. Make it easier for your audience to understand your offering by simplifying. Focus on what's most relevant to their lives and businesses.
• Teach, don't sell. Provide knowledge consistent with your audience's needs in lieu of shoving a product in their face. We all hate to be sold to, but we love to be empowered!
• Care. Prove that you care through your actions, which must be authentic. We, as leaders, have the emotional responsibility to help employees believe in us and our brands and to help our customers understand that we truly care. Strauss sums it up: "We want to wake up every morning and realise we are not capitalist pigs."

When asked to identify a brand that cares, Strauss spotlighted TOMS shoes. When TOMS launched, the market didn't need just another shoe company. But as you may know, when you buy a pair they give one away. TOMS customers wear their shoes proudly because it involves them in something bigger―the brand promise of improving lives and caring.

Conclusion

Summarising we can say that building brands means creating and directing concepts that drive the business all the way and by doing so developing profitable and purposeful 'mental franchises', i.e. meaningful brand relationships (internally and externally with all stakeholders of the business).

Brands have evolved from static assets to what Interbrand calls, 'living evolving manifestations' and building a brand is like blueprinting a business by writing a never-ending ‘living script’.

The top performers, which Interbrand labels as 'breakthrough brands' develop a forensic understanding of themselves, their audiences, and their markets, and generate creative fuel for long-term growth. They excel in five focus areas to drive choice, engender loyalty, and command a premium:

• Clarity, great brands start from within. Organisations need to develop internal clarity, not only about what the brand stands for—its purpose, values, positioning, and proposition—but also about its internal and external target audiences and what drives them. This is particularly important for growing companies, which can and should use their brand’s values, mission, and proposition to inform business decisions.
• Relevance, growth starts with a smart business model. Whether disrupting an existing market, creating a new category, or entering a new market, a brand cannot sell a product or service if it does not align with consumer needs and desires. These brands are convincing customers that something new or different is relevant: that it will make their lives easier, more enjoyable, more comfortable, more secure—in a word, better. By generating demand instead of displacing it, these brands are creating the categories of the future.
• Differentiation, brands need to drive choice in order to grow. The brands that clearly communicate their distinct stories are the ones that stand out—and break through. Even if a company’s products or services are relevant, it’s a unique proposition, distinct brand story and experience that convince audiences to choose one brand over others. It is often this unique proposition, story and experience a brand delivers on top of that, that builds consumer perception and, if done right, will drive demand.
• Presence, in the customer-centric 'Age of You', brands need to be everywhere its audiences are. If a brand is not omnipresent in the mind of consumers—and talked about and perceived positively—then it is going to be difficult to break through and become a successful business. A brand’s clarity of purpose, values and proposition; its relevance to consumers; and its differentiated offerings—all of this needs to be communicated to audiences and reinforced across multiple channels and touchpoints.
• Engagement, a brand can have clarity and be relevant, differentiated, and ultra-present, but if consumers (and employees) don’t show a deep understanding of, active participation in, and a strong sense of identification with the brand, the rest doesn’t matter. Engaging audiences is not about one-way conversations—today’s consumers don’t want to be talked at, they want brands to see them eye to eye and to be able to communicate their needs back to the brands. Often, they want to feel as if they have a say in the direction of the business or, at least, feel like their thoughts, feedback, and concerns are being heard. Holding two-way conversations is how the emerging and successful brands of the future will build a loyal customer base and drive up their margins. Mutual engagement creates a feedback loop, providing even greater clarity about audiences’ needs and desires—and about customers’ perception of the brand—allowing growing brands to continuously refine their products, messages, and experiences.

As said in the book The Brand Bubble, brands that continuously look after their ‘energised differentiation’ connect better with consumers and employees.

Or, as Woody Allen says in Annie Hall, ‘A relationship, I think, is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies.’