'Villains' and 'Messiahs' of the new-age Brand journey
Munavar Attari
Corporate Reputation | Stakeholder Relations | Communications I Crisis Management I Advocacy
Its a fresh, unique and interesting take on brand building combining brand + career
The book starts with ‘brand quotient’ (BQ) that comprises brand competencies (hardware/ functional tools), managerial skills (software or brand management) and office art (to my mind this is the difficult part i.e. connecting the earlier two to succeed in today’s environment). Brand competencies is all about the basic/ regular stuff – consumer who, what, why, where, how to reach, how to communicate, creating brand love/ awe (cult), etc.
Very interestingly and perhaps a rare/ unique approach to the ‘Brandvantage’ idea is to start with the ‘business type’ –
This is a good place to start and to have this as a sort of umbrella under which the Brandvantage framework should be implemented. Similarly, it also advocates to first and foremost understand the professional and her/ his managerial skill.
The book is filled with several easy to remember and implement frameworks: The first mega-framework (managerial skill) is STRIVES - this marries the brand with the HR perspective
?In the book, the STRIVES framework (above) is neatly mapped onto the earlier mentioned ‘business types’ with pros and cons of playing to individual strengths – very useful in deploying the right brand team – very important and usually ignored!
?Unique concept: ‘office art’ – environment where skills and competencies merge or interact
In week two of the playbook we figure out or clarify some regular/ basic aspects of the brand, its ‘anatomy’ –
Interestingly there is an emphasis on placing the brand within a ‘world-view’ and having a ‘philosophy’ as that helps differentiate and ‘stand taller’ among competition.
We find a very usable 2 x 2 matrix (profit v growth) where the brand is positioned within the ‘business types’ (above) that is a much simpler and practical version, one must say, of the by now legendary BCG matrix!
In weeks three and four the ‘improviser’ should dive into the ‘holy grail of marketing i.e. consumer need and heart of marketing i.e. consumer insight.’ Finding ‘barriers’ that the consumer is facing and identify the brand’s functional/emotional promise using the Need-want-barrier/benefit-demand pathway (NWB/ BD – another very usable framework).
In later weeks we do a deeper dive into KYC. Using the general 5Ws and with a lot of probing (research) we deploy the NWB/ BD framework (from Week 3) around the need-states. The good-old AIDA model (Awareness-Interest-Decision-Action) gets a much needed upgrade to AIPAR – p for pre-disposition and r for reaction – demand-moments and the post-consumption experience respectively.
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By week nine the ‘specialist’ should get her hands-on segmentation using the category ‘onion ring’ framework – immediate, proximal, related distant. Reminds of the kind of one of the circular Aaker brand models.
Prioritisation is another perpetual issue – the issue of choices – the dilemma of choosing from equally viable opportunities of deploying resources and capabilities. Here we are introduced to the OFEM framework – Optimise, Fix, Exit, Maximise on a 2 x 2 matrix of cost vs revenue. Another BCG type matrix!
We spend time on the real psychology underlying Positioning (winning the consumer’s mind – leveraging latest insights from neuroscience) and discussing different types/ kinds of positioning (outlines nine types).
And finally we get to Communications by week eleven and twelve discussed around the framework of Need --> Wants --> Demand --> Behaviour
In the brand’s journey, consumer needs are the Villains in the story without which the brand has no role, nor is its success meaningful. The more powerful the Villain (need), the more desirable and bigger becomes the hero (brand offering). The Tension (want) is the legitimate consumer demand that needs to be fulfilled or may be under-fulfilled due to various reasons. Good communicators are quickly onto such a gap! The Messiah of the whole story is the demand that enters to redeem the lives of the consumers by providing a function + emotional benefit. And finally, the ultimate purpose of all communication is to bring about a change in the behaviour of the consumer in a positive manner and enhance the Belief (behaviour) in the brand.
Here we get a timely agency advice: focus on S.O.C.O – a Simple Overriding Communication Objective among several that you may have…
The consumer insight from week three should ideally help lead to the creative expression (campaign) leveraging human truth, human behaviour, product-centricity, empowerers (tagline), standoffish (e.g. a challenge or counter-view to an established idea, brand, belief, etc.) This is discussed with an excellent in-depth Horlicks case study demonstrating and bringing together all aspects discussed.
And finally the high point – if all goes well we should be onto the journey to create a cult brand that satisfies a need, is irreplaceable, unique, resonates deeply with the consumer with a cause, offers a world-view and becomes a heritage (over decades). I should conclude by mentioning that it was very impressive to find a mention of Carl Jung as well – we use and deploy ‘archetypes’ so casually without realising the history of the term and its genesis in the writings of one of the greatest psychologist ever.
The book has perhaps the shortest Bibliography ever seen in recent times with just three entries, which should reflect on all the original first-hand research and ideas!