New Group on Facebook
•30 March, 2009 • Leave a CommentI have a new group on Facebook, you are free to join!
New group on Facebook
So happy…
•21 December, 2008 • Leave a CommentI’m so happy I can send a post from my iPhone to my WordPress blog.
Life is nothing compare to that.
Best social media tools for PR professionals and journalists
•3 December, 2008 • Leave a Comment
Motion Video to promote myself
•25 August, 2008 • Leave a CommentI made this Motion Video to promote myself and I…
☞ What is creativity?
•25 August, 2008 • Leave a Comment☞ What is creativity?
Check out what I think creativity is on Virb.
http://ping.fm/ltu9T
Did you ask for branding?
•14 August, 2008 • Leave a CommentA brand is a customer experience represented by a collection of images and ideas; often, it refers to a symbol such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme.
Brand recognition and other reactions are created by the accumulation of experiences with the specific product or service, both directly relating to its use, and through the influence of advertising, design, and media commentary. A brand is a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to a company, product or service. A brand serves to create associations and expectations among products made by a producer.
A brand often includes an explicit logo, fonts, color schemes, symbols, sound which may be developed to represent implicit values, ideas, and even personality.
The brand, and “branding” and brand equity have become increasingly important components of culture and the economy, now being described as “cultural accessories and personal philosophies”.
BRAND STRATEGY
Every organization has a brand, whether they have consciously developed it or not. A brand is simply an expectation or a promise of an experience.
Whether that expectation is trusting, authoritative, innovative, or fun, brands are short-hand for describing the way a business, organization, product, service, celebrity or other entity relates to its stakeholders (e.g., customers, donors, employees, investors, volunteers, suppliers, etc.).
A strong brand impacts everything from the ability to recruit top talent and to opportunity to grow the bottom line. Little wonder that more and more attention is being paid to measuring and managing brands as assets.
The way to build a strong brand is to put customers and their needs at the center of every decision the organization makes.
Over time, “customer-centric” actions create differentiation in the market place
and build emotional connections with customers. This differentiated bond, called
“brand equity”, is a real and valuable asset with tangible returns in terms of
customer loyalty, profitability, and insulation from negative publicity or competitive
action.
The process of managing brands as assets begins with understanding the brand
from a perspective of customers, prospective customers and other stakeholders
such as employees or marketing intermediaries (distribution sales force, etc.).
What image, reputation and perceptions does each stakeholder audience maintain
that can be either capitalized on — or corrected — to enhance the value of the
brand?
o How familiar are customers and prospects with the organization and
competitors?
o How favorable or unfavorable are their perceptions?
o How deeply are these views held? What emotional response do these
perceptions evoke?
o What barriers or opportunities exist for strengthening the brand?
Managing brands as assets also requires a considerable effort to measure
and quantify the impact of the brand on customers, their decisions, and the
company’s financial performance.
The brand discovery process is called a “Brand Audit”; the framework that guides the strategy process is called the “Brand Equity Pyramid”; and the measurement process is known as “Return on brand investment” or “ROBI”. Together they form the fundamental building blocks of
a “Brand Strategy” and our approach to building brand strategies for our clients. This paper will briefly describe each of these elements, and the process we use to create brand strategies for our clients.
Brand Audit
Unlike a financial audit which is primarily internal, a brand audit is primarily a customerfocused exercise. It is designed to assess the “health” of the brand, uncover sources of equity for the brand (or potential sources for a new brand) and suggest ways to improve and leverage equity. A brand audit involves examining current information and often involves primary research. It serves as a foundation
for determining a brand strategy, which is simply a plan for improving stakeholder relationships.
o Existing Research Review: Review of primary and secondary research on the industry and consumer.
o Competitive Review: Who are the key competitors? What is the market position of this firm?
o Management and Employee Interviews: On-site interviews with key managers or sales force.
o Influencer Research: Perceptions of the media, analysts and other constituencies.
o Primary Customer Research: Qualitative and/or quantitative research with designated market segments to uncover customer perceptions, build the brand pyramid and identify any obstacles for strengthening the brand’s relationship with stakeholders
o Sales and Customer Analysis: Analysis of past revenue and sales information. What factors drive revenue? Which sources are growing
and where are the sources of decline? Analysis of customer demographic and usage information.
o SWOT Analysis based on marketing profile of primary Products and Services: Brand elements and marketing strategies (4P’s) associated
with each product or service. These should be reviewed, catalogued and evaluated for consistency and impact:
- Product strengths and weaknesses
- Pricing strategy and competitive position
- Distribution strategy
- Promotion strategy and spending relative to competitors
Brand Elements such as names, logos, symbols, URL’s or trademarks, Characters, “packages”, slogans, or other design elements (colors, sounds, etc.) Brand personality, characteristics and attributes
The Brand Equity Pyramid
The standard tool for understanding a brand’s associations and customers’ response to it is
the brand equity pyramid (see below). The strongest brands exhibit both “duality” (emotional
and functional associations) and richness (a variety of brand associations or “equity” at
every level, from salience to resonance). The more brand elements, generally the stronger the
brand. Understanding a brand’s equity elements and those of its competitors is the first step
toward in developing effective brand building and measurement programs.
Source: Kevin Lane Keller, Strategic Brand Management, Irwin McGraw-Hill, 2003
Brand Strategy
Brand strategy is a plan for how the company will create
value for the customers by building upon its brand
strengths and addressing its weaknesses. Brand strategies manifest themselves in
product innovations, graphic design, store layout, customer service policies, and many other
components of the “brand experience”. The strategy provides a foundation for development
of brand building programs and typically includes brand objectives, consistent brand name
and identity systems, target audiences, positioning(s), key communications messages and
prioritization of brand.
By aligning customer facing activity around a strategic idea or plan, a company can
prioritize its efforts and make more effective decisions across all of its business
functions, including but not limited to marketing. Every interaction with stakeholders
constitutes a brand “touch point” and represents an opportunity to enhance brand equity.
Once a brand strategy is in place, programs
that contribute to building relationships can be
developed, prioritized and implemented across
every aspect of the brand experience.
o Brand Vision: This work will include defining a brand vision that relates the company’s
mission to its desired perceptions. The vision provides a basis for completing the brand
equity pyramid (see above) and articulation of a specific, relevant and memorable brand
positioning.
o Brand Target(s) and Positioning. Positioning is the aspect of the vision to be communicated
to each target audience in order to create the desired perception. A differentiating and
compelling positioning is fundamental to any effective communications effort. This work will
follow directly from the stakeholder research and be designed to address the strengths,
weaknesses and opportunities which are discovered through the audit.
o Brand Elements and Identity System: (NOTE: BEYOND The scope of
THIS assignment) Careful selection of brand elements is fundamental to effective brand
building programs. They include (but are not limited to) brandmarks and logos, color and
design systems, sounds, characters, URL’s, slogans, and web designs. Once a brand vision
and positioning are articulated, a creative team can evaluate which elements identified in
the brand inventory are appropriate to the new strategy, which need to replaced and what
new elements can be employed to further bring the brand to life. The final recommendation
would include (although not be limited to)
o Overall look and feel (color palette, design concept, etc.)
o Brand mark and brand architecture (naming scheme)
o Web Home and secondary page concepts
o Collateral material/brochure concept
o Concepts for signage
o Presentation of new identity for use with internal and external audiences
o Complete “style” guide to use in guiding application of the brand identity system and its elements
Brand Communications Plan
The company has literally thousands of interactions each day with customers, end users
and other stakeholders. Each interaction is an opportunity to communicate the brand’s key
messages. As a first step toward building a comprehensive communications strategy, we will identify and prioritize opportunities these “touch points” in terms of their ability to improve brand relationships and brand equity. Then we will recommend which messages are
critical to convey at each touch point and the most important initiatives to accomplishing this communications. Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is the way that companies coordinate the communications aspects of a brand strategy for greater efficiency. IMC is
also a strategy, an idea around which decisions can be
prioritized and aligned. A plan for an IMC program outlines the specific methods by
which this idea or strategy will be implemented.
o Identification of key touch points and message:
• Pre-purchase
• During purchase
• Post-purchase
Measuring ROBI (Return on Brand Investment)
Marketing is the single largest expense for most companies. Developing a practical,
useful approach to quantifying the impact of marketing on financial performance and brand
equity is essential to more efficient and effective marketing, just as adding more marketing
cost without showing how it translates into bottom line improvements is unrealistic. There
are many factors that influence sales revenue and profitability, many of which have little
to do with marketing. Even when it is clear that marketing is that variable that has made
the difference, that knowledge alone is nearly useless without an understanding of what
worked and what to do differently. Measuring and managing ROBI is a three step process:
1. Identify relevant measures/data and sort them into three tiers – activities, impacts and
value.
2. Use analytics such as modeling and in-market experimentation to understand the causal
relationships among the measures and their overall relationship to
financial performance/profitability.
3. Incorporate measures into ongoing management decision-making through use of balanced
scorecard or other “metrics dashboard” techniques.
This is not a process that occurs overnight; it requires a commitment to measurement and
data-based decision-making. However, without such a program in place, marketers will
continue to struggle to know what aspects of their programs are contributing the most
to company performance and to justify the expenses associated with marketing relative to
other areas of the company.
______
Summary
A brand is not a by-product, an ad campaign, a logo, a spokesperson or a slogan. It is a differentiating identity and the most important reason for employees, investors and customers to want to do business. In a real sense, it is a firm’s most important asset, the trust that will the business and make it increasingly profitable over time.
Getting started can be as simple as a brand audit and development of a brand strategy.
Hope this takes some of the mystery out of this process.
__________________________________________________
lYOUR NEEDS l
- l Naming
- l Brand positioning
- l Strategy Thinking
- l Launch Communications
- l Campaign
- l Logotype
- l Graphic manual
- Stationery:
- l Letterheads + Envelopes DL personalized
- l Business cards
- l Mailing labels
- l Forms (purchase order…)
- l Bills/Invoices
- l Binders
- Electronic Presentation:
- l Power Point
- l e-card
- l CD-Card/CD-ROM
- l Internet
- l Press kit folder
- l Recruitment Ad format
- Facilities Signs:
- l External primary signs
- l Entrance/Door sign
- l Internal Bilboard
- l External Bilboard
- l Pannels
- Communications:
- l Brochure
- l Direct mail
- l Report
- l Annual report
- l Newsletter
- l Electronic template
- l Video
- l Gifts Internal/External
- l Tee-Shirt Design
- l Event communications
- l Exhibition communications
- l Booth (Concept/Design)
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