Brand Voice Archives : Page 3 of 3 : Persona Design

Brand Heart: Are You Bringing Your Brand To Life In Your Work Space?

April 18, 2013/0 Comments/in Brand Champions, Brand Culture, Brand Experience, Brand Profiling & Positioning, Brand Values, Brand Voice, Branding, Business, Marketing /by Lorraine Carter

Hearing someone say they work at Google seems to have the same effect on every listener regardless of their industry background…Wow!

It’s a true testament to the Google leaders that they have created a reputation of being such a desirable place to work, but lets face it, it’s not just because of the type of work carried out there. With unique, fun, quirky, often bizarre office interiors, which include slides, video games and ski-gondolas, Google lead the way in a trend to change the traditional view of what a corporate office should look and feel like. There is method to the supposed madness.

Google, Facebook, Airbnb and so many of the newer global companies, along with a few of the longer established, understand that the culture and physical experience of your company is a huge part of your company brand. They understand that it is the people and living experience internally behind the brands that help to dictate how the brand is perceived externally.

An office is far more than walls, desks and computers. It’s a recruitment tool, a second home and a place to inspire those who work within. If a leader’s job is to get the best from their employees then part of that responsibility is creating a space that motivates people to make the most of shaping and growing their brand.

If you care about company culture and authentic brand experience then the office space matters. It is an important part of how the employee views their work. But flashy spaces, open plan offices and bean bags are not for everyone. A place without quite spaces can be just as ineffective as grey cardboard cubicles. There are certain elements however that will provide triggers to employees and customers alike about the company culture that may need to be addressed.

• Collaborative Space

You don’t have to be a creative company to have a need for a collaborative space. If people arrive into the office, go to their desk and stay there until the end of the day then the company is not maximizing the benefits that come from employee interactions between the company thinkers and innovators. A dedicated collaborative space that can be used for informal interactions can make employees more comfortable to contribute, to share opinions and develop new ideas.

• Brand Ambassadors

Employees are your brand ambassadors. Creating an office space that reminds them each day of what they and the brand are trying to achieve can be a powerful motivator.

• Reflect Your Core Brand Values

If sustainability is an important ‘value’ underpinning your brand, then this should be communicated using internal triggers as well as external communication. Using and promoting recyclable materials within the office for example ensures that those working to build the brand understand that the company genuinely believes and lives by the values they promote. You are authentically living that brand value and reinforcing it everyday in what you do.

• Recruit The Best

Google and Facebook offices are designed not only to serve current employees, but to attract the best talent. They use their office space to communicate the type of culture they promote internally and to attract ‘like minded’ people who can fit within that culture and become part of the brand family. Both understand the needs of the people that work for them and have been hugely beneficial to the organisation, as employees reciprocate with high levels or productivity and efficiency.

• Create Customer Cues

PR and advertising can support a strategy that communicates a brand’s vision and values, but that can be destroyed at the workplace if the office space doesn’t align with the promise of your brand message. If your brand communicates a sense of community or creativity, but your offices are comprised of people working separately behind closed doors what kind of message does this send to your customers? Internal triggers and experiences can make a significant external impact. Even reception rooms and meeting room names can tell a story that reflects the brand. Think about your customer’s brand journey. How would your offices influence the customer’s perspective and experience of your brand?

Company culture is not something that can be created from blueprints. It is something that is shaped by the people working within. Leaders can influence it, they can coax and enable the desired type of brand culture but even the well intentioned leader can inadvertently establish dysfunctional workplaces by creating a workspace that is at odds with the brand values and messages the employees are working to shape.

Google may have developed a reputation of a fun, goofy place to work, but what it really signifies is a deep understanding by its leaders, that the environment can play a significant role in creating the balance needed to promote problem solving and creativity in an industry that demands both.

If you can’t glean clues about the brand or the people behind it from walking in the door of the office you could be in trouble. Get your office ‘on brand’, and it could play a valuable part in supporting your innovation, productivity levels, marketing mix and consequently profitability coupled with long term success.

• What do you think of some of the world’s ‘coolest’ offices?

• How does yours compare? Is it ‘on brand’ or congruent with what your brand stands for?

• Does your office space encourage collaboration, innovation and creativity?

• Does your office space reflect your brand culture?

Employee’s Online Reach: Are You Leveraging Yours To Grow Your Brand?

March 20, 2013/0 Comments/in Blogging, Brand Risk Management, Brand Risk Mitigation, Brand Strategy, Brand Voice, Business, Communication, Customer Engagement, Facebook, Google+, Integrated Marketing, Interactive Marketing, Linkedin, Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Engagement, Social Media, Twitter, YouTube /by Lorraine Carter

Twitter followers, LinkedIn profiles, Personal Blogs. Employees are now spending time developing and nurturing personal and professional brands of their own. From communicating about personal interests, or professional expertise, employees are quickly establishing themselves as knowledgeable voices in the online space.

Whether encouraging the employee to promote the brand through their personal profiles, or developing a co-branded approach where the employee is promoted as representing the brand, having an employee with a significant online following can offer leverage to a brand looking to further its reach in the market.

Top 5 Reasons for Leveraging Your Employee’s Online Reach to Grow Your Brand

Does your Sales manager have more LinkedIn connections than your company profile? Does your Marketing Manager have more Twitter followers than your brand? Employees that have developed a strong public identity can offer numerous benefits to a brand if that reach is harnessed to promote the brand and its values.

1. Reach

An employee that has amassed a large online following instantly opens up the possibility of widening the audience reach of the brand online. They have established themselves as an influencer and if they use this power to promote the brand it can impact on brand awareness and image.

2. Influence

An employee that establishes themselves as an online expert in their field can give credence to a brand by tweeting as a representative of that brand. It influences customer perception of the brand, positioning it as leader in the market, and can generate new leads for the business through online conversations.

3. Brand image

Employees can make the best brand champions. If they love what they do, and they love what the brand represents, they are often eager to share their enthusiasm with the world. Employees who vocalize their love for the brand on their social media channels give the brand message a powerful and authentic voice.

4. Relationship Building

Many brands use social media as a tool to build relationships with their customers. Co-branded twitter handles like @ikeasupport_claire help develop a real human connection between the brand and their customers. This touch point connection can be critical in developing a meaningful and lasting relationship with customers.

5. Recruitment

Co-branded employees who use their personal profiles to promote their company can help attract high caliber like-minded people to the company and increase your valuable talent pool.

Top 5 The Risks To Your Business and Your Brand

Employee’s online activity can be a complement to a company’s own brand image. But there are implications of giving employees license to represent the brand in their personal or co-branded profiles.

1. Clash of Values

For every positive tweet sent by an employee about your brand, there are likely to be several other messages that represent the values of the employee. It is not up to your customer to distinguish which message reflects the brand values and which are solely belonging to the employee. Harnessing employee’s online reach for the benefit of brand must first ensure that the values of the brand and employee are closely aligned.

2. Miscommunication

There is a danger that an employee who feels they are representing the brand communicates sensitive internal information that should not be for public viewing. You need to ensure you have very clear company policy with regard to your social media guidelines and a brand risk management strategy in place.

3. Time and Productivity

Updating social media is a time consuming process. Employees who feel that they are doing the brand a service by promoting work using their personal profiles might also feel entitled to update profiles during work hours, reducing valuable productivity.

4. Internal Resentment

There is a risk that resentment between employees can fester regarding social media use at work. How to you distinguish between the employees that are allowed to update personal profiles during work hours because it benefits the brand, and those who cannot because the value of doing so is not as significant to the brand?

5. Intellectual Property Rights

Possibly the biggest consideration of leveraging co-branded employee profiles is the argument over who holds the ownership rights to the profiles and their followers.

A sales Rep who works for a company for five years may amass a huge number of connections on LinkedIn; connections which are essentially a form of customer lists for the company. If that employee leaves the company who has rights to that profile’s list of contacts?

Noah Kravitz left his former employer PhoneDog in October 2010 on good terms. The company then sued him for $340,000 for the 17,000 followers he kept after he left the position, valuing each follower at $2.50 per month over a period of eight months.

Kravitz told the New York Times that PhoneDog told him he could keep his followers, as long as he continued to Tweet about the company.

A judge in the USA dismissed a lawsuit by a former employee of Edcomm who claimed that the company illegally accessed her LinkedIn account after she left the company; changing her password and preventing her from accessing critical contacts. Even though the account was created under the employee’s own name, the judge’s ruling gives leverage to the argument that social media content created at work belongs to employers.

Although these rulings give some power to companies in relation to intellectual property rights, the matter is still very much in the grey.

Companies need to have very specific social media policies relating to the social media activity of employees in the workplace.

Depending on corporate culture and risk tolerance of your company, you might want to embrace the business benefits of co-branded employees.

Opting for tight limits on work related social media might be the better bet when it comes to controlling your brand and managing risk.

• Does your company have a well developed policy regarding who owns what online?

• How do you distinguish between a personal online activity and one that represents the brand?

• Does your corporate culture support co-branded employees communication?

Brand Commoditization : How Safe is Your Brand?

February 18, 2013/0 Comments/in Brand Profiling & Positioning, Brand Relevance, Brand Reputation, Brand Revitalisation, Brand Risk Management, Brand Risk Mitigation, Brand Strategy, Brand Values, Brand Voice, Branding, Business, Customer Service, Global Branding /by Lorraine Carter

A question to ponder this week… What would your customer’s identify as the number one reason for buying your brand?

If the answer is ‘low price’ or ‘convenience’ your brand could be at major risk of becoming just another commodity brand; a very risky position for any brand to be in.

When it comes to commoditization, no industry is safe. Whether you produce consumer products or supply professional services, when your customers can no longer differentiate your offering from that of your competitors it puts the company’s success and profitability in jeopardy.

Commoditization is a never ending reality in business today. No matter how hard a successful brand works to be different, their competitors are working equally hard to replicate it.

Markets are awash with ‘me too’ products. Customer choice has never been greater online and offline. Brands need to be very proactive in reinforcing their differentiating factors to their customers i.e. the reasons why their customers should choose them. But without a truly unique product or service that process is becoming more and more difficult.

Is Your Brand At Risk?

How easily can you quantify the differences between your products and services from those of your competitors? Think then about how easily your customers and prospective clients can make the same distinction? What’s your big why for your brand? What does it stand for?

When the tangible differences between competing brands diminish, the danger of commoditization grows. But all is not lost. Many brands enjoy a sustainable longevity in their market, despite aggressive copycatting, and do so by identifying the broader value offered by their brands.

Articulating the extended intangible values of your brand creates a tougher opposition for competitors. Replicating a product is easy, replicating a brand identity is not.

5 Ways To Safeguard Your Brand Against Commoditization

1. Brand Values

The first step for any company in safeguarding against commoditization is to use internal knowledge to identify the company’s broader value. Take time to consider the intangible benefits of your brand, the perceived benefits to customers, and the desired emotive response when someone experiences the brand. Think back to the very beginning and refocus on the brand identity. What were the core values that established the brand?

Apple’s strength lies not just in innovation but on a dedication to producing a high quality product. Their product prices are amongst the highest on the market but their willingness to lose a portion of market on price reaffirms their dedication to their core value of quality and establishes their brand identity in the mind of the consumer.

2. Relationships

Tangible elements are easy to replicate. Strong brands succeed in developing strong relationships with their customers. Leverage face-to-face interactions and social media to learn more about your customer and start a dialogue that fosters a meaningful relationship that extends beyond the brand experience.

3. Leverage the Corporate Brand

The corporate brand often has sustainable equity. Leveraging the corporate reputation and trust can deliver broader value to product brands and help shape a comprehensive offering to customers that extends beyond the product service attributes.

4. Package Design

Innovative packaging that creates an aesthetic beyond function can help increase perceived value to the customer and enhance market share. The O’Egg brand focused on package differentiation to turn a commodity product into the pre-eminent egg brand in Ireland.

5. Brand Experience

When a product or service is easily replicated, innovating brand intangibles can strengthen the position of the brand and protect it from the threat of commoditization.

Think differently about your business. Change how its’ perceived. A unique service area, outstanding customer support, or special loyalty rewards can set your brand apart.

Starbucks’ strength grew from creating a brand experience around a commodity product. What set the brand apart were the various elements that nurtured the customer’s experience of the brand; from the service setting, to the coffee ordering system, to the interactions with staff. They changed the way the world ordered coffee.

Global giant that it is, Starbucks is now under threat because the brand experience has become the commodity and the Starbucks focus has drifted to profit margins and market growth rather than extending customer value. The brand is currently in the process of returning their focus to their core value, putting the customer’s coffee experience at the heart of their operations again.

One of the biggest problems that lead to a weakening of brand equity is a lack of awareness in the company of the causes of commoditization.

Businesses end up spending valuable resources on updating products and expanding product lines without having a real understanding as to what their customer’s really need and value.

• When was the last time you surveyed your customers or researched your market properly?

• Do you really know what’s happening at grass roots level in your market?

• Do you need a brand audit?

In short, how safe is your brand?

4 Top Tips in Social Media Trends and Brand Strategy Planning for 2013

November 20, 2012/0 Comments/in Brand Strategy, Brand Voice, Branding, Customer Engagement, Facebook, Integrated Marketing, Interactive Marketing, Linkedin, Marketing, Mobile, Online Marketing, Pinterest, Return On Investment, Smart Phones, Social Engagement, Social Media, Twitter, YouTube /by Lorraine Carter

It is hard to believe there are only a number of weeks remaining in 2012. Harder still to understand how in the months since 1st January 2012 the business world has had to adapt and react so rapidly to the ever-evolving social media whirlwind.

The increasing sophistication of the applications themselves was expected but the new ways in which they have be utilized by brands and how it has impacted on the very nature of brand and customer behaviour has surpassed even the most optimistic forecasts.

That said, even social media brand champions don’t have time to be complacent with new trends in social customer behavior and applications already emerging for 2013.

In an attempt to stay somewhat ahead of the curve, brands needed to recognize the shift in consumer behavior on social media sites and be proactive in adapting their own online activity accordingly. Here are some social media trend tips that will increasingly affect brands in 2013.

1. Image Heavy Content

From image specific social networks like Pinterest, to image uploads on the likes of Facebook, pictures are sparking engagement by audiences of all ages and demographics.

Although relatively new to the market Pinterest is now the 3rd largest social network, followed by image-centric Instagram. Brands need to respond to online audience behaviour. Engage your customers by making brand congruent image-content a focal element of your strategy.

Free People clothing capitalized on their customer’s interaction on Instagram to create an engaging social campaign that transferred into offline sales. The brand attached individualized hashtag cards to its jeans. On the cards, customers were encouraged to take a picture of themselves in the jeans, post the photo on Instagram, and tag it with a specific hashtag.

The brand ended up with significantly increased brand engagement as hundreds of great customers photos appeared not only on their own feed but on their follower’s feeds too. The brand selected some of the images to appear on their website, turning its customers into models and engaging with its community in a creatively impactful way, all of which converted into increased sales.

2. More Authentic Voice

By their very nature social network profiles, even those of brands, should reflect the social element of the communication tool. Brands who respond to customers with a tone that reflects that of an actual person, and not an automated system, not only initiates a much better response with customers but can actually enrich the brand experience. Use of humour by brands in their posts has shown to elevate the level of engagement with customers too. A cautionary note though, humour should be used judiciously and congruently with what your brand stands for and is associated with.

3. Evolving Platforms

You might feel that your brand has got a handle on some of the more prominent social networks, and then they evolve, requiring a shift in social content element of your brand strategy.

The last few months has seen significant changes for Brands who utilize Facebook as a tool for brand development and customer interaction. When brands post on their page, it may only reach a limited amount of the people that Like that page. Facebook have now launched Promoted Posts which help increase the people you reach, for a fee.

Brands can now promote their posts so it gets better placement in its Facebook fans’ news feeds. They can also target posts based on specific location or language, and will be able to keep track of how many people saw the post. Your promoted posts will be seen by a larger percentage of the people who like your Page than would normally see it.

While this feature is a benefit to those who have a budget to support frequent sponsored posts, it also requires brands to change their posting activity in a way that encourages increased engagement from the customers that view the posts. Running competition apps encourages customers to engage and share brand content; increasing the visibility of brand posts without having to pay for attention.

Mobile strategy will not be merely an additional option for brands but should be fully integrated into the communication strategy. As more touch points emerge between brands and their customers, your brand strategy needs to be flexible enough to incorporate new technologies and tools that enhance the customer brand experience.

4. Quality Not Quantity

When it comes to online fans, brands are starting to realize that it is not the quantity of fans that counts, but rather identifying who are the quality fans that truly engage with the brand’s online activity.

Brands need to start understanding who, what, when, where, how and why your community engages with the brand page. Which fans are engaging with the brand’s online activity? What content gets the most interaction? And what communities are the fans sharing posts with?

Use insights and analytics to help you understand your actively engaged fans and followers so you can develop the best social marketing strategy for your brand and customers. Identifying, recognizing and rewarding your engaged fans and followers can be far more beneficial in developing brand loyalty and turning online engagement into offline sales.

The quality and use of the content created by brands online will also need to be reexamined. Brands need to stop marketing at their customers and instead increase the dialogue with their fans.

Increase brand affinity by listening to and learning from your customers. There will also be a higher demand for integrating the entire marketing process. The analysis gleaned from fan interaction online should be used to educate sales and customer care departments.

Its time to amplify your brands impact through a fully integrated brand strategy which seamlessly encompasses on and offline – marketing, sales, analysis of customer behaviour through both social media and traditional channels so you can drive your business forward successfully.

Maximize the ROI of your efforts by listening and responding to your most engaged customers and applying what you learn to generate growing sales in the year ahead.

• Are you learning from your social media analytics?

• Are you adapting to the changing online behaviour of your customers?

• Have you adapted your brand strategy to include the rapidly evolving world of social media?

Company Culture: Your Brand’s Strongest Competitive Advantage

September 6, 2012/0 Comments/in Brand Experience, Brand Revitalisation, Brand Strategy, Brand Values, Brand Voice, Branding, Business, Communication /by Lorraine Carter

Company culture may be the most vague aspect of brand management but carefully controlled and nurtured it can provide your brand with a sustainable competitive advantage that even your strongest competitors cannot replicate.

Company culture is a culmination of the behaviors, attitudes, relationships, core brand values and environment within a business. Simply put, your company culture can be viewed as “the way we do things around here”. The manners in which these components are managed make your culture what it is.

How Does This Support Brand Development?

Many of the strongest brands have a product offering that is similar to that of competitors in the market. What gives them their greatest competitive advantage however is that while competitors can replicate the product, apply similar marketing techniques, and headhunt their staff, they can never fully duplicate their company culture. A company culture is the one truly unique sustainably competitive advantage a brand can have.

A winning culture can be a real point of differentiation, but it must be managed, driven, and reinforced in order to truly see results.

What is the Culture Within Your Company?

Many companies aim to strategically shape the culture that exists within their organisation, but even companies who have never heard of company culture already have one in place.

The question is, is your company culture strengthening your brand or holding it back or, worse still, undermining it? A good place to start when developing and understanding your corporate culture is asking your staff and customers what they think of the company; the good, the bad and the ugly. What you need to take from that exercise is what elements of the existing company culture that you like and your customers like, and what needs to be eliminated.

What You Do, Not What You Say!

The core values you identify for your brand will shape the behaviour of your employees and provide the guidelines they need to best serve the brand. If providing the best customer service possible is a core value of the brand then employees know that they are expected to do their best to achieve this value through all customer interactions.

Remember, it is not enough for your brand to have strong core values that are clearly articulated to stakeholders if they are not acted upon. It is what you do, not what you say that counts. It must be a fully integrated and intuitive part of your brand’s signature way of doing things.

What Is It That Your Company Values?

In order to create a corporate brand culture that yields results you must first identify what is it you value as a company? How to you live and authentically demonstrate the importance of these brand values to your stakeholders?

If you want to delight your customers then what is the reward for your employees when they achieve this? Think of it this way. If your company culture values customer service and your core value is to delight customers, then what happens if two supermarket employees each make sales of equal monetary value but one offers to carry the customer’s bags to the car. Does that employee receive a reward for going out of their way to delight the customer? Or more to the point, is the other employee penalized for not doing so?

Reward your staff for embracing your company’s culture. Don’t just review employees based on measuring results, measure their behaviour and what they try to bring to the work environment. Encourage, support and acknowledge those that not only promote but act on your core brand values.

If you want to create a sustainable corporate brand culture than staff recruitment should aim to find employees who fit within the existing brand culture and whose values are closely aligned with the brand.

Zappos famously offer potential employees $3000 to leave the company during their initial training to make sure those who choose to stay do so because they believe in the brand and not just the financial benefits of the job.

The Role of The Leader

The most critical influencer on the development of a corporate culture that supports strong brand development is the leader. Leaders understand that their brand’s identity is shaped through touch points between their customers and their organisation.

Leaders cannot possibly anticipate every possible touch point that could influence perceptions of the company’s brand, and advertising can only get you so far, but they can set the example as to the attitude and behavioral cues for the corporate brand culture.

Strong leaders understand that in a sustainable winning company culture, the behaviours of employees are intrinsically linked to relationships, informed by attitudes, built on a foundation of core brand values and suitable to their industry environment. By managing these cultural components a leader can create a company culture that supports strong brand development internally.

Southwest Airlines embrace a company culture that nurtures staff first and customers second. This may seem counter intuitive but by giving employees the tools to make decisions, by building a culture where people feel respected and valued, Southwest Airlines understood that these values would also be reflected in interactions with customers. Their corporate culture has created an environment where employees want to deliver the best customer service in the business.

As Zappo’s CEO Tony Hseih states; “company culture and company brand are two sides of the same coin. Your culture is your brand.”

• Does your corporate culture nurture your brand and provide a competitive advantage?

• How do your core brand values support your corporate culture?

• Do you as a company leader understand your role in the development of your company’s brand culture?

• Do you need to engage in a Brand Discovery Programme™ to re-evaluate your company culture and brand values so you can reinvigorate your brand’s offering to make it stronger, more relevant and more profitable?

Brand CEOs/Leaders: Why Aren’t You Using The Power of Your Voice Online?

August 30, 2012/0 Comments/in Brand Strategy, Brand Values, Brand Voice, Facebook, Online Marketing, Social Engagement, Social Media, Twitter /by Lorraine Carter

As a company director or CEO you are of course aware of your influence on the internal dynamics of your business and brand. Your actions and decisions extend beyond the day-to-day issues of just running the business.

You champion the vision and core values that drive your company activities. You have creative control over how your brand is marketed to your customers. Your interaction with employees influences their behaviour and helps create a culture that has an effect on the identity of your company brand.

However the challenge for many brands is effectively projecting this brand ethos and identity to their customers. With company leaders having such an influential role on the internal brand development why are they so often inaccessible, unknown and unheard by the external stakeholders?

What many business leaders fail to recognize is that they have the potential to have a hugely influential role in developing the brand’s public image.

Embrace Social Media for the Sake of Your Brand

Your responsibility to your company brand is now much more than how effective you are in the workplace or traditional leadership roles. Research into CEO activity online, and particularly through social media channels, has proven that company leaders who proactively engage online positively affect brand image, customer behaviour and relationships with key market influencers.

Enhance Your Brand’s Image

Company leaders who embrace social media bring a level of authenticity and openness to the brand message that brand communication campaigns cannot replicate. CEO’s understand their core brand values better than any one else in the company. They are the visionaries behind the brand, the leaders of the brand.

When company leaders use Facebook or Twitter to join the online conversation it ensures that the brand message is a dialogue and not just a one-sided promotional push from the company.

82% of respondents in a recent survey into the social media activities of C-level executives said they are more likely to trust a company when its CEO and leadership team communicates openly via social media about their core mission and values. 71% felt that a Tweeting CEO also boosts brand image and 78% said that it gives the perception of better communication.

Inspire Employees

Employees have a fundamental role in championing and shaping the brand image during customer interactions. Company leaders who use social media set the standard and tone for how to communicate and interact with potential customers.

CEO activity on social networks also appears to influence employees’ confidence in their company. The study findings indicate that 82% of employee respondents trust a company more when the company leader and management team communicate via social media.

Boost Sales, Increase Your Profitability

A company leader’s social media presence influences purchasing decisions. 77% of survey respondents claimed to be more likely or much more likely to buy from a company whose CEO uses social media to clearly define company values and leadership principles. Direct access to the company leader can help close sales that might have proved more difficult for lower level employees to achieve.

Financial Services firm ING Direct Canada is known for its tweeting CEO, Peter Aceto who has said using social media helps him gauge how both employees and customers view the company and its products. It helps him keep in touch at a grass roots level and enables him build a more ‘accessible and engaged relationship’ in his market. “We saw it as a competitive advantage for us. There was no science. There was no ROI. We just needed to get going, start to build a community and learn how we can use it.”

No time? No excuses!

In this post digital era brand leaders are surprisingly slow to adopt social media as a means of developing their brand’s identity. Social Media takes time and commitment, particularly for those that are new to online engagement.

While time, or lack thereof, is an excuse used by many business leaders who have yet to adopt social media the fact of the matter is that the world has changed and there is no hiding anymore. If you are not speaking for yourself and your brand then someone else will do the speaking for you and you might not like what they have to say.

Brand Blog

Nervous of using social media? A good way of getting used to introducing your views to your customers is through a blog. Most leaders are more comfortable writing a post rather than launching themselves into an open dialogue with customers. Richard Branson writes a blog with a style that is very true to his personality, a personality that is deeply intertwined with the Virgin brand. He’s also very active on other social channels too such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

Facebook & Twitter

Social Media is not going away. In fact it’s the most ubiquitous part of our lives now and becoming the more dominantly preferred form of communication for many users over more traditional email.

Your customers have integrated Facebook and Twitter into their daily lives. There is no better place to influence your brand image and enhance customer engagement than through these channels.

It will benefit not only your customer’s perceptions of your brand but it also provides you, as a leader, with a greater understanding and insights into how customers engage and interact with your brand online.

The time is NOW to embrace social media and start really using the power of your voice online to shape public perception of your brand. It could be the most influential thing you do for your brand this year.

• Do you know how to leverage your voice online to strengthen your brand image?

• Does your brand strategy articulate the role of the leader in the development of your brand image?

Stats: *BRANDfog, 2012 CEO Social Media & Leadership Survey, March 12 2012

Building the Voice of Your Brand to Give You a Competitive Edge

May 29, 2012/0 Comments/in Brand Collateral, Brand Profiling & Positioning, Brand Voice, Branding, Business, Global Branding, Rebrand, Rebranding /by Lorraine Carter

Understanding What Makes You Different

How is Coca Cola different from Pepsi? Why would you choose to fly Virgin Atlantic over Aer Lingus? When a product or service is not completely unique in the market how do you communicate your “significant difference” to your customers in order to give them a compelling reason to choose your brand over your competitors?

Understanding what makes you authentically different and being able to communicate this succinctly to your customers is the key to creating strong brand equity. In fact giving your brand a distinctive, different and memorable voice is one of the most effective tools in gaining a competitive advantage in your market and building lasting customer loyalty.

Pepsi are currently in the process of re-shaping their brand identity in an effort to clearly differentiate their brand in the market. In 2011 Pepsi’s new president decided to find out what makes Pepsi different to Coca Cola. It took Pepsi 9 months to come up with an answer! Their analysis found that Coke is ‘timeless’ while Pepsi is ‘timely’ which in a nutshell means that Coke represents permanent happiness while Pepsi embraces excitement.

Identifying what makes Pepsi different has given the brand leverage to shape a clear position for the brand within their market. Understanding who they are and what they represent has enabled them to articulate their brand message to target consumers much more effectively because they are now armed with a brand message that communicates what makes Pepsi unique.

Pepsi are now shaping this revitalized brand identity through all their brand collateral including tagline, imagery and advertising campaigns etc. With a clearly defined brand strategy they are now consistently reinforcing what makes them different from their competitors throughout all their marketing campaigns.

Finding Your Brands Unique Voice

For many companies, identifying the very essence of what authentically differentiates their brand, be it product or service, from their competitors can be challenging, yet the untapped secret often lies within the heart of their business. It is the people, the corporate or brand culture, the internal core values on which the foundations of the brand has been shaped, that are often the greatest assets to a company endeavouring to build strong brand equity.

These elements are intrinsically unique within each business and can’t be readily replicated by competitors because the fundamental brand proposition is shaped, nurtured and developed through the internal character and strategies of the company and the people within it. The key is knowing and understanding which aspects of your brand “character” and “story” need to amplified in a way that matters to, and resonates with, your target audience.

If you want to develop strong brand equity to grow your business profitably then you need to start by getting a clear sense of who you are, as a brand/company, what you represent or stand for, what makes your company brand different.

When you can answer these questions you are in a better position to understand how to give your brand a unique and compelling voice that stands out from the crowd, resonates with your target market and ultimately builds your brand equity, giving you a competitive edge and increased profitability.

Have a Clear Sense of Who You Are

Virgin is a leading example of how to develop a brand with a voice so clear that it transcends industry and market boundaries. Their expansion through multiple channels has been very successful because Virgin has a clear sense of itself and consistently communicates their brand values to their target audience, while injecting their brand culture into everything they do.

From its inception Virgin embraced a ‘challenger brand’ status. Regardless of the industry, Virgin aimed to differentiate themselves from their competition by not playing by the rules. Virgin’s brand equity is founded on their brand’s ability to challenge both consumer perceptions and industry assumptions.

How has Virgin managed to succeed in industries as diverse as insurance and airlines, mobile phones, radio and rail? They succeed by consistently building on their brand values of delivering value price, high quality, cheeky fun, innovation and great customer service to every market they enter. They behave like the impudent, yet endearing smaller company that engenders customer affections when in fact they are a global brand power house.

Virgin has been able to consistently leverage its brand across multiple channels because it has so successfully developed it brand voice to “own a place” in the minds of its target audience.

Look how Virgin has been repeatedly able to enter new business arenas with a bang and shake up the existing status quo. The voice of the brand is clear and consistent throughout all the marketing strategies of the various brand/business ventures – a voice that tells the story of a brand that is fun, innovative, a maverick in its field, but equally synonymous with being consumer-centric and providing a quality service. Consequently, Virgin’s brand personality is highly visible in every market within which they operate.

What Does Your Brand Say to Your Customers?

If your product is not unique to its market, then your ability to distinguish your offering from that of your competitors lies in creating a remarkable and strong personality for your brand.

Your brand personality, together with its simple idea, brand story, way of doing things, the brand world it creates and the special relationships it engenders are the defining elements which will attract your target audience and compel them choose your brand over that of others in the market and consequently help you build a much more profitable and sustainable business.

Do you have a strong “voice” for your brand ?

• Do you know key strategic do’s and don’ts for your brand behaviour?

• Do you have a clear sense of where you stand in the market and what works best for your brand?

• Do you have a great product or service but are struggling to say what makes you different?

• Do you know the “magic ingredients” for your brand which makes it irresistible to your target audience?