The Father of Modern Branding on Building Credibility

“You have to stay in business – and you not only have to stay in business?but you have to be profitable. Otherwise, you lose your capacity to help.”

The famous David Aaker, vice-chairman of Prophet and prof. emeritus of marketing strategy at the Berkeley-Haas School of Business, sat down with our very own Martin Schiere to reflect on disruptive innovation and the imperative of building brand credibility. From evolving his equity model to developing brand stories, his insightful guide for modern brand-building includes:

• Owning a subcategory;
• How loyalty changed the game for branding;
• Brands authentically playing a part in society;
• Learnings from Goldman Sachs, Barclays, and Avon Cosmetics;?
• and more.

How can you grow your brand by owning a subcategory?

David Aaker: “I came to believe, first of all, that if you’re gonna be successful, you really need to become the exemplar brand, a brand that stands for the subcategory, you don’t have to be the pioneer to do that either – in most cases, it’s not the pioneer. But you have to be the exemplar.?

Second, you have to use that status to position the subcategory – not the brand, the whole subcategory. You have to be in charge of that subcategory.?

The third thing you have to do is scale. You have to scale as fast as you can. No more high prices at the beginning to recapture cost. You gotta scale.?

The fourth thing you have to do is you have to build barriers. You build barriers by the customer base; you build barriers by your positioning strategy; but you also build barriers by branding the innovations, the must-haves. You do it by having ongoing innovations, so you’re a moving target.?

All four of these things are jobs that branding needs to be involved in.”

Authenticity is key, but how do you achieve it?

David: “One way you get authenticity is by making a long-term commitment. And you’ll see this is the 7th year, the 20th year, the 25th year... They’re saying, ‘This is something more than selling, these people are really into this.’

Another way you can do it is to become an expert in the science of [your focus or its] operational complexity. [People] see that you’re not just throwing money at something or looking for publicity shots, but you are really understanding the problem or issue. And your program has a lot of credibility – it’s responsive to those problems because of your knowledge, expertise, and data analysis.”

What would David change in his famous equity model?

What is a signature brand?

Brandingmag: “Does this [signature brands concept] even work for let’s say ‘bad boys’ like Goldman Sachs – that everybody gets irritated by when they see [their campaign] and they think, ‘These guys are [just] here to make money’?”

David Aaker: “One of the reasons we do this is to sort of change the conversation and, instead of talking about the bad press that Goldman gets, you create a program that changes the conversation – that repositions you a little bit and allows you to think about something other than that. So, Goldman created (about 10-12 years ago) a program called ‘10,000 Women’, and they were gonna really influence the ability of these 10,000 women to advance, to prosper, to be entrepreneurs, and to become educated in finance and economy. And it was, and still is, an amazing program."

Some social programs are built into the offering (think electric cars or organic foods), but what do you do if your business doesn’t naturally lend itself to a very impressive program? Listen to David’s advice on how to overcome this challenge, just like Avon did, to create a successful and recognizable signature brand:

Full podcast episode here ??

_________________________

If you enjoyed our Brand fitness newsletter, don’t forget to subscribe to it to get the weekly update.