The Power of Branding...

"A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that taken together, account for a consumer's decision to choose one product or service over another." - Seth Godin

Take a minute and think about the most famous brands or at least, the most common brands that come to your mind - Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Apple, Disney. Positive or negative, most of these brands elicit an almost-automatic, emotional response in you. That is the power of Branding and effective marketing.

Seth says it so well in the quote at the top - a brand is a set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that when woven together will make a customer choose a Coca-Cola over a Pepsi or an iPhone over an Android equivalent.

Products (and services!) are never just products (or services). It doesn't matter what you're selling, products are not just products. Products are always equal to experiences. Let's assume I pay a visit to a Calvin Klein store to buy a dress, from the minute I walk through the door, my memory begins to record and associate experiences with the brand - how I'm greeted as I walk through the store, the ambience, the music, how easy it was to find what I was looking for, the process of trying it on and so on... It creates a Memory and stores that into my brain.

A few weeks or months later, let's assume I pay a visit to a different outlet of Calvin Klein, and I have a similar experience as I did the first visit. It further encodes my perception about Calvin Klein even further in my mind. Until eventually, maybe months or years down the line, I have an instinctive emotional reaction whenever I see or hear of the brand or when I walk past a Calvin Klein store.

This tells us three things:

• The first is that your Brand's perception usually takes time to resonate and connect with your consumers;
• The second is that the process of branding must be deliberate - only you can effectively create the persona of your brand. This is not something you can (or should!) leave to chance! David Brier puts it so aptly, "if you don't give the market the story to talk about, they'll define your brands story for you".
• The third is that you must be consistent across all touch points that the consumer interacts with your brand - your website, your customer service sales reps, your store ambience, your packaging, your delivery process - everything must speak to the values and attributes of the Brand you are creating.

"Branding always comes first and it is the journey of a lifetime" - Bodam Taiwo

I'm going to share ten questions I feel will be helpful to you as you embark upon the journey to building your brand and I'd encourage you to go through the process so that you understand what makes your brand relevant to your target audience. Later this week, I'd explain the difference between relevance and differentiation but suffice to say, for a while, we focused on what made us different as a company or what made our products better when the real question to ask is why are my products or services relevant to my target audience?

Question One: What is your Mission Statement? What drives you as an organisation?

Question Two: What are your Core Principles and Values? What are the driving values of your organisation that will define the way you conduct your business affairs?

Question Three: What inspired you to build your business? Why are you doing what you are doing? What problem do you want to solve?

Question Four: Why do you want to offer your products or services to your target audience? Why this particular target audience? Why are products or services relevant to them?

Question Five: What is your internal company culture? What are the attitudes and behaviours of your company and your employees?

Question Six: What is your professional sense of style? Are you formal, informal, semi-formal, alternative, funky, retro?

Question Seven: What are your communication characteristics? How do you relate with your customers? What words do you use?

Question Eight: What do you want to come to mind when someone hears your business name? When people think about your business objectively, what type of words do you want to their minds? Luxurious? Comfortable? Loyal?

Question Nine: How do you want people to feel when they think of your business? This is more emotional - how do you want customers to feel when they think of your business? What emotions do you want them to associate with your business?

Question Ten: Why do you want consumers to trust you? Why do you want consumers to keep coming back to you? How do you want to build loyalty and trust?

Answering the above questions will help you begin (or continue) the journey to solidifying your brand and to building an organisation that will live through generations.

So, tell me... What will you do differently?