Posts Tagged ‘Branding’

Brand assessment — Building & maintaining brand strength

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

Building strength in a brand over time is not an easy process. Continuously changing and evolving companies can often lose the brand personality. Regular checks and a corporate-backed brand strategy can help keep a brand on track.

Typically, a branding strategy or campaign consists of three general elements: Identity, Implementation and Management. It takes commitment, discipline, focus and courage to build a strong brand that people will care about and support (everything done should be considered within the broader context of brand strategy). A strong brands acts like a magnet to prospective employees, shareholders and customers.

Understanding the brand:

The brand:
There are many ways to define a brand, some define it as a position in a target market; price, quality, uniqueness, reputation… Some define it as a perception that exists in the minds of the customer, prospect or stakeholder. No matter how it’s defined, a brand is either built, ignored or neglected by the companies that the brand stands for. The amount of respect dedicated to the brand is the difference between a successful brand and one that fails. Everything a company does, the way they do it, and, in many cases, what a company doesn’t do, acts to reinforce or undermine the unique position in a customer’s mind.

Brand identity:
A brand identity is the visual expression of the brand. It includes logos, graphic elements, colours and look and feel that reflect the personality & tone of the brand. An identity should be long lasting, memorable and a timeless reminder of what a company stands for and delivers.

Brand strategy:
A brand strategy answers an essential and basic question. “How do I make a positive impression in the minds of everyone who touches the brand?” Through positive branding techniques including delivery of the message through integrated marketing and communications tactics, collateral development and implementation, a prospect will become aware, interested and invested in a brand. This investment will eventually lead to brand loyalty and buy-in. Most successful brand strategies are ones, that include everyone from employees & vendors, right on through to shareholders, prospects & customers.

Basic brand strength measurement variables:

* Messaging
* Brand distinctiveness
* Brand tone
* Brand consistency
* Brand awareness
* Brand reputation
* Brand loyalty
* Brand preference

General characteristics of a strong brand:

* Messaging and identity is consistent, clear, engaging, unique and resonates with all stakeholders
* Messaging reflects the company’s positioning strategy and is aligned with the brand’s core values
* Brand strength is built through communications tactics and collateral
* Brand image is being reinforced internally and externally
* Strong internal communications, everyone knows the mission and values statement
* Company consistently delivers what is promised
* Comprehensive graphic standard is respected and followed

General characteristics of a weak brand:

* General helplessness as company adapts to changes in the market, restructuring, leadership & strategies
* Inconsistent identity and messaging has undermined the unique position to the brand in the minds of stakeholders
* Mergers and acquisitions have over complicated the brand architecture
* Messaging doesn’t make sense any more and may be confusing stakeholders – position, mission, value
* Vision of the future is not clear
* Competing on price
* No internal pride or understanding
* Lack of stakeholder energy – have become cynical
* Lack of self worth and acceptance of failure
* Difficulty retaining best personnel
* Growth without a plan (fill a sort term market demand)

Re-branding:
There are many reasons why a company may choose to re-brand: confused investors, tarnished reputation, merger of equals, need to renew interest… No matter what the reason, probably one of the most significant outcomes of a re-branding process is the clarity and focus that it generates to the leadership team, management and personnel. It has a rejuvenating effect on the entire company – a renewed sense of purpose and puts some measurable reality to the current situation.

For more information or discussion on brand assessment, please add your comments,
or contact us directly.

Ted Hutchins, Managing Partner, Creative Director
Canada: 613.482.9623

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Marketing — From a position of strength

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

To market your company, product, or service successfully, you need to identify, claim, and defend a unique competitive position in your target market. A position that is most attractive to your potential customers, and that is in alignment with the value you provide.

It’s important to be aware that you already occupy a position in the market, because you do, whether you think about it or not! If fact, your customers and competitors have beliefs about your position in the market, and those beliefs will act as reality until you become proactive and define yourself. If you can’t differentiate your products, how can your prospects.

Benefits of identifying your competitive position in the market
Occupying a compelling competitive position helps enormously when creating marketing campaigns. It allows you to focus on and articulate how your strengths address real market needs better than the competition does. By claiming and defending a position of strength relative to the competition, you can shape perception in the market and define the rules of engagement.

Position value

  • Clarity in the minds of the sellers – what is being sold
  • Clarity in the minds of the buyers – why should they buy the product
  • Clarity in the minds of R&D and Production – expectations for the product

Know where you are now, where they are, and where you want to be

Once you take stock of your competitive position, you’ll learn that there are at least three critical positions in the market that you need to be concerned with:

  1. Your current competitive position
  2. The position(s) of your competitor(s)
  3. The ideal position in the market

By understanding your position in the market relative to the competition, you can design messaging and marketing plans that play to your strengths. By understanding the ideal position in the market, you can choose to make the business or product changes that allow you to claim and defend that more powerful position!

Finding a position: how does it work?

Positioning is a process that requires data, analysis and answers to some
basic positioning questions. Here’s a short overview of the process:

  1. Collect data: Survey your customers, vendors, employees, and other stakeholders to assess current perception
  2. Know the market: Understand the factors that will affect buyers now, and what will drive them in the coming years
  3. Take stock: your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT)
  4. Analyze the competition: study their marketing claims. Do a SWOT on them
  5. Put it all together: plot your position relative to the competition and to market needs and trends. Plan your strategy based on where you are now, and how you will evolve toward your ideal competitive position

Positioning Statement

Once you’ve collected and analyzed all the data, you will be able to follow the steps to creating a positioning statement. Typically you will have two or three versions of your positioning statement.

  1. long version — which states in detail, many of the differentiators and benefits for doing business with your company
  2. general summarized version — for use in collateral and generic ads
  3. a very short version — the elevator speech: what, where and why in less than 30 seconds

Your positioning statement can be sliced up or expanded (must keep it in the same context) to suit your tactical and collateral requirements to drive your marketing messaging, and the company.

Unique Sales Proposition (USP)

A USP is a statement that sets your business apart from the competition in a positive way. It essentially makes a promise to prospective customers that you do things a certain way, and your products/services produce certain results.

What we do:

For the established company, we act as an extension of your marketing or communications department. We work under your direction and deliver products and services that are on message and on brand, just as you would expect, if we were part of your in-house team.

For start-ups and developing companies, still trying to pull it together, Hutchins Crang has the experience and know-how create marketing materials that will deliver a strong consistent message that encourages the desired action.

For more information or discussion on positioning, please add your comments,
or contact us directly.

Ted Hutchins, Managing Partner, Creative Director
Canada: 613.482.9623

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Posted in Branding, Marketing Communications, Start-ups | No Comments »