Build Your Brand Strategy So It Drives Your Growth and Punches Above Your Weight

November 28, 2016/0 Comments/in Brand Strategy, Branding Masterclass, Branding Mastermind /by Lorraine Carter

It’s amazing, but even with all my branding articles, videos, brand-building masterminds, workshops and speaking engagements, people still ask me, “Do I really need to brand my business or brand strategy?” Or they’ll say, “I’m a B2B startup; can’t I postpone this branding stuff for a bit?”

My answer’s are always the same, “Why would you want to? What makes your service or product special? How are you going to make your brand matter to customers? Why should they choose you over well-established competitors with an established track record? What are you going to do to earn their trust, generate higher perceived value and earn their custom?”

Take Warby Parker, the fashion eyewear startup that in 2010 decided to take on the establishment — a handful of companies with a virtual lock on the eyewear industry.

Image via Warby Parker

From the first, co-CEO and co-founder Neil Blumenthal and his fellow Wharton School MBA partners stressed over their brand strategy. And it’s paid off: In six years, Warby Parker has grown 500 percent,[1] and Bloomberg reports that investors now value the business at more than $1 billion USD.[2]

Suffice to say, if you want to punch above your weight — in terms of the competitors you can take on, the target audiences you can reach and the impact you can have in your industry — you need a really strong brand strategy, a compelling reason for customers to notice, trust, like and buy what you have to offer — product or service. Just consider:

In 1981—the year Absolut Vodka launched its highly branded ad campaign — it was selling around 20,000 cases of vodka annually. By 1995, annual sales had grown to 3 million cases — a 14,900% increase in the business.[3]

Image via Wikipaintings.org

The “Hashtag Nation: Marketing to the Selfie Generation” study looked at more than 10,000 teen and young adult customers and their relationship to brands. More than 60% of 16-34 year olds agreed with the statement, “I encourage my friends to use the brands I really like.”[4] Think how much easier it is for friends to share your message when your brand strategy is clearly articulated — when both you and your customers know what your brand stands for and what makes it different, distinctive, memorable and more likeable compared to your competitors.

When Singapore’s oldest telecommunications service, SingTel, wanted to promote faster connectivity, it took to Twitter with a highly branded flash campaign: #Need4GSpeed. For more than a day, it trended in Singapore, controlled more than 54% of the country’s Twitter conversations and increased website visits by 39% (visits remained above 30% for the month).[5]

And if you want to beat the competition, take a page out of the Dollar Shave Club playbook. In just five years, their well-articulated brand strategy attracted more than 3 million members,[6] and Unilever’s decision to buy the startup for $1 billion USD.[7]

Having a brand strategy lets you promote the value of your products and services rather than the price. It’s that simple. And who wouldn’t rather sell value than try to compete on price?

Top Six Steps to Build a Powerful Brand Strategy

Here are six steps to help you develop a powerful brand strategy for your SMB / SME or new business. Although many of the examples and case studies below are from B2C businesses, virtually everything these businesses are doing will work in your B2B brand strategy.

1) Put Strategy Before Tactics…Find Your Point of View

Before you create a logo, pick your brand colours, settle on messaging or design your brand collateral, you need a brand strategy. Everything you learn in the process — about yourself, your customers and your competition — will help direct your tactics, your brand voice, your media choices. It all becomes so much clearer when you know your point of view and what you stand for. Apart from anything else, creativity without strategic rigour is a waste of money.

Image via Warby Parker

With a clear brand strategy, you won’t wonder if the world needs yet another cookie company, holistic healthcare business or financial or professional services business. You’ll know your reason for being and what makes you different…even unique.

Case Study #1: Warby Parker

Warby Parker co-CEO / co-founder Neil Blumenthal calls their brand strategy having a “point of view.” In turn, that point of view has helped establish a company culture that:

Appeals to the value buyer (quality, style and affordability)
Helps others with its CSR at the heart of the brand (“buy a pair, give a pair” helps low-income people who need glasses)
Cares about the environment (the only carbon-neutral eyewear manufacturer)

Image via Warby Parker

The funky name, based on a couple of Jack Kerouac characters — Warby Pepper and Zagg Parker — the great customer service, brand culture, what the brand stands for and its fabulous user experience are all part of executing on the brand strategy. As Blumenthal explains, it’s easier going forward when you have everything worked out up front:

Takeaway: Notice how Warby Parker distills the financial premise behind its brand strategy: Intuitively it didn’t make sense that glasses cost as much as an iPhone. That’s brilliant.

2) What’s Your WHY?

You can’t have a truly successful strategy until you get down to the essence of WHY you are doing what you do…and then finding the words to explain your why to your audience. Listen to Simon Sinek’s TED Talk, “Start with Why:”

As Sinek explains, “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”

When you can bond with customers at an emotional level, you have brand loyalty. According to the Gartner Group, “80% of your company’s future revenue will come from just 20% of your existing customers.”[8] These are your loyal fans.

But what if you could expand your loyal fan base and even increase their ardent devotion? That’s the potential when you can map your WHY, HOW and WHAT (Sinek’s Golden Circles) to how our brains make first an emotional connection and then a rational decision:

Why – Lizard Brain (the old brain/our emotional gatekeeper)
How – Amygdala (part of Limbic brain/responsible for emotional motivation)
What – Neo-cortex (the rational brain)

It’s in the WHY where we feel and trust and develop loyalty. It’s emotion that drives behaviour. It’s emotion that drives customers to purchase your brand before over a competitor. Rational decisions only kick in after emotions are satisfied — the rational reinforces the emotional decision to buy.

As an exercise, think about what you believe in and the brands you admire because they share your values.

Image via Simon Sinek

To help you focus on your WHY and integrate it into your brand strategy so you can leverage throughout your SME / SMB business, Persona Branding and Design offers a variety of branding masterminds and masterclasses. These programmes are transformational. In particular, the Persona Brand Building Blueprint™ Mastermind is a comprehensive, two-day brand building intensive. In fact its an in-depth 10-step programme that will enable you to create your brand strategy from the ground up whether you’re revitalizing an existing brand or creating a new one.

Case Study #2: Apple Inc.

Although Apple makes great computers, tablets and phones, that’s not the message that generates brand loyalty. It’s the company’s willingness to think differently about how people interact with products, and that’s the message that comes through loud and clear in their brand strategy, product design and marketing.

Take a look at the legendary 1984 ad that only ever ran once — during Super Bowl XVIII. Notice how Apple connects emotionally through visual cues and very few carefully chosen words:

In 1997, Apple gave words to their WHY—“Think Different.” Almost two decades later, in its 2014 Perspectives ad, the company has remained focused on this enduring brand strategy:

Takeaway: While it doesn’t take a lot of words to convey your WHY, it does need to permeate everything you do. When you live and work by your Brand WHY, you generate incredible loyalty among your customer base.

3) You Can Brand Anything…and Probably Should

Intel’s distinctive bing…bong, bong, bong, bong is the audible signal that your PC is loading and all is right with your computing world. For us, it’s also an important reminder that you can brand virtually anything. Even products and components that are part of other companies’ finished goods. It’s called Ingredient Branding, and Intel first proved its effectiveness.

Case Study #3: Intel Corporation and Swarovski

In 1991, Intel Inside® revolutionized branding and proved that you can brand something that most customers will probably never see. In this case, Intel successfully branded a bit of silicon real estate on the computer’s motherboard. As Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, explained, “…with consumers at a loss in trying to figure out what made one [computer] better than the other, Intel saw an opportunity…Intel’s leadership was convinced this was the way to grow market share…”[9]

Image via Intel

Intel wasn’t selling speeds and feeds; it was selling trust and peace of mind. This branding strategy drew customers to computer brands with Intel Inside and refused to buy products without the Intel Inside brand promise. Through its revolutionary ingredient branding of an essentially invisible product, Intel achieved incredible trust with its customers.

Image via Swarovski

Today, many companies use ingredient branding to build awareness and generate demand with manufacturers. Swarovski does this with its quality crystals. They’ve created such a high degree of caché for the Swarovski name, that its primary consumers seek it out on everything from clothing to shoes to quality lenses for eyeglasses to crystal-encrusted fake fingernails and more.

And even Jimmy Choo shoes:

Takeaway: The next time you wonder what an innovative branding strategy could do for your product or service, do like Intel: Open your mind to the possibilities and dare to think in a more original and creative way.

4) Be Your Authentic Self

There’s a phrase popular in American business, especially among SME / SMBs and startups still looking for their first big breakthrough: You have to “fake it until you make it.” In other words, you have to look bigger, more innovative, smarter and more established than, perhaps, you are…and certainly more than the competition. The good news is this is precisely what a strong, well developed brand strategy can do.

Image via Digital Intelligence Today

Faking it should never be about lying to or deceiving prospective customers. That’s always been unethical. And today when customers are looking for authenticity, anything less than your best will destroy your relationship with prospects and customers alike.

Here’s author Mike Robbins on the Power of Authenticity:

Co-founder of the Covey Leadership Center, Will Marré, talks about what authenticity means to your brand:

You become authentic, you convey your authenticity by walking the walk and making that part of your who, what and why. Think of it this way: If your WHY helps you build an emotional connection with customers, your authenticity enables you to keep those connections and even strengthen the bond.

While authenticity certainly is the way to the Millennials’ hearts,[10] it works with everyone — as we pointed out in our post, “Branding with Authenticity to Achieve Massively Increased Market Share.”

But beware. You can lose your authenticity with a few missteps…all the more reason to make it part of the core of your brand strategy.

5) Now Tell Your Amazing Story

So how do you begin to bring your brand strategy to people? How do you tell them your amazing WHY? How do you convey your authenticity? One way is to share your story — a topic we’ve discussed often here on our blog.

Our most recent two-part post entitled “Brand Stories: 5 Compelling Examples That Sell Themselves” is a good place to start: Part 1 and Part 2. And make no mistake, stories that are yet another extension of your brand strategy need to be part of your growth strategy.

We all love a good story. It connects with our hearts and sticks in our heads longer than a recitation of facts and figures and bold claims. But before you panic, you don’t need to be a novelist or even a great writer to tell your business story. You just need to speak from your heart, dig deep and tell the world who you really are and why you do what you do.

If you need help telling your story, Persona Branding and Design offers a six-step Brand Story Selling System™ designed for SMEs / SMBs, business owners and brand managers that want their stories to resonate with customers and prospects.

Angela Ahrendts, former Burberry CEO and now senior VP of Apple retail, explains how to weave authentic branding into story:

You can tell your story on YouTube and post it on your website. You can even share it on social media as an ongoing story that keeps people coming back for more as your story unfolds.[11]

Case Study #4: Norrøna

The Norwegian outdoor clothing company Norrøna has been a family-owned business since 1929. Today they are passionate about manufacturing durable, highly functional clothing and gear for adventurers — hikers, skiers, mountaineers, bikers and hunters.

Image via Norrøna

In their video “Who Am I?” Norrøna tells its story in parallel with imagery that tells the story of its customers. In effect, Norrøna conveys its passion through the passion of its customers.

Takeaway: Be authentic, share your personality, create characters and give your story a beginning, middle and end. Above all, be compelling.

6) Brand Persistently, Extensively and Consistently

In addition to telling your story, your brand strategy needs to permeate everything you do. That’s the true key to being authentic. But extensive and persistent expression of your brand strategy is also about creating a consistent brand message and presence — giving your customers a safe harbour on which they can rely and trust.

And don’t forget to involve your employees: “Maximizing Profitability: Training Your Employees to be Brand Champions.” When you involve them in planning your brand strategy and keep them informed and engaged, they are your best brand ambassadors.

Here’s Sabrina Stoffregen, Intel’s former director of Intel Ambassadors, on the power of engaged employees:

Be bold. Be original. Be yourself. Just as your product, service and company are distinctive, so too should your brand. Consider the ways you can leverage your business through your brand so you won’t be dragged into the price or discounters rat race. That’s a losing game.

When you have a robust brand strategy, you’re ready to go out and share it with the world and compete above your weight.

And now you’re ready to think about tactics, but that’s a story for another day.

8 Tips for Using Your Brand Strategy as Your Business Blueprint

Your brand strategy is the blueprint for your brand that keeps you focused on your WHY, your unique point of view and your message.

Outline your target market — detailing who they are, what they want and what they expect from a brand. If you decide to change or expand your audience in the future, make it a strategic decision that is reflected in your brand strategy.

As you develop a brand personality that represents you, your business, your sense of purpose, codify that into your brand strategy so you don’t lose your focus or deviate from a consistent presentation of your brand.

Understand where you fit in the competitive jungle. While you don’t need to be overt in positioning yourself against the competition, you do need to understand how you fit…so you can find and carve out your own space.

As you identify your most competitive or disruptive features, use your brand strategy to define the promise on which you will deliver.

Use your brand strategy to cement that critical emotional connection with customers and prospects. Empower them to feel they are a part of your story.

Be consistent; that’s key to establishing a brand identity that resonates viscerally. Whether people see your logo, a brochure, a video or a social media comment, they should immediately know it’s you.

Make certain that your brand strategy permeates every aspect of your business.

[1] http://www.inc.com/eric-markowitz/3-reasons-warby-parker-is-killing-it.html

[2] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-04/warby-parker-said-to-draw-fund-interest-at-over-1-billion-value

[3] https://www.amazon.com/Absolut-Book-Vodka-Advertising-Story/dp/1885203292

[4] http://www.slideshare.net/HavasWorldwide/hashtag-nation-marketing-to-the-selfie-generation-3942773

[5] https://hbr.org/2013/06/make-your-brand-story-meaningf

[6] https://www.unileverusa.com/news/press-releases/2016/unilever-acquires-dollar-shave-club.html

[7] http://www.marketingprofs.com/opinions/2016/30706/market-disruption-your-brand-needs-to-create-a-ruckus

[8] http://www.forbes.com/sites/jerryjao/2014/11/19/why-customer-retention-is-king-the-evolution-of-retention-marketing-part-1/#72bd1cfe3eb7

[9] https://www.fastcompany.com/3004135/marketing-backstory-how-intel-became-household-name

[10] http://www.forbes.com/sites/karlmoore/2014/08/14/authenticity-the-way-to-the-millennials-heart/#19221983444a

[11] http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2016/02/22/how-to-tell-your-brand-story-on-social-media/#bc6487b2d3a6

Brand Stories: 5 Compelling Examples That Sell Themselves (Part 2)

November 15, 2016/0 Comments/in Brand Recall, Brand Story, Brand Strategy, Branding, Branding Masterclass, Branding Mastermind /by Lorraine Carter

(see Part 1 here)

“Exactly how do I tell my brand’s story?” is one of the most frequently asked questions we receive. Simply start at the beginning and consider the following guides as you draft out the core ingredients of your brand story:

Do: Tell a story
Don’t: Fudge the facts
Do: Use visuals and photos
Don’t: Use copyrighted photography
Do: Use numbers
Don’t: Write a novel
Do: Show your brand’s personality^[1]

If you’re struggling with writing the heart of your compelling brand story so it’s shared time and time again by word-of-mouth then the Persona Brand Building Blueprint™ Mastermind is the perfect fit for you. There are ten key areas we focus on during this two day brand building intensive all of which are fully immersive and strategic in nature. Your brand story is one of the core areas of immersion.

If you want to transform your brand and increase your sales then this two day intensive shared with a small group of like-minded peers is a must for you so you can take your brand further, faster.

More information and registration for the Persona Brand Building Blueprint™ Mastermind can be found here.

The Small Business Brand Advantage

Small businesses are at an advantage. Everyone can identify with an authentic, personal story in a way that big brands cannot achieve. We commonly see these kind of ‘About Us’ write-ups on the websites of SME’s, and they’re just about right.

Image via Emerald Auto and Brake and Vertical Response

Small to medium-sized businesses can also tell a brief personal story about each employee, another opportunity to claim real estate on the web, to create pride among staff, to introduce ice-breakers for clients, and to humanize the brand — an opportunity not to be overlooked.

Image via Marker Real Estate

In part one of this blog title, we introduced 5 exceptional big brand storytelling examples: Airbnb, Amazon, Dollar Shave Club, Facebook, and Guinness. Part two takes a look at five more brands that have hit the nail on the head and discusses universal takeaways for marketers of brands, no matter what size.

Brand: Harry Potter

Backstory:

Author JK Rowling’s own story is one of rags to riches, from living on state benefits, catapulted to multi-millionaire status within five years. The book grew into a series, the series became blockbuster films, and then came the theme parks and global entertainment franchising…some real magic indeed.

Problem:

Literacy. James Thomas, professor of English at Pepperdine University, says the books do more than entertain. “They’ve made millions of kids smarter, more sensitive, certainly more literate…I don’t know of any books to have worked that kind of magic on so many millions of readers in so short a time in the history of publications.”^[2]

Solution:

Perfect timing, perfect emotional connection. “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,” released in the UK in June 1997, was the first book in decades that schoolboys (including those who weren’t avid readers) just couldn’t put down. At that time, the internet was dial-up, Google wasn’t yet founded, and Nintendo 64 had only just hit the shelves. The thriller storyline of Harry Potter books delivered addicting fantasy adventure in large, un-Disney, doses.

Image via JK Rowling

Success:

The Harry Potter brand is worth $25 billion. The movies grossed $7.7 billion worldwide and the best-selling series of books in history, translated into 73 languages, have made just as much. J.K. Rowling has been named the world’s richest author, with a net worth of $1 billion.^[3]

Image via Money Magazine

Takeaway:

Start small, be patient, persevere. Bloomsbury offered JK Rowling $2,250 and agreed to print 1,000 books after she’d been turned down by many other publishers.

Brand: SoulCycle

Backstory:

A decade ago, SoulCycle was a boot-strapped startup by two mothers who met over lunch and decided there was a hole in the market for fitness classes that didn’t require a gym membership.

Problem:

Gyms are everywhere. Why would anyone need another fitness centre chain that only offers 45-minute cycling classes? Or, is a no-membership fee model enough to carve out success?

Image via SoulCycle

Solution:

Imagine a darkened room lit by candles scented of citrus, rows of stationary bikes, deafening music pumping away, a good-looking, fit, inspirational instructor urging you to spin faster in your special shoes clipped onto the pedals of a yellow bike with wheels decorated like a lemon. That’s SoulCycle…it’s meant to go beyond a workout — to be good for your body and nourish your soul. It’s as much a cult as a class, thanks to a deeply loyal following that’s sprinkled with celebrities.

Image via SoulCycle

Success:

A leader in the luxury exercise trend. Nearly 70 prime studio locations in 11 states, concentrated in New York City and California, which accounted for 97 percent of the $112 million in revenue in 2014, 50 percent higher than the year prior.^[4] Equinox purchased a majority stake of 97 percent and the two founders walked away with $90 million each.

Image via Racked and SoulCycle

Takeaway:

Relate to a niche audience and put a spin (pun intended) on a core product. Wearing the tagline, “Aspirational lifestyle brand,”^[5] SoulCycle markets itself as “the place people come, regardless of their age, athletic ability, size, shape, profession or personality, to connect with their best selves.”^[6] In 2016, Fast Company placed SoulCycle on its list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies.^[7]

Brand: Spanx

Backstory:

“Spanx founder Sara Blakely was getting ready for a party when she realized she didn’t have the right undergarment to provide a smooth look under white trousers. Armed with scissors and sheer genius, she cut the feet off her control top pantyhose and the Spanx revolution began.”^[8]

Problem:

Eliminating VPL (visible panty line) and offering an alternative to uncomfortable body shapers.

Image via Spanx

Solution:

Armed with $5,000, a focus on solving wardrobe woes, and a brand persona (meet Sunny) to make the packaging stand out, the Spanx brand has grown to offer dozens of products including leggings, bras, maternity shapewear, a men’s line and more.

Success:

Meet America’s youngest female self-made billionaire. With annual sales of $400 million-plus^[9], Sara Blakely’s nonprofit foundation has contributed $24 million to women’s causes.

Image via Spanx

Takeaway:

On the pages of a trusty spiral notebook, the kind where her first scribbles and notes appeared in 2000, Sarah Blakely keeps the narrative going with “Years of Great Rears” published on the Spanx website.

Brand: Uber

Backstory:

The app-based car service was hatched pretty much on the back of the napkin, according to Travis Kalanick, co-founder of Uber. The co-founders were a couple of serial entrepreneurs hanging out together after hours during a tech conference in Paris.^[10]

Problem:

People want reliable, affordable, fast door-to-door taxi service. San Francisco had a notoriously lousy taxi service, where Uber was launched as an experiment in 2010 following a three-car trial in Manhattan.

Solution:

One long-time user explains the Uber lifestyle thinking:^[11]

They realized they’re not a transportation company, but a logistics company to dispatch things to people who want them. Usually it’s cars, but sometimes it’s ice cream, a mariachi band, or even kittens from shelters.
If you can do it in San Francisco, you can do it in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Sydney, Paris, and anywhere in between.
Since a lot of people use the service not because of how good it is, but how bad taxis are let’s make a cheaper option.

Plus, you don’t need cash. You just hop out.

Image via Uber

Success:

Uber is one of the world’s fast-growing companies. Currently valued at $63 billion, Uber operates in 527 cities in 77 countries.^[12] However, like Airbnb, another giant industry disruptor, the area in which Uber struggles is regulatory; there is room for improvement in their storytelling.

Takeaway:

Kalanick says, “Transportation should be like running water and we want to make that happen absolutely everywhere, for everyone.”^[13] Make sure your brand has clearly identified its core message and crafted a story to tell it well. Furthermore, keep the narrative up-to-date if and when external factors impact it.

Brand: Warby Parker

Backstory:

One of four co-founders from Wharton Business School, Neil Blumenthal, explains the idea came when a friend left a $700 pair of glasses in an airline seat pocket. Having seen how cheap glasses are made in Asia at the same factory that made the expensive ones, Blumenthal imagined a lifestyle brand that addresses price, style and the need for an optometrist visit.^[14]

Image via Warby Parker

Problem:

As a technology that had been around for about 800 years, modern eyeglasses were needlessly expensive. Why? Because the industry was monopolized by one giant company. Warby Parker says everybody has a right to corrective lenses that are fun, free, and affordable.

Solution:

Warby Parker transformed the eyeglasses industry by designing in-house, selling direct-to-consumer to avoid retail markups and offering a free try-on at home service by mail. In addition, CSR is also at the heart of this brand story, for every pair of frames sold one pair is distributed to someone in need. So, “Buy a pair, give a pair.”

Image via Warby Parker

Success:

Eyeglasses for $95 was a groundbreaking proposition and an overnight success. Word-of-mouth took off (15 percent of the population wears glasses). Warby Parker now has 42 locations in North America in addition to e-commerce; the company founded in 2010 was valued at $1.2 billion in 2015.^[15]

Takeaway:

Every brand idea starts with a problem. Express yours in plain language, such as this: “We believe that buying glasses should be easy and fun. It should leave you happy and good-looking, with money in your pocket. We also believe that everyone has the right to see.”

Want to write your compelling brand story? Want to attract your ideal customers so you can sell your brand way more effectively? The Persona Brand Building Blueprint™ Mastermind is the perfect fit for you. There are ten key areas of immersion we focus on during this two day brand building intensive, one of which is your brand story. You work on your brand over the two days with our direction so you can seriously accelerate your growth.

If you want to transform your brand and increase your sales then this two day intensive shared with a small group of like-minded peers is a must for you so you can take your brand further, faster.

More information and registration for the Persona Brand Building Blueprint™ Mastermind can be found here.

Six Questions For Brand Owner Managers to Consider About Brand Storytelling

Have your defined your brand’s story and found a compelling way to share it with your customers and potential customers?
Does your brand story present and solve a unique problem?
Is your story told in an authentic human voice rather than a corporate one?
Is there an emotional connection in your brand storytelling?
Does your brand story have a beginning, middle and an end? Lastly, is there a call to action?
Have you considered getting input from your customers to help you determine your brand messaging? Their feedback can help you clarify and define the voice behind your company.

^[1] http://www.verticalresponse.com/blog/7-dos-and-donts-for-writing-your-companys-story

^[2] http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/personoftheyear/article/0,28804,1690753_1695388_1695436,00.html

^[3] http://time.com/money/4279432/billion-dollar-spell-harry-potter

^[4] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3531018/SoulCycle-founders-resign-company-year-making-90-million-selling-Equinox.html

^[5] http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-soulcycle-ipo-20150731-story.html

^[6] ^{http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/upshot/soulcycle-you-say-cult-i-say-loyal-customer-base.html?_r=1}

^[7] ^{https://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies}

^[8] http://www.spanx.com/about-us

^[9] http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20161011_Reuters_tagreuterscom2016newsmlMT1VRT1201884257_Spanx_Founder_Sara_Blakely_Gives_Back_to_Empower_Women__Small_Businesses.html

^[10] https://newsroom.uber.com/ubers-founding

^[11] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-story-behind-the-creation-of-Uber

^[12] http://uberestimator.com/cities

^[13] https://www.marketingweek.com/2015/09/17/uber-ceo-we-need-to-get-better-at-telling-our-story

^[14] https://techcrunch.com/2013/05/07/the-three-things-warby-parker-did-to-launch-a-successful-lifestyle-brand

^[15] http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2016/03/23/whats-behind-warby-parkers-success/#7d24b3406395

Brand Stories: 5 Compelling Examples That Sell Themselves

November 8, 2016/0 Comments/in Brand Story, Brand Strategy, Brand Voice, Branding, Branding Mastermind /by Lorraine Carter

Part 1. (see Part 2 here)

Once upon a time, there was a brand that told its very own compelling story. It had a beginning, a middle and an end. It was the story of how it adds value to people’s lives, how it uniquely solves a problem, how it authentically reaches people, builds an emotional connection with them and gains their trust.

“It makes “selling” a whole lot easier when your customers actually understand what they’re buying.” (And why). – Kelly Lucente, author

In fact, that’s what all good brand stories do, from “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” to iconic brands like Apple and Virgin Group.

Beginning: Problem. Explain the problem that you set out to solve.
Middle: Solution. Describe how you solved it.
End: Success. Get excited about the success this produced.^[1]

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” – Albert Einstein

It’s no coincidence that some of the world’s most powerful brands are ones that have successfully told their brand stories in a relatable human, non-corporate way so that customers embrace it and are keen to continue sharing that story via world of mouth.

Image via Gapingvoid, © Hugh MacLeod

“A story is how we construct our experiences. At the very simplest, it can be: ‘He/she was born, lived, died.’ Probably that is the template of our stories – a beginning, middle, and end. This structure is in our minds.” – Doris Lessing, author

Here we take a closer look at 5 great brand story case studies to see who nailed it, how, and why. SMEs / SMBs can successfully apply many of the universal lessons learned here to smaller brands. The key learning for a company of any size is to remain sharply in focus on: “What are we for? What problem do we solve?”

5 Great Brand Stories that Sell Themselves

Brand: Airbnb

Backstory:

“In fact, by conventional wisdom, it seems like a pretty dumb idea. Who would want to rent spare rooms to strangers from strange cities in their homes? And would you rent a room in someone’s house, instead of a hotel?” in 2011, the technology journalist Om Malik probed for answers to such basic sharing economy questions as he interviewed Brian Chesky, CEO and founder of Airbnb.

Problem:

A housing problem occurs when cities sell out during high demand periods. The idea came to Chesky and his college buddy who had a couple of air mattresses to rent out when conventions put too much demand on hotels in San Francisco. That grew to the idea of booking a room anywhere for as short as one night.

Solution:

“Live like a local,” is the Airbnb story for this online service that matches people seeking vacation rentals and other short term accommodation needs with hosts who have rooms, apartments, houses or other unique spaces to rent.

Image via Airbnb

Success:

Airbnb caught the wave of both the sharing economy and online commerce. In 2016, Airbnb grew at a faster rate than the entire hotel industry, offering 2.3 million housing units in its inventory.^[2] The 8-year-old company has a valuation of $30 billion.^[3]

Takeaway:

Classic design approach. Think through the customer experience, even before they arrive. “Become the patient is a core value,” says Joe Gebbia, Co-founder Airbnb.^[4]

Brand: Amazon

Backstory:

Customer-driven Amazon.com sold its first book online in 1995, and since then has defined and redefined online retailing for the rest of the Internet retail world.^[5] Amazon’s mission statement reads: “Our vision is to be earth’s most customer-centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”^[6]

Problem:

Electronic shopping looks to fill the void of shopping by catalogue as the popularity of the internet explodes.

Solution:

Working from in his Bellevue, WA garage in 1995, Jeff Bezos identified five products to sell online: CDs and videos, computer hardware and software, and books. Beginning with books, Bezos focused his new avenue for commerce on the web on search, the customer experience and fast delivery.

Image via Amazon

Success:

One of the top five U.S. companies^[7], Amazon attracts over 140 million customers per month to its US website as of late 2016.^[8] With 36 sub-brands in 13 countries, in 2015, Amazon became the nation’s most valuable retailer. ^[9]

Takeaway:

Experiment, measure, experiment, measure…repeat. “If you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going to double your inventiveness.” – Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder and CEO.

Brand: Dollar Shave Club

Backstory:

In 2012, Co-founder Michael Dubin personally introduced his product in a humorous video produced for only $4500, which launched on YouTube and went viral. Nearly 24 million views later, see how well the video lays out the problem and the solution.

Problem:

Razor blades are way too expensive. They’re loaded up with unnecessary technology, locked away on the shopfront floor, and carry too much costly packaging and advertising overhead.

Solution:

“Shave time, shave money.” A low-priced, convenient, internet-based subscription model mails razors right to the customer’s door, disrupting giant retailers in the men’s shave market.

Image via Dollar Shave Club

Success:

In year one, Dollar Shave Club did $4 million in sales. Year two was $19 million and year three was $65 million.^[10] In 2016, Unilever purchased Dollar Shave Club for $1 billion to challenge Procter & Gamble’s Gillette, the market leader.

Takeaway:

A message for challenger brands: “One category after another is being transformed by new brands as consumers demand more personalized offerings.”^[11]

Brand: Facebook

Backstory:

Founded in 2004, Facebook’s mission was to give people the power to share, to make the world more open and connected through friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.

Problem:

Facebook is about to reach its teen years. How can the blistering pace of growth to 1.59 billion users be sustained?

Image via TechCrunch

Solution:

Although Facebook is hitting saturation in some markets, there’s room to grow in many developing countries. In 2016, Mark Zuckerberg expressed his vision for Facebook’s future at the annual developer’s conference: “Over the long run, we’re building planes and satellites to connect everyone to the internet; artificial intelligence to help us interact with services more easily; and virtual reality to help us experience the world in a totally new way.”

Image via TechCrunch

Success:

There are another 900 million users on WhatsApp, 800 million on Messenger, 400 million on Instagram, all Facebook properties. Revenue generated from mobile ads jumped 80 percent in the second quarter, faster than Facebook’s overall 59 percent advertising growth rate.^[12]

Takeaway:

Listen to Mark Zuckerberg talk about the low points in Facebook’s young life. Learn. Evolve. Grow. Rebrand.

Brand: Guinness

Backstory:

“How does a local brand from a small country resonate around the world? How does a brand become inherently part of a nation’s DNA? How does a brand instil pride in it’s country people even though not everyone wants to drink it?…I love the brand, not the product. Walk through the city centre in Dublin any morning, any day of the week and you’ll experience the smell of Dublin, barley roasting in the Guinness Brewery at St James’s Gate, where Guinness has been for over 250 years. You can smell it all over the city. It defines the city.”^[13]

Problem:

1759 was a long time ago. The brand has a devout cult following. But it also has a corporate owner. How can Guinness connect with each new generation? Can the brand stay young, fresh, innovative? Can Guinness shore up sales as small craft brews gain in popularity?

Solution:

“Our Story” figures prominently on the Guinness website. With a 90-second ad, Guinness turns the problem into a solution by positioning themselves as legendary, almost mythical. The video takes us behind the brewery gates for an inside look. “We’re only 255 years into a 9,000-year lease,” Irish actor Cillian Murphy says in a lilting voiceover. “We have a lot more beer to make.”

Image via Guinness

Success:

Guinness defines the category and remains the top producer of stout on the planet. One of only a few truly global beer brands, Guinness sells over 2 billion pints every year in over 150 countries.

Takeaway:

Deliver a sense of place for your brand by sharing the insider’s story. “Our greatest work is yet to come,” provides a sense of anticipation…watch this space, it suggests, allowing customers to peek at tomorrow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nXEDZ4Ru2I

De-Mystify the Black Art of Branding

Successful brands stand out by telling great stories. To earn a strong and positive position in the minds of your customers, your message must be both simple and focused. What takeaways, tips, questions, checklists, insights, and facts can you take from these compelling brand stories and apply to your brand?

If you’re struggling with writing and choosing the golden nuggets of your compelling brand story then the Persona Brand Building Blueprint™ Mastermind is the perfect fit for you. You see, there are ten key areas we focus on during this two day brand building intensive all of which are fully immersive and strategic in nature. Your brand story is one of the core areas of immersion.

More information and registration for the Persona Brand Building Blueprint™ Mastermind can be found here.

Six Questions For SMEs / SMBs to Consider About Brand Stories

Have your defined your brand’s story and found a compelling way to share it with your customers and potential customers?
Does your brand story present and solve a unique problem?
Is your story told in an authentic human voice rather than a corporate one?
Is there an emotional connection in your brand storytelling?
Does your brand story have a beginning, middle and an end? Lastly, is there a call to action?
Have you considered getting input from your customers to help you determine your brand messaging? Their feedback can help you clarify and define the voice behind your company.

^[1] https://blog.kissmetrics.com/create-authentic-brand-story

^[2] http://archives.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2016/05/25/airbnbs-enormous-success-is-bigger-than-you-think

^[3] http://www.wsj.com/articles/airbnb-raises-850-million-at-30-billion-valuation-1474569670

^[4] http://firstround.com/review/How-design-thinking-transformed-Airbnb-from-failing-startup-to-billion-dollar-business

^[5] https://www.thebalance.com/amazon-mission-statement-4068548

^[6] http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/amazon-com-inc-history

^[7] http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/23/amazon-climbs-into-list-of-top-five-largest-us-stocks-by-market-cap.html

^[8] https://siteanalytics.compete.com/amazon.com/#.WBva-2QrJdg

^[9] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html?_r=0

^[10] http://fortune.com/2015/03/10/dollar-shave-club-founding

^[11] https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/22/why-did-unilever-pay-1b-for-dollar-shave-club

^[12] http://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-posts-strong-profit-and-revenue-growth-1469650289

^[13] http://www.trulydeeply.com.au/brand-identity/guinness-art-brand-storytelling

Brand Crisis – How to Manage, Survive and Thrive

September 13, 2016/0 Comments/in Brand Audit, Brand Auditing, Brand Audits, Brand Crisis, Brand Failures, Brand Health Check, Brand Relaunch, Brand Reputation, Brand Revitalisation, Brand Risk Management, Brand Risk Mitigation, Brand Strategy, Brand Values, Branding, Customer Engagement, Entrepreneur, Rebranding, Situation Analysis /by Lorraine Carter

The one thing every brand product or service can count on is that there is a brand crisis in your future. No brand is immune. And, because bad news travels fast (faster than ever, due to social media), time is of the essence.

When do you have a brand crisis on your hands? Whenever there are “unexpected events that threaten a brand’s perceived ability to deliver expected benefits, thereby weakening brand equity.” ^[1]

It’s a Brand Crisis: First Things First

Step 1: Damage Control

Whether Mother Nature or manmade forces are at work, it’s critical that no matter how robust a brand you have built, you do have a “just-in-case” plan on the Public Relations shelf. A crisis management professional will guide you on the immediate essential steps and basic principles^[2] of crisis management, and importantly, on your specific scenario.

From the very first moment that a sudden event, a mistake, or a piece of news impacts a brand negatively, savvy brand managers need to know:

what to do first
what never to say to the media
how to prioritize
what social media tactics are best

Step 2: Assessing the Brand Damage

According to the Financial Times, “When a brand crisis breaks out, consumers and other stakeholders (e.g., shareholders, the media, regulators) are likely to raise questions about the affected brand and why the crisis happened such as: who is to blame? Is the event likely to happen again? Is it true? What does the crisis signal about the brand?”^[3]

When the frenzy begins to abate, your brand requires large amounts of tender loving care. The central question to be answered relates to the prognosis and timing for recovery. That is, brand owners and managers need to analyze both the short-term and long-term effects of the damage caused by the crisis for complete, cool-headed consideration.

Step 3: Short-Term Brand Damage

Assuming no loss of life or property, your short-term considerations are typically:

sales
consumer confidence
an attack mounted by opportunist challenger brand(s).

Therefore, the task is to recover revenue, earn consumers’ trust, and deal with competitors in the right way.

A silver lining comes from gaining positive lessons learned from a negative experience…it’s never more important than when one’s “dirty laundry” has been on display for all to observe.

Nevertheless, a brand audit followed by a refresh or re-branding may very well be in order at this critical moment.

After the Brand Crisis: Getting Back to Normal

Step 4: Long-Term Brand Damage

A crisis is a harsh teacher and requires cool heads to respond rationally to an irrational situation. Ultimately, every crisis has a resolution.

How a brand deals with a crisis during the short-term damage control step will have a lasting effect on its reputation in the long-term, where it matters most. Indeed, that behaviour becomes a benchmark for the brand as conversations in the public sphere revolve around the brand’s handling of the event.

Because every situation is different, it’s impossible to say how long after the initial crisis occurs that step 4 will begin. It could be days, weeks, or months. Experts agree, “The scale and duration of this impact depends on a number of factors, including a brand’s track record and established consumer goodwill, as well as how quickly brand custodians respond to the crisis.” ^[4]

If you need to evaluate your brand’s vulnerabilities, weak points and areas in need of change then now is the time to use the Auditing Analysis Accelerator™. It’s an online programme that walks you through, step-by-step, the process of giving your brand an audit. A critical management tool in every brand owners arsenal.

Step 5: The Problem Gets Fixed

In a widely shared 2005 op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal^[5] following the devastating Hurricane Katrina, the former chairman of General Electric presented his thought leadership memo about the five stages of a crisis. According to Jack Welch, the fifth and final stage in crisis management is when the problem gets fixed.

A benefit derived from a crisis is that it lets us know where things are broken and can help us to identify solutions so that future similar crises may be avoided. But this benefit applies only if we take the appropriate steps to learn those lessons and to apply that wisdom to our brand.

It’s mandatory to undertake the post-crisis approach strategically. In the words of Jawaharlal Nehru, statesman of India, “Every little thing counts in a crisis.”

What Now For My Brand?

As a branding expert, Persona Design can provide insights and advice about getting your brand back to ship-shape by determining:

Whether the original brand strategy needs adjustment
How to create a new brand promise
To what extent the brand can recover
Whether a brand refresh is appropriate
Does the brand need repositioning?
Whether a re-branding is required
What a re-branding should look like

This process begins with a detailed brand audit focused on recovery. This procedure determines your brand’s market position versus competitors, identifies where brand strengths and weaknesses lie, reveals inconsistencies and opportunities for improvement, and flags new developments.

Option 1: A Brand Refresh

In the wake of a crisis, a refreshed brand must create and clearly communicate new company values.

Option 2: A Re-branding

A brand audit will determine whether the brand can survive. Some brands, including large ones like Arthur Andersen (now Accenture), cannot survive a deep crisis.

Calculated and deliberate brand re-building to repair brand reputation is not a frivolous process. It requires a serious and thoughtful strategy based on customer perception, behaviour and values.

Let’s look at five types of crises that commonly occur in a small-to-mid-sized company and use illustrations found within larger corporations. Note that the strength of a brand image will mitigate damage in crisis aftermath, with smaller brands being more vulnerable than these household names.

A Bump in the Road for Brands

1. Product Failures

As a small-to-medium retailer, you can be caught up in a failed product originating with one of your suppliers. It’s a costly headache for retail management having to refund customers’ money, give them replacements, deal with the supplier, while hoping the problem doesn’t get any worse or rub off on your own brand. When a product failure occurs, you may benefit from professional brand reputation management.

Example: Due to six fatal incidents, millions of unstable dresser units have been recalled by IKEA^[6], which is responsible for their own supply chain as manufacturer and reseller. This product recall is one of 17 for IKEA in 2015 through mid-2016.^[7]

IKEA Malm dressers (IKEA Corporate News website)

Result: Surveys indicates that the world’s largest furniture retailer’s reputation is hit hard, but the brand will survive, according to experts like Stephan Shakespeare, founder and CEO of YouGov, who writes in July 2016, “The good news is that IKEA’s overall Value Score remains relatively untroubled – in the UK at least. While this remains the case, IKEA can be assured its offering will continue to be popular…IKEA should be thankful that it has such a strong brand image, and indeed one that people around the world have a connection and loyalty to.”^[8]

Image via Buzz Score (YouGov)

2. Brand Embarrassment

Keep your clearly defined brand values front and centre in the mind of the customer. If something embarrassing does occur, seek advice from a professional branding agency to prevent customers from expressing dismay with their feet and their wallets.

“People buy a brand because it says something about who they are and what they believe in,” according to Deborah MacInnis, PhD, a professor of marketing at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business. “If there’s a brand that does something bad, people feel betrayed but also feel that wearing it would signal that they agree with the values of the company.”^[9]

Example: High priced teen apparel brand Abercrombie & Fitch lost its status as darling of the Millennials when the CEO made disparaging comments about customers who didn’t fit the store’s skinny sizing. An employee with an eating disorder gained 68,000 petition signatures and an apology.

Result: Sales have been impacted to the degree that store closings are the only option. The brand continues to close sizeable chunks of its portfolio of (previously) 946 U.S. store locations.

Image via Fortune, source Abercrombie & Fitch filings

3. High Profile Dishonesty

Just one untruthful comment by one top executive can negatively affect a brand. This can be particularly disruptive for service brands where the emphasis is on people. A renewed brand promise will help get things back on track.

A Canadian-based digital strategy specialist writes, “Brands aren’t heartless, mindless, soulless, brick and mortar stores. They are built by people. And no customer wants to associate with brands that comprise of unscrupulous, unreliable people. Honesty is always number one on buyers’ desirability index.”^[10]

Example: After a 22-year career, NBC’s former national news anchor, Brian Williams, lost his job after exaggerating a report about his experience on the front lines in Iraq.

Result: With a quick response from NBC, a Williams apology, and a seven-month suspension for its news anchor, the network weathered the storm around trustworthiness. The popular news announcer who had enjoyed a 10-year, $15 million/year contract was brought back on air, albeit with a demotion to the network’s related cable brand, MSNBC.^[11]

4. Broken Brand Promises

In the consumer’s mind, Whole Food stands for healthy eating, responsibly grown, and high quality standards, so that shoppers can buy with confidence around issues they care about.^[12] A series of giant consumer let downs have occurred. Whole Foods Market, Inc. is big enough to fund their own newly hired full-time professional global VP to handle post-crisis brand strategy.^[13]

Example: Whole Foods dropped the ball on their own brand promise. Last year, Whole Foods was found guilty of price mischarging from California to New York. In another salvo at Whole Foods in June 2016, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration issued a series of safety standard warnings^[14] regarding fundamental cleanliness standards.

Result: Consumers were unimpressed when Whole Foods responded with a video from the company’s CEOs. People reportedly found the performance insincere, punctuated with the kind of overt gesticulation that students of body language are trained to spot. No discount was offered to entice customers back. Share prices for Whole Foods Market, Inc. have depreciated 25 percent in 12 months^[15] and they’re pivoting to an ancillary brand, a smaller store with less selection, called 365, aimed at Millennials.^[16]

What happened to “The Customer is Always Right”? Harry Gordon Selfridge may have overdone customer service with that mantra back in 1909. However, when a business’s explanation is open to interpretation as “we’re sorry we got caught,” you can be sure that savvy consumers aren’t buying it.

Image via YouTube

5. Scandals

When internal and external brand values are out of alignment and don’t match, the result can be devastating. FIFA, Volkswagen, Sports Direct, Chipotle, Bill Cosby, Ryan Lochte. And now Wells Fargo, one of the world’s largest banks (with a comfy Old West stagecoach brand image) was fined $185 million and released 5,300 when a fabricated bank account scandal broke.

Image via Mirror UK

Example: For Findus, 50 years in the UK grocer’s frozen food aisles, it was one scandal too many. Following the uproar of 2013, when the beef lasagne was found to contain 60 to 100 percent horse meat, the product was pulled and the brand was sold. Time did not heal, as it became known that the brand had been served in 2,300 schools, hospitals, prisons, armed forces and senior housing,

Result: From spring 2017, the Findus brand is no more.^[17]

Are you struggling with how to reposition your brand, rebuild your brand values, improve your brand promise — make your brand standout for the right reasons so it’s memorable and distinctive in ways that make it much loved? Then the Personality Profile Performer™ online programme is a perfect fit for you. Enroll today and make your brand highly visible and loved.

Questions to ask while reinforcing or rebuilding your brand:

• How strong is your brand reputation?

• What problem does your brand solve for its customers?

• Are your brand values clearly defined and communicated?

• How does your brand deliver on its promise?

• How do your employees, partners, vendors, suppliers and owners view your brand?

• When was the last time you conducted a brand audit?

^[1] http://blog.ebiquity.com/2015/07/why-it-pays-to-take-the-drama-out-of-a-crisis

^[2] Bendel, Peggy. “It’s a Crisis! Now What?” SutherlandHousePublishing.com, 2012.

^[3] http://lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=brand-crisis

^[4] http://blog.ebiquity.com/2015/07/why-it-pays-to-take-the-drama-out-of-a-crisis

^[5] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB112666533279540108

^[6] http://www.ikea.com/us/en/about_ikea/newsitem/062816-recall-chest-and-dressers

^[7] http://www.ikea.com/us/en/about_ikea/newsroom/product_recalls

^[8] https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/07/06/ikeas-drawer-debacle-wont-destroy-uk-image/

^[9] https://mic.com/articles/130147/researchers-are-now-able-to-measure-just-how-embarrassing-an-uncool-brand-is#.T70A15Xkv

^[10] http://www.business2community.com/branding/4-reasons-dishonesty-can-kill-brand-faster-bad-strategy-01084600#5XME1zbb2yep2m34.97

^[11] https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/at-long-last-brian-williams-is-back–humbled-and-demoted-to-low-rated-msnbc/2015/09/21/ea423408-6077-11e5-b38e-06883aacba64_story.html

^[12] http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/mission-values

^[13] http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/brooke-buchanan-theranos-whole-foods

^[14]http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/2016/ucm506089.htm

^[15] http://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/062016/what-whole-foods-latest-woes-mean-stock-wfm.asp

^[16] http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/27/investing/whole-foods-earnings-july

^[17] http://metro.co.uk/2016/01/31/goodbye-findus-crispy-pancakes-brand-dogged-by-horsemeat-scandal-is-to-disappear-5654449/

What Brands Can Learn From Political Campaigns

August 31, 2016/0 Comments/in Brand Personality, Brand Profiling & Positioning, Brand Promise, Brand Relevance, Brand Reputation, Brand Story, Brand Strategy, Brand Values, Brand Voice, Branding, Challenger Brands, Disruptor Brands, Personal Branding, Storytelling, Sub-Branding, Sub-Brands /by Lorraine Carter

The races for 10 Downing Street and the White House highlight universal lessons in brand strategy for keen observers. As a brand, there’s none more emotive and powerful than a prime minister or president of the United States.

The time period available in politics for building a party platform, selecting leaders, and creating a campaign is much shorter, and consequently more intense, compared to all other arenas of brand building.

Nonetheless, just like the smallest of brands, the candidates must build that essential emotional bond whether through shaking hands, kissing babies or connecting with consumers at every single touchpoint in a way that’s relevant to them to earn every single vote. As students of brand marketing, the highly focused, condensed time frame and intense process of building a brand to attract voters — similarly to gaining customers — is rich in takeaways for businesses of any size.

US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – (Public Domain)

Brand Vision: Differentiation is Everything in Brand Strategy

How many times have you heard someone say, “I’m not voting…all politicians are the same.” Political campaigns remind us that clear brand differentiation is key if you are to capture your audience’s attention, imagination and support. In politics that vision is policy; in branding that vision can be whatever you choose…as long as it’s undeniably clear, relevant to your primary audience and expressed in easy to understand language that resonates with them.

Image via hillaryclinton.com

Explain your brand vision. Paint a picture of what the world could look like and how others can be part of that when they buy into the vision of your brand. This must be a really bright North Star that shines for your audience and attracts word-of-mouth referral time after time.

Listen as US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delineates four essential human freedoms. FDR’s “Four Freedoms” speech leaves no question regarding the nation’s vision, “attainable in our own time and generation,” on the eve of US involvement in World War II.

Listen as John F. Kennedy takes just 30 seconds to articulate his vision in the 1961 inaugural address, speaking first to Americans and then to fellow citizens of the world.

Healthy Brand Competition

In sales training, we’re taught to emphasize benefits; trashing the competition is not the right approach. Some politicians are known to be terrible at this. Instead of articulating an optimistic vision, candidates often tell you how lousy the incumbent and/or the competition is. Arguably some consider Donald Trump to be the champion of insults — a skill he developed on reality television and honed in debates — which doesn’t always translate so well in real life.

To get out the vote, that political position must be communicated across all stakeholders: volunteer voter registration workers, doorbell ringers, call centres, college campus activists, hundreds of regional election headquarters, social media gurus, data experts, staffers, media and the public. To gain customers, that brand message must be reflected at every touchpoint and resonate with current buyers, prospective buyers, suppliers, vendors, distributors, every employee, shareholders, investors, and the CEO.

In the absence of articulating and sharing a compelling brand message, disinterest develops, or even cynicism and mistrust. In politics, this translates into divisiveness, fear, insecurity — and a landslide for the opposition. For a brand, it means that reputation suffers and sales decline.

You Are Your Brand

The brand called YOU is a multi-layered lesson we can learn (both good and bad practices) by watching the political stage during an election cycle. Certainly, public opinion can be influenced by the packaging: takeaways like Hillary Clinton’s pantsuits and Donald Trump’s unique hairstyle make an indelible mark, as with any brand.

Meryl Streep as Donald Trump – (@simply_the_best_ms on Instagram)

Also, brand marketers can observe how politicians use tone of voice, choice of words, truthfulness, authenticity, facts, listening skills, presentation style, distribution channels, frequency, inspirational metaphors, storytelling, consistency or lack of it, and more to make connections and grow audience. On occasion, they provide examples of what NOT to do.

Everyone involved has a chance to be a brand that is worthy of notice via its most important asset: People. Motivated, enthusiastic, hard working, smiling, clever and talented people make all the difference.

Know Your Brand’s Target Audience

Skills and insight go into knowing and understanding your target audience so you can speak their language, tap into their attitudes and values, and build a simple, strong compelling message that they find irresistible. That magnetism factor is a really important part of successful brand building. It’s one of the critical tools used for mapping out your different customer types in what we call Purchaser Personas.

In fact it’s one of the key elements in our brand building programme called the Personality Profile Performer™. You can’t attract the attention of your ideal audience and sustain their interest if you don’t know them intimately — their needs, wants, loves, hates and aspirations. Every business has a minimum of two and up to twenty different customer Purchaser Personas which provide the critical insights and direction for how your brand can speak to your customers — winning their hearts and minds on their terms — so you can grow your business.

The mechanisms of polling, precincts and predicting are complicated. We leave that to the experts. Nonetheless, you’ll hear news commentary about politicians of all political persuasions “appealing to their base” and/or “broadening the base.”

As in branding, the articulation of mission, values, and promise are essential. Communication with target audiences to understand their likes and dislikes is the first step, however talking to the base over and over doesn’t bring in a single new vote. Brand expansion while maintaining brand loyalty with a core audience is the name of the game in politics as in retailing and other customer verticals.

Brand Messaging Cannot be Overrated

The importance of driving powerful brand impact is what Donald Trump might call “H-U-U-U-G-E” because connecting at a deep emotional level moves people strategically and emotionally. The intensity of the brand message is what makes it stand out; the authenticity of the brand message is what makes it stick.

How you communicate with your audience and what message you bring is what keeps audiences loyal and strengthens bonds. As with any branding strategy, placement, delivery, frequency and tone of voice matter. It’s so easy to turn people off with too much noise and overexposure.

In America, where the election process rolls out over two years and intensifies as election day draws nearer, this skill must be managed and sustained over weeks and months, just like a brand must do in the broader marketplace.

Image via donaldjtrump.com

Brand Storytelling Matters

It is critical to stay true to your brand’s DNA and not get lost, unglued, or disconnected. We’re conditioned that way. When a child asks you to read their favourite bedtime story, they’re anticipating the same story with the same ending.

Politicians are famous for the brand disaster known as a flip-flop on issues, and it can cost an election or tank sales. Whether in the political arena or in branding, there’s simply no room for inconsistent storytelling. It kills believability and trust.

The big why behind the brand story challenges us to build stories that promote something for the greater good. With vision, we can create and communicate a loveable brand, or a sustainable brand, or a socially responsible brand, or a caring, charitable brand…just like building a personality that people will vote for.

Sub-Branding Opportunities and Risks

Sometimes brands create sub-brands to serve expansion goals, as in Coors and Coors Light or American Express and the American Express Gold and Platinum Card. The risk is that sub-brands can detract from core brands, using precious time, energy and resources. Secondly, the sub-brand reputation reflects on its parent brand; the overall customer message can become diluted or compromised.

To minimise or eliminate risks, we recommend taking professional branding advice if you’re considering sub-branding to avoid costly mistakes. Planning your brand structures in the form of new or additional related or unrelated products or services, also known as brand architecture, is a critical part of the strategic planning and brand building process. We’ve seen this play out recently on the political world stage. Brand expansion must be taken seriously to protect core brand values. However, adding Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to John McCain’s 2008 ticket diluted the brand.

When Hillary Clinton undertook a six-month vice presidential vetting process, the selection was received quite differently to when Britain’s new Prime Minister Theresa May selected dropout candidate Boris Johnson as foreign secretary in an overnight surprise. The former London mayor’s brand image is reportedly lacking in the required decorum associated with such an important role according to other world leaders.

“My chances of being PM are about as good as the chances of finding Elvis on Mars, or my being reincarnated as an olive.” – Boris Johnson [1]

The Appeal of Disruptor Brands

What did brand managers learn from Bernie Sanders during the 14-month lead up to the Democratic Convention, when the challenger was the Millennials’ poster boy, a lovable white-haired grandfather, small-town Vermont Senator?

It takes time and resources — generally a year or so — for any challenger brand to successfully disrupt.

A clearly and passionately articulated brand vision should be communicated over and over again.

This candidate’s storytelling remained on message (since his youth), establishing strong authenticity, trust and delivering no surprises.

Bernie Sanders successfully reached a broad audience through brand activation and personal engagement. While pre-imposed deadlines brought his campaign to an end, the branding strategy was successful.

Watch what happens when a little bird lands on Bernie Sanders’ podium during a speech. The crowd goes crazy and the candidate turns the moment into an articulation of his vision, “No more wars.”

Consider these questions:

Is your brand vision well developed and clearly communicated?

Have you shared your brand vision with all stakeholders?

Is your brand failing to connect and perhaps in need of a rebrand or brand refresh?

Do you and your employees passionately personify your brand?

Is your brand story clearly articulated across multiple customer touchpoints?

Are you considering sub-branding as a strategy for brand expansion?

Are you a brand challenger with a clear point of differentiation?

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/london-mayor-election/mayor-of-london/10909094/Boris-Johnsons-top-50-quotes.html

How to Transform Your Brand and Increase Your Sales

August 24, 2016/0 Comments/in Brand Differentiation, Brand Leadership, Brand Personality, Brand Positioning, Brand Profiling & Positioning, Brand Revitalisation, Brand Strategy, Branding, Branding Bootcamp, Branding Masterclass, Branding Mastermind, Branding Workshop, Business, Rebrand, Rebranding /by Lorraine Carter

10 Branding Tips From Silicon Valley on How to Be a Successful Startup Brand

August 9, 2016/2 Comments/in Brand Positioning, Brand Profiling & Positioning, Brand Promise, Brand Relaunch, Brand Revitalisation, Brand Story, Brand Strategy, Brand Values, Brand Voice, Branding, Entrepreneur, Rebrand, Rebranding /by Lorraine Carter

From Silicon Valley to Silicon Docks and Silicon Roundabout, the buzzwords “entrepreneur”, “branding” and “startup” get bandied about quite a bit, so let’s take a look at their meanings. Dictionary definitions indicate that an entrepreneur is a person who initiates, organizes and manages a business and assumes its risk. A startup is the vehicle for doing so and branding is what makes your brand highly visible, different, memorable and much loved. Underlying the definition in common use today, is that an entrepreneur has a vision for a new brand, a startup that will disrupt a particular practice.

Entrepreneurship is “creative, disruptive innovation,” as notably coined by the early 20th century economist Joseph Schumpeter.

A century later, a newer definition, courtesy of Silicon Valley-based investor Reid Hoffman^{^[1]}, is: “An entrepreneur is a person who jumps off a cliff and builds a plane on the way down.”

Image via Gapingvoid, © Hugh MacLeod

Branding From the Beginning

Startup brands in our commercial midst are actually nothing new. In fact, branding has been central to the success of innovators from the beginning. For centuries before modern society’s computer chip lent Silicon Valley its moniker, startups have been an essential part of the economy, picking up steam — to coin a phrase — during the Industrial Revolution. In the Information Age, entrepreneurship accounted for 14 percent of all working-age Americans in 2015, some 27 million people, in the USA alone. ^{^[2]}

Startup Brands Are Still Brands

Startup brands are brands, just like established ones, only less developed. And, a branding professional who has been down this road many times can provide all-important markers for you in trailblazing the way ahead for your new brand. You’ll want to avoid brand mistakes that will likely require a costly do-over in time. Our Personality Profile Performer™ Programme is designed to guide brand owners and managers to build a highly visible, different, memorable and much loved new brand from scratch.

From birth you need a memorable name, a mission statement, a brand promise, a standout brand personality and a strong brand strategy prior to a brand launch. No one will debate that creating a startup brand isn’t hard work. We’re here to help!

Whether it’s the first sewing machine, a craft beer, or a new messaging app, being a founder is all-consuming…and always starts small even when you are thinking big.

What Is and Is Not Your Brand

The adage, “Everything is your brand and your brand is everything,”^{^[3]} as it appears in the pages of the Harvard Business Review, is true enough. However, until and unless you have your brand’s core values and the building blocks of your brand foundation in place, it is premature to take the next steps.

Your logo is not your brand. Your clever new dot.com name is not your brand. Your website is not your brand. Your packaging is not your brand. These are components of your brand to reflect your purpose and value.

Also, your place of business is definitely not your brand. Even a billion dollar brand can start in somebody’s garage…and they certainly have:

Disney in 1923
Hewlett Packard in 1939
Apple in 1976
Amazon in 1994
Google in 1998

Essentials for Startup Brands and Branding

As an entrepreneur, YOU are the voice and visionary of your brand, you embody your brand and your passion shows. Seasoned Silicon Valley startup pros offer plenty of free advice for today’s entrepreneurs.

One of the key takeaways on perspective comes from Dave McClure^{^[4]}, the straight-talking co-founder of 500Startups, a Silicon Valley startup accelerator and global investor. Here, McClure is describing the best way to make an elevator pitch for funding — yet the essence of his advice is spot-on for the strategic approach to building the foundation of a startup brand. He counsels:

“Here’s the secret: Pitch the problem, not the solution.”

“Just tell me the problem FIRST, not the SOLUTION. The reason is, I may not be able to understand what your solution does, but if you connect emotionally with me on what the problem is — and hopefully I also have the problem, or know someone who does — then I’ll give you PERMISSION to tell me more about how you’re going to solve the problem.”

Ten Essential Startup Branding Tips

Here we take a look at 10 essential startup branding tips with comments from a dozen or so outstanding innovators and advisors from the Silicon Valley dot.com frontier.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos
Lynda co-founder Lynda Weinman
Linkedin co-founder Reid Hoffman
Microsoft founder Bill Gates
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki
Apple founder Steve Jobs
Media personality Oprah Winfrey
Intuit co-founder Scott D. Cook
Venture capitalist Matt Turck
High tech investor Ben Horowitz
Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg
SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk
Winner of Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur 2015 and “Best Start-up Award” at Google’s Dublin HQ, 24-year-old James Foody, now San Francisco-based

Tip #1: Building Your Brand

“You don’t know what you don’t know.” – Oprah Winfrey at a 2014 Stanford University Graduate School of Business interview.^{^[5]}

Don’t try this alone. Silicon Valley wisdom counsels that even a genius cannot create a successful startup brand alone. No single person can possess all the required skills and have all the tools in their shed. Consider co-founders and advisors to move your business and branding strategy forward in the right direction. Remember…the “Fifth Beatle” for the Fab Four was their manager.

“My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other’s kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other, and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That’s how I see business: Great things in business are never done by one person, they’re done by a team of people.” – Steve Jobs

TechCrunch, a San Francisco, Silicon Valley media platform, says mentors are the secret weapons for a successful startup brand.^{^[6]} Their study shows that “mentors who had already achieved success in the tech industry were able to help younger tech startups outperform their peers by a factor of three.”

Broadlake, in Dublin, models their whole philosophy on a very hands-on approach as both advisors, mentors and investors who invest their time and capital to help entrepreneurs succeed.

“There’s always new challenges and I think with new challenges we gotta switch on, we gotta engage, we gotta work with these teams and try and achieve often for what these ambitious growing companies are looking to do, which is ground breaking stuff.” – Pete Smyth, Broadlake

Image via Broadlake

“Everyone needs a coach. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast, or a bridge player.” – Bill Gates

Image via Stanford University

Tip #2: A Brand is Not a Logo

Brands are not solely visual. Your new brand is about how you make people think and feel about your product or service. The most common misperception out there among startups is from those who think their brand is about their logo and not much else! CEOs, owners, partners, investors and founders should not make this mistake…nor should designers.

“Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” – Jeff Bezos

Image via Slideshare

A side note: When Marissa Mayer was appointed new CEO of a struggling Yahoo in 2013, a new logo was among the first tasks undertaken by an internal committee. Meantime, email customers were unhappy with their service.

Image via Naldz Graphics

Lesson: When Yahoo skipped the brand audit they ended up with a deep customer disconnect that was never regained. ^{^[7]}

The Yahoo backstory to date:

Image via Twitter

Tip #3: Build Brand Trust

As a founder, you are the embodiment of your brand both internally and externally. From the moment you interact with your first core users, trust is critical. Your company may grow, but brand trust is a constant.

“Google is a consumer company and our success is directly linked to our users trusting us.” – Susan Wojcicki

And when you hire, make sure you hire the right people to personify the brand in its infancy. It is absolutely critical that your brand is represented properly all the time.

Image via Twitter

“If someone likes you they will listen to you. If someone trusts you they will do business with you.” – James Foody, Ayda

Image via Ayda

Tip #4: Identify Brand Need

When Lynda Weinman started teaching web design in 1993, she went in search of a textbook. All the books she found were too technical for beginners. (You can probably see where this story will lead.)

“I remember thinking maybe this book doesn’t exist yet. I went home from the bookstore and wrote the book proposal.” – Lynda Weinman

It was early days on the internet in 1995 when Lynda then got the idea to move her reference materials online and create a teaching course around them. Two decades later, Weinman had earned the nickname, “Mother of the Internet.”^{^[8]}

In the spring of 2015, Lynda Weinman sold her company, Lynda.com, to LinkedIn for $1.5 billion. The new owner, the world’s premier business-oriented social networking service, was seven years away from its own founding when the brand Lynda.com was created.

Tip #5: Become a Brand Guru

Once you’ve identified a passion, become an expert in whatever it is. Tell your story well. In the brand’s early days, you need anecdotes, not raw data. Be authentic, be enthusiastic, be clued up and know your stuff. Your brand promise must be frequently voiced, relatable, and completely transparent.

“Whether you are interacting with customers, fundraising or recruiting, you are always selling and, and the best salespeople are master storytellers. Craft a compelling and genuine company story that resonates with your audience not just intellectually, but also emotionally.” – Matt Turck, Venture Capitalist, FirstMark Capital

Tip #6: Determine Brand Positioning

“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is — it is what consumers tell each other it is.” – Scott D. Cook

Your core customers are your sounding board — an important audience for a startup. Is your brand positioning clear? Customers want companies to listen to their opinions, so you’ll need feedback to guide you in shaping your brand position in the marketplace. Before you can concern yourself with traction and loyalty, you need to ensure that the brand resonates, fills a need, and has value. Get feedback at every iteration along the way to ensure you’re moving in the right direction for consumer wants and needs. Tweaks will be necessary.

“Another one of my favourite posters at Facebook declares in big red letters, “Done is better than perfect.” I have tried to embrace this motto and let go of unattainable standards. Aiming for perfection causes frustration at best and paralysis at worst.” – Sheryl Sandberg

Tip #7: Communicate Your Brand

It can be difficult to properly communicate your startup vision to others. But, it’s critical that you do so effectively.

Keep lines of communication open constantly and force yourself to listen to critics. Learning how to manage people takes work. But if you don’t learn how to communicate, you risk destroying relationships with customers and employees.

“As a company grows, communication becomes its biggest challenge.” – Ben Horowitz

Tip #8: Delight Your Customers

Bill Gates says the one word that best describes the startup mindset is optimism. Self-made multi-billionaire Warren Buffett says “At 85, I tap dance to work every day.”

Have fun and the pleasure of doing business with you will show right across your startup brand. Even if your brand is about heavily scientific based inter-planetary colonization, like SpaceX founder Elon Musk, let your good humour shine through.

“I would like to die on Mars, just not on impact.” – Elon Musk

“Fun is at the core of the way I like to do business and it has been key to everything I’ve done from the outset. More than any other element, fun is the secret of Virgin’s success.” – Richard Branson

Tip #9: Believe in Your Brand

Perseverance is the name of the game. Believe in your vision. Remember the lesson from a 30-year-old Steve Jobs when he got fired from the company he founded…it’s OK to fail. So be brave, take risks, learn from them, and don’t give up if you love what you do.

Passion will keep you going when you get hit in the head with a brick, which will only make success taste even sweeter.

Fact: A startup brand will experience setbacks.

“See criticism as free learning that makes you a better entrepreneur. Don’t be constrained or deflated by criticism, but do learn from it.” – James Foody

Tip #10: Nurture Your Brand

Once you’re certain your startup brand is is ready for launch, keep your vision focused on the moonshot…the thing that people may not think is possible could be within your reach. Listen to your inner GPS and let it guide you on the ride of your life.

“Picking what problem to go and solve is a much bigger and more important challenge than being able to solve the problem.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“When people use your brand name as a verb, that is remarkable.” – Meg Whitman

Ask Yourself…

Are you developing a new brand to launch to market but you’re just not sure where to start to ensure a strong financial return? Our “Personality Profile Performer”™ course is perfect for you.
Have you got an existing brand but it’s just not strong enough to make it to No.1 in the market? Talk to us about how we can guide you to build your brand recognition plan.
Have you underestimated how difficult a startup brand really is? Or, perhaps you’re not dreaming big enough. We can help you with a branding strategy to ensure that you are properly positioned.
Are you struggling with your brand story? Let us help you craft a compelling one in your brand’s own tone of voice.
Does your brand identity need a boost? We can consult with you on everything from font to packaging design.
Have you attempted a startup that missed its mark? We can help you revitalize and relaunch a product or service to get the result you’re looking for.

^{^[1]} https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/1213

^{^[2]} http://www.inc.com/leigh-buchanan/us-entrepreneurship-reaches-record-highs.html

^{^[3]} https://hbr.org/2011/06/a-logo-is-not-a-brand/

^{^[4]} https://www.linkedin.com/in/davemcclure

^{^[5]} https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DlrqeWrczs

^{^[6]} https://techcrunch.com/2015/03/22/mentors-are-the-secret-weapons-of-successful-startups

^{^[7]} http://www.inc.com/cody-steve/yahoo-logo-redesign-marissa-mayer.html

^{^[8]} http://bit.ly/2aj9GDW

How Brexit Presents Big Opportunities for Small Brands

July 18, 2016/0 Comments/in Brand Audit, Brand Auditing, Brand Audits, Brand Differentiation, Brand Health Check, Brand Personality, Brand Positioning, Brand Relevance, Brand Strategy, Branding, Brexit Brands, Business /by Lorraine Carter

Brand Flops: 5 Lessons Brand Managers Can Learn From Epic Brand Failures

July 12, 2016/0 Comments/in Brand Ambassador, Brand Audit, Brand Auditing, Brand Champions, Brand Failures, Brand Relevance, Brand Reputation, Brand Research, Brand Risk Management, Brand Risk Mitigation, Brand Strategy /by Lorraine Carter

Successful branding is not easy. That’s why Coca-Cola, Sony, Microsoft, Ford, Colgate-Palmolive, McDonald’s and more — a few of the world’s biggest brands — have been responsible for some giant-sized branding flops.

In 1957, the introduction of the Edsel by Ford Motor Company was such a big failure that the name “Edsel” has become synonymous with “huge marketing failure.” In fact, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has singled out this example as one of his favorite case studies in what not to do.^{^[1]}

In each of the following cases there are numerous reasons for each of these famous brands falling short. In quite few a thorough brand audit would have flagged up some of the risks before they became text book flops.

Let’s take a look at how Ford Motor Company, Coca-Cola, Apple, and other famous names have taught us that even the best brands can perform some of the biggest belly flops ever, providing us with a look at pitfalls to avoid and lessons to be learned.

Lesson #1: Brands Must Understand Customers Needs, Wants and Behaviours

Edsel

In 1955, in America’s motor city of Detroit, Ford’s gas-guzzling Edsel automobile was on the drawing boards. Meant to be the full-sized answer to fill every American suburban dream, they named the car posthumously after Henry Ford’s son.

However, by the time this full-sized automobile was launched in 1957, consumer preference had shifted toward compact cars — a shift that was cemented by a stock market dive. Positioned as the car of the future, Edsel was overpriced, over-hyped and entirely the wrong car at the wrong time. Production was ceased within two years in the costliest mistake American industry had ever known.

1958 Edsel – Henry Ford Museum, Credit: Michael Barera, Wikimedia Commons 2.5

Coca Cola

In the 1980s, nobody considered the branding of fast-moving consumer goods under the category of apparel, other than as corporate giveaways or inexpensive T-shirts and baseball caps. Yet, Coca-Cola agreed a merchandising deal to create an upmarket fashion line of Coca-Cola Clothing designed by a young, unknown Tommy Hilfiger.

First sold at an Upper West Side New York City store called Fizzazz, the in-store marketing revolved around a soda counter shopping experience, an interactive video screens, and hole-in-the-wall credit card machines called Eric that didn’t appeal to consumers.^{^[2]} Instead of print catalogues for its mail order distribution, Coca-Cola Clothing distributed free CDs bearing a message that tried hard to connect the soft drink and the clothing. It read: “Pop this cassette open for a sparkling, carbonated fashion video.”

Coca Cola print ad from the 80s (Credit: 237, eBay Store)

The concept was ahead of its time, even for trendy Manhattan audiences; only five of the 650 planned stores ever opened. The Hong Kong-made clothing felt cheap to the touch, featured a poorly designed fit, and the whole thing fizzled out fast.

Apple

Apple, too, once had a momentous flop in 1993. In those days, business cards and a Filofax diary were the tools of networking and time management. Apple tried to change all that by introducing a bulky Apple Newton handheld PC device which debuted at the Computerworld convention.

Apple Newton (Credit: Ralf Pfeifer, Wikimedia Commons 3.0)

The world wasn’t ready and the product wasn’t right. Starting at $700, some said it was too expensive, others said too chunky, and everyone agreed it was very poor at reading the handwriting that people made using its stylus. Later versions of personal digital assistants (PDAs) by Apple competitors were enhanced, more broadly accepted by consumers, and sold far better.

Lesson #2: Brand Purpose Must Stay On Point

Brand extensions can be a tricky business. Colgate, Cosmopolitan magazine and Harley Davidson have clearly demonstrated what not to do. It’s difficult to imagine how some of these rather odd multi-million dollar spin-offs made it out of the boardroom, but they did.

Colgate

Colgate is a toothpaste; it promises pearly whites and fresh breath. Yet, in 1982, the toothpaste brand launched Colgate Kitchen Entrées, looking to capture the market in frozen ready-to-eat meals.

Colgate Kitchen Entrees (via Marketing Directo, Madrid)

Why? Minty toothpaste and frozen peas? This mind-blowing branding concept was as unappealing as its packaging and promptly headed straight for the consumer graveyard, but not before hurting sales of Colgate toothpaste.

Cosmopolitan

In 1999 there was another weird marketing leap by the leading international women’s fashion magazine. Cosmopolitan introduced a line of yogurt on the already crowded refrigerated supermarket shelves.

Cosmopolitan yogurt (Credit: Marketing Week)

Pricing it above the competition and calling it “sophisticated and aspirational,” this misguided off-message product line included Cosmopolitan Light Soft Cheese and Cosmopolitan Fromage Frais. If the brand strategy was, “Cosmo can sell anything,” consumer reaction said that they got that wrong.^{^[3]}

Harley Davidson

In 2000, Harley Davidson famously crashed into a wall when it went too far off centre with its drive into branded cologne and aftershave. In hindsight, critics point out that customer audience research and some well developed purchaser personas would have indicated that Harley rider brand values are not focused on smelling divine.

Image via aazperfumes.com.br

Obvious? It’s hardly a surprise that these brand values include: freedom, authenticity, masculinity, toughness…and have absolutely zero to do with wanting to smell charming.^{^[4]}

Lesson #3: Brands Must Not Get Lost in Translation

American companies in particular have a long and checkered history of making blunders beyond their ethno-centric shores. General Motors, Pepsi, General Mills and Revlon are among the brands to have messed up on the world branding stage.

Even in the increasingly global marketplace, regional and national differences in traditions, cultural norms and taboos still matter greatly. Well-known translation examples fill the pages of business school case studies.

General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in Mexico, which translates as “It doesn’t go.” Coors Beer messed up the translation of the tagline, “Keep It Loose” into Spanish as “Suffer from Diarrhea.” In Taiwan, “Come Alive With Pepsi” was interpreted as “Pepsi Brings Back Your Ancestors From the Dead.”^{^[5]} Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux launched an American ad campaign with, “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.”

Kellogg’s

Occasionally, deeper cultural gulfs are breached at great expense. In 1994, Kellogg’s invested $65 million introducing its Corn Flakes breakfast cereal to the massive consumer market in India. However, a light breakfast is not the way Indians prefer to start their day.

Cornflakes (Credit: fir0002/Flagstaffotos, Wikimedia Commons)

Furthermore, hot milk on cornflakes (using cold milk was unthinkable to the Indian consumer) turned the product instantly soggy.^{^[6]} Pursuing cold drinks, Nestlé fared no better with the idea of iced tea in India.

Revlon

In Brazil, Revlon launched its top-selling Charlie perfume featuring the floral scent of camellias. Since camellias are that nation’s funeral flower, Revlon’s effort was obviously wasted. Money wasted, reputation damaged, the LA Times reported in 1999 that Revlon unsuccessfully sought a buyer for their struggling Latin American businesses.^{^[7]}

Lesson #4: Brands Must Evolve With the Times and Stay Relevant

Eastman Kodak

Kodak is a prime example of a legacy brand and market leader which did not keep pace with emerging technology.

In this case, it was the move from film to digital that outdid the brand. Founded in Rochester, NY in 1888, Eastman Kodak Company sent cameras to the moon, encouraged loyal consumers to capture personal “Kodak Moments” for decades, and employed an extended family of 70,000.

Ironically, filmless photography was invented by Steve Sasson, a Kodak engineer, in the mid-1970’s. “It could have been Kodak’s second act,” reported The Street in its article “Kodak: From Blue Chip to Bankrupt.” Instead, Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

Lesson #5: Choose Your Brand Ambassadors Carefully

Putting your money where someone else’s mouth is can lead to trouble, as demonstrated by brand after brand, including market leaders like Hertz and Nike. Leveraging a CEO, an employee, or a celebrity ambassador as the face of a the brand is a risky business strategy due to the unpleasant surprises that can — and do — crop up.

Hertz

As the very prominent longtime spokesperson for Hertz Car Rental, National Football League hero O.J. Simpson, known as “The Superstar,” had a locktight association with the brand.

The handsome, popular football running back was featured in a TV commercial dashing through airports to get to the Hertz rental counter. A decade as the face of the brand came to a screeching halt in 1994 when he was accused of the murder of his wife and a friend in an internationally publicized criminal trial.

Nike

In 2009, when pro golfing champion Tiger Woods was embroiled in a high-profile sex scandal, Nike suffered for having had him as their brand spokesperson. In a YouTube video aimed at damage control, Nike has Tiger’s father asking him what he was thinking.

The awkward video has had more than 4 million views but raises more questions than it answers. Nike’s bad luck continued with other disgraced sports figures: Lance Armstrong and Oscar Pistorius.

According to an article from London’s Cass Business School, personal circumstances are impossible to predict and extremely difficult to mitigate risk. The lesson learned is “to cut the ties between the brand and the brand ambassador as quickly as possible.”^{^[8]}

In all cases perhaps one of the biggest learnings is you should most definitely conduct a brand audit to evaluate your brand’s weak spots and identify new areas for innovation and growth before rushing headlong into a new venture.

Five Questions to Consider:

Do any other epic flops come to mind, and if so, do you think one of these five reasons accounted for the failure?

Would you say that having a popular brand ambassador is worth the risk?

Can you think of other branding examples where a thorough brand audit and proper market research could have avoided a huge mistake at great cost?

In addition to Kodak, what other brands lost their way by failing to use brand audits, purchaser personas or keep up with rapidly changing consumer preferences in the 21st century?

Which do you think are the world’s top 10 most valuable brands in 2016…and why?

How to Use Brand Positioning to Build Brand Impact in an Overcrowded Market

July 3, 2016/0 Comments/in Brand Personality, Brand Positioning, Brand Profiling & Positioning, Brand Strategy, Brand Values, Branding /by Lorraine Carter

Mondelēz International is a globally recognized snack manufacturer responsible for over 50 brands. However, according to its fact sheet released in 2015, 13 of its ‘power brands’ in 2014 were responsible for 60 percent of revenue which suggests that those 13 high performers have stronger brand positioning than the rest of the portfolio. In fact those 13 brands alone grew twice as fast as the company overall. [1]

Those statistics indicate how core brands can be crucial to a company’s overall success. However, the brands must be well positioned to attract the desired customer response.

Here, we’ll look at how to position your brand appropriately for success — even if the market is overcrowded. If you want to make your brand highly visible, different, distinctive, memorable and loveable take a look at the Personality Profile Performer™ Programme. It’s a step-by-step process empowering you to build your brand. Brand positioning is a key part of the brand building process — as you’ll see in the case studies listed below.

What is Brand Positioning?

Brand positioning is focused on the perceptions of your audience, which means that it’s about what you do in the minds of your audience, and not what you do to the product or service itself. Brand positioning is about how you clearly differentiate your brand in the mind of your customer because this perceived favourable differentiation is what drives them to choose your brand instead of your competitors.

Typically the most well positioned brands are linked to words or phrases in the customers’ minds, so the brand’s identity is personally defined in buyers’ minds. In other words they quickly differentiate that brand (product or service) from other possible options because of how you’ve positioned your brand to them relative to other potential options. [2]

For example, if a person thinks of the Apple® iPad®, he or she may instantly connect that product with words like “sleek,” “cutting edge” and “capable.” The last one is particularly likely, since Apple® ran an ad campaign that featured the phrase, “There’s an app for that.” It helped strengthen the idea that no matter what customers needed to get done, there’d be at least one app available to help them do it better.

Companies help develop the perceptions customers have about brands, but the brand experience itself determines whether something lives up to expectations. Therefore, the Apple® iPad® would not be well positioned if people found the tablet bulky, outdated and very hard to use. Brand positioning must be original, but also believable.

Brand positioning also relates to characteristics including style and customer types. As iPads evolve and newer models get released, each one is usually more streamlined than the last. The tablets also have a distinctive look that makes them easily identifiable, even from a distant store shelf.

Typical Apple® iPad® buyers are also arguably quite tech savvy and it’s unlikely a technophobe who only wants a very basic tablet would ultimately select an iPad as his or her first choice. Apple typically appeals to a younger, hip and technologically engaged customer type.

Image via www.apple.com

Its business emphasis is to continually release products that have the “wow factor,” and the iPad® is no exception. Because Apple® has a history of innovation via previous products like the iPod® and iPhone®, it has already been able to successfully establish itself as impressive, even in relation to other top brands.

Geographic appropriateness is also a key factor in brand positioning. Swiss Miss® hot chocolate, for example might cause customers from a cold region to associate it with something they drink to warm up on cold nights. However, in a part of the world where the temperatures are much higher, the brand might be positioned in customers’ minds as a treat to drink when they want something sweet, but don’t need to warm their bodies.

Image via www.swissmiss.com

If a brand is perceived by its target audience to have or provide something very unique, it will have much stronger positioning in a competitive marketplace. Analysts are hailing the Chevrolet Bolt as the first mainstream electric car that has earned critical praise. [3]

Although the Nissan LEAF was offered to customers five years ago, that electric car was reportedly considered a failure because it was perceived to be less reliable, aesthetically less appealing and seemingly unable to win admiration of auto reviewers.

In contrast, the Chevy Bolt is already achieving good brand positioning because not only is it getting good marks from auto publications and reviewers, but its also offered at a significantly lower price than Nissan’s electric car, making it much more accessible to everyday consumers.

Image via www.chevrolet.com

Questions to Ask When Creating Your Brand Position or Writing a Positioning Statement

There are numerous questions that brand owners, managers and marketers should consider when building a brand position or researching the marketplace.

They include:

What can the brand deliver better than competitors
What value does the brand give to customers?
What are the brand’s most believable characteristics?
What desirable things should the brand be known for?
Do we have the necessary resources to maintain the brand’s position once established?
What are the key emotional factors that will resonate most with customers?
Is the brand and its market focused enough?

The answers to the questions posed above will help focus your thinking when writing your brand positioning statement. That’s a one to three-sentence piece that explains to customers what makes your brand different from competitors, and the specific perceived value it provides. [4]

4 Key Characteristics That Will Help Your Brand Stand Out From Your Competitors

A weak brand position will be largely useless if the market is so saturated people don’t notice it. In order to strengthen your brand positioning consider some of the factors listed below to enhance your differentiation. [5]

A Positive Impact

Customers gravitate towards brands that clearly have a positive impact on the world, on specific communities, or society at large. Clearly define the impact your brand has, or aspires to have, and ensure your company values reflect this positive impact in everything it does. Positive impact builds authenticity and trust, which resonates with your target audience and consequently builds stronger brand recognition, visibility, referrals and repeat purchase.

An Admirable Sense of Ambition

Don’t shy away from thinking big when considering your brand’s ideals, values, mission, promise and purpose. Maybe you’re not currently equipped to provide everything you’d like to for customers, but perhaps co-branding or a partnership with another brand could solve the problem or accelerate your ambitions.

An Excellent Customer Experience

When customer service gets sacrificed, it often doesn’t matter how amazing a product is. Always work hard to attend to needs and exceed expectations in every way possible.

The Ability to Fill a Void

Strong brands gain momentum by successfully fulfilling unmet needs. If other brands are already similarly positioned, explore other angles to create a greater perceived difference and stronger visibility to ensure your ideal customer notices of your brand’s special offerings.

Now, let’s look at three case studies of brands that have worked hard to earn their well-defined positions in the marketplace.

Beats Electronics

This audio accessory brand’s positioning allows it to compete well against Bose, a respected market leader, especially with younger consumers. Even though Bose is very well known for its technical prowess, Beats Electronics offers headphones and similar accessories that give bass-heavy sound, and look appealing too.

Many of the brand’s marketing materials are not only visually stunning, but they feature celebrities proudly wearing the audio gear.

Image via www.beatsbydre.com

As a result, the brand is positioned as a cool, capable choice for people who love music and want to showcase that devotion through stylish accessories. [6] Beats Electronics is doing so well, it’s aiming to expand into other geographic markets. [7]

NoBull Burgers

This brand has successfully carved out a niche in the veggie burger market in its native Charlottesville, Virginia, plus many other states, along with Washington DC.

The burgers are organic and offer two flavour varieties. In addition to purchasing them in shops, people can also buy them through Relay Foods, a delivery service. The brand’s position focuses on the company being locally connected, and thereby more able than some competitors to determine what customers want. [8] Furthermore, the wholesome ingredients appeal to people who want healthy and tasty food.

Image via www.nobullburgers.ca

JetBlue Airlines

This budget-friendly airline has succeeded because it takes the position that low-cost fares and high-quality air travel can go hand in hand. [9] For example, travelers sit in leather seats and enjoy ample legroom. They also get unlimited snacks and even get the opportunity to use the Internet for free as they fly. Fantastic customer service is another thing the brand’s known for, and JetBlue has proven people don’t have to endure poor treatment for low-priced airfare.

If your brand is well positioned like the examples mentioned, it will achieve the attention it needs to thrive. Even more importantly, brands that have excellent positions stay etched in customers’ minds even as other options crop up and endeavour to capture a chunk of your market share.

Do you need to enhance your brand positioning? Take a look at the Personality Profile Performer™ Programme. It’s a step-by-step process empowering you to build your brand and it’s positioning.

Key Takeaways:

Brand positioning gives customers reasons to buy one product or service over another
Brand positioning can be affected by aspects like style and tone-of-voice, brand personality, uniqueness, customer types and company reputation
A brand positioning statement succinctly tells customers what your brand can do that others can’t, and why it’s valuable and believable
The quality of a customer experience, the positive impact of a brand and its ability to meet needs must help differentiate it

Questions to Consider:

What are a few things you believe customers think of when envisioning your brand?
How might you work to make customers have more favorable brand associations that result in better positioning?
Can you name at least a few ways your company excels compared to competitors?
Have you considered how to help your brand maintain a good position over a long-term basis?
How might you make your brand’s position more believable?

Top Six Steps to Build a Powerful Brand Strategy

1) Put Strategy Before Tactics…Find Your Point of View

2) What’s Your WHY?

Case Study #2: Apple Inc.

3) You Can Brand Anything…and Probably Should

Case Study #3: Intel Corporation and Swarovski

4) Be Your Authentic Self

5) Now Tell Your Amazing Story

Case Study #4: Norrøna

6) Brand Persistently, Extensively and Consistently

8 Tips for Using Your Brand Strategy as Your Business Blueprint

The Small Business Brand Advantage

Brand: Harry Potter

Brand: SoulCycle

Brand: Spanx

Brand: Uber

Brand: Warby Parker

Six Questions For Brand Owner Managers to Consider About Brand Storytelling

Part 1. (see Part 2 here)

5 Great Brand Stories that Sell Themselves

Brand: Airbnb

Brand: Amazon

Brand: Dollar Shave Club

Brand: Facebook

Brand: Guinness

De-Mystify the Black Art of Branding

Six Questions For SMEs / SMBs to Consider About Brand Stories

It’s a Brand Crisis: First Things First

Step 1: Damage Control

Step 2: Assessing the Brand Damage

Step 3: Short-Term Brand Damage

After the Brand Crisis: Getting Back to Normal

Step 4: Long-Term Brand Damage

Step 5: The Problem Gets Fixed

What Now For My Brand?

Option 1: A Brand Refresh

Option 2: A Re-branding

A Bump in the Road for Brands

1. Product Failures

2. Brand Embarrassment

3. High Profile Dishonesty

4. Broken Brand Promises

5. Scandals

Questions to ask while reinforcing or rebuilding your brand:

Brand Vision: Differentiation is Everything in Brand Strategy

Healthy Brand Competition

You Are Your Brand

Know Your Brand’s Target Audience

Brand Messaging Cannot be Overrated

Brand Storytelling Matters

Sub-Branding Opportunities and Risks

The Appeal of Disruptor Brands

Consider these questions:

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2984" src="http://www.personadesign.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/scaring-you-shitless.gif" alt="scaring-you-shitless" width="852" height="669" /> Image via Gapingvoid, © Hugh MacLeod

Branding From the Beginning

Startup Brands Are Still Brands

What Is and Is Not Your Brand

Essentials for Startup Brands and Branding

“Here’s the secret: Pitch the problem, not the solution.”

Ten Essential Startup Branding Tips

Tip #1: Building Your Brand

Image via Broadlake

Image via Stanford University

Tip #2: A Brand is Not a Logo

Image via Slideshare

Image via Naldz Graphics

Image via Twitter

Tip #3: Build Brand Trust

Image via Twitter

Image via Ayda

Tip #4: Identify Brand Need

Tip #5: Become a Brand Guru

Tip #6: Determine Brand Positioning

Tip #7: Communicate Your Brand

Image via Gapingvoid, © Hugh MacLeod

Tip #8: Delight Your Customers

Tip #9: Believe in Your Brand

Tip #10: Nurture Your Brand

Ask Yourself…

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/1213

Image via Gapingvoid, © Hugh MacLeod

^{^[1]} https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/1213

^{^[2]} http://www.inc.com/leigh-buchanan/us-entrepreneurship-reaches-record-highs.html

^{^[3]} https://hbr.org/2011/06/a-logo-is-not-a-brand/

^{^[4]} https://www.linkedin.com/in/davemcclure

^{^[5]} https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DlrqeWrczs

^{^[6]} https://techcrunch.com/2015/03/22/mentors-are-the-secret-weapons-of-successful-startups

^{^[7]} http://www.inc.com/cody-steve/yahoo-logo-redesign-marissa-mayer.html

^{^[8]} http://bit.ly/2aj9GDW