As the saying goes, no one ever lost his job
buying from IBM. Big Blue has earned a reputation
as the safe choice, because its brand conveys quality
and leadership. Niche players might have better
technology and certainly lower prices, but IBM meets
brand expectations for consistent quality. And the
buyer’s willingness to pay more has to do
with IBM’s brand equity.
If marketing is the act of determining what customers
want and delivering it to them, then a brand is
setting the expectation that you will deliver. Think
of a brand as an ongoing dialogue with your constituent
audiences: prospects, customers, investors, analysts,
and employees. The conversation begins with you
asking what they need…and continues as you
demonstrate the ways in which you meet those needs.
A brand puts a stake in the ground and tells the
world who you are. It’s the verbal and visual
expression of the company’s vision and its
promise to the marketplace. The more you can make
that vision tangible, the more effective it will
be. Eight key factors contribute to a strong brand:
It must be organic.
A brand cannot be skin-deep; it works from
the inside out. It must grow out of the heart of
your company and be true to your corporate ideals.
The best brands reflect and validate the corporate
culture—in time, the brand can even define
corporate culture. The expression of your brand
doesn’t start with a logo on a business card
or an ad in a magazine, but with the way that your
employees talk to prospects and interact with customers.
Your brand gets communicated by the way a customer
or prospect interacts with your product or service
when you’re not around.
It must be a big idea.
A brand isn’t about where you are
today; it’s about your vision for the future.
It gives you the opportunity to tell your story,
share your vision—not just where you are today
but where you’re headed. Every new product
and service, every customer transaction adds a chapter
to that story. Because it tells an ongoing story,
a brand must be large enough and flexible enough
to evolve as market needs change.
It must be differentiated.
To create a distinctive brand, you have
to place it within the context of your market space,
which includes your prospects, your competitors,
and your suppliers. What are their names and colors?
What do their logos look like? How do they describe
themselves? The brand must express what sets you
apart from the competition.
It must be relevant.
Positioning your brand in the marketplace
means first understanding what your target market
needs. What pain does your product or service address?
The brand is about communicating the unique ways
in which you deliver what people want. And, you
have to communicate —through words and images—in
a language your market understands.
It must be true.
But you can’t just tell people what
they want to hear; that’s a fly-by-night brand
strategy. You need to make sure your product or
service delivers what people want. There must be
no disconnect between the brand and the experience.
The brand is your promise to the customer, your
assurance that you will perform in a certain way.
Meeting those expectations fulfills the brand promise,
instills confidence, and grows brand equity.
It must be defensible.
When you build a brand, you have to be
able to protect it: the name, the logo, the tagline.
While the world of trademark registration is complex
and the legal fees can be expensive, it is a critical
part of building true brand equity—the kind
you can take to the bank. A good trademark or service
mark from a legal perspective is one that creates
clarity in the marketplace and has no interference
from competitors. Interestingly, the same two qualities
are also characteristics of a strong brand.
It must be memorable.
Finding unique brand positioning is the
first step, but communicating that position must
capture the imagination of your target markets and
hold it. To be effective, a name must be easily
pronounced and readily remembered. Your messaging
must be simple, clear, and creative.
It must be consistently applied.
Consistent brand communication is as important
as consistent delivery on your promise. There is
no such thing as a “quick and dirty”
ad or tee shirt or flyer. They all have impact on
your brand whether you want them to or not. A prospect,
a customer, or an investor cannot be expected to
pick and choose among your multiple communications
and select those that apply your logo, your tagline,
your messaging properly. Every communication either
works to build or dilute your brand.
Start building your brand today.
Buyers today are faced with an overwhelming
number of options. And purchase decisions often
go beyond head-to-head comparisons, frequently requiring
us to choose between alternative approaches and
solutions to problems. Furthermore, as technology
becomes more complex, product differentiators become
more narrowly defined and brand takes on even more
importance—particularly when you’re
trying to sell high in a company. A strong brand
becomes a customer benefit in and of itself, because
it provides consumers with a shortcut to making
a purchase decision.
A powerful corporate brand can be one of the most
important investments a company can make, increasing
its value in the minds of customers, prospects,
and investors. A strong brand is an asset that should
be carefully crafted, consistently built, and fiercely
protected. Sally Roffman is founder and president
of Creative Strategy, Inc. For more than 20 years,
she has worked with a wide spectrum of clients on
building brand and making the organization’s
vision tangible.
Sally Roffman is founder and president of Creative
Strategy, Inc. For more than 20 years, she has worked
with a wide spectrum of clients on building brand
and making the organization’s vision tangible.
She can be reached at sally@creativestrategy.com
Creative Strategy delivers an integrated
approach to brand building, lead generation, and
sales support.
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