BRANDING 101
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There are literally thousands of books available today on the topic of brands and branding. Still, outside of the world of marketing, the concept of a brand remains somewhat of a mystery. Even more mysterious are those who work with brands.
This brief presentation is designed to clear up some of that mystery. It is a starting point to a complex and sometimes daunting process called “branding.”
What is a brand?
In the simplest terms, a brand is the emotional response people have to a company or organization.
A brand is not the product or
service.
A brand is not the logo.
A brand is not a color scheme or graphic design.
A brand is not a font selection.
While all of those things are important components to creating and maintaining a brand, they are just components – symbols and signs that evoke some emotional or intellectual connection.
A brand is made up of the collective experiences people have had with your product or service including all of the stories, all of the emotional connections and, yes, even their experience with the actual product or service itself.
Each of these individual experiences or “touch-points” communicates something (actually – they typically communicate a lot) about the company or organization.
The important thing to understand is this:
You do not create your own brand.
It is the people who come in contact with your company or organization, through whatever capacity they come in contact with it, that create your brand.
The process of “branding”, therefore, is about managing, as best possible, all of the “touch-points” your clients or customers will have with you.
Where to start?
Plan A: The business plan
The best place to start the branding process is, quite obviously, at the beginning.
In other words, managing the brand, in ideal circumstances, should start at the business plan stage, before the company – or at least before a product or service - is even created. Reality, on the other hand, suggests that this is seldom the option. Most companies are well down the road before they even begin to think about branding.
For the vast majority of organizations, the branding process actually starts with Plan B.
Plan B: Brand ReckoningTM.
Dead reckoning is the navigational process used by sailors for thousands of years. It helps to determine one's current position based upon a previously determined position, or fix, and advance that position based upon known speed, elapsed time, and course.
Similarly, Brand ReckoningTM helps to determine what target audiences currently think about a particular product or service based on assessing past experiences or “touch-points” with a brand.
Brand ReckoningTM also helps companies define exactly where a brand should be (e.g. what a company would like their target audience to think of them) and what experiences people should be having with a specific product or service.
The most successful products and services in the world are the ones that consistently meet, exactly, their consumers’ expectations.
By analyzing all of the target audiences for a particular product or service, and assessing their wants and needs, Brand ReckoningTM can accurately define a set of commonly held expectations and aspirations.
In this way, the branding process not only will shape all of the communications about a product or service, it may actually help reshape the product or service itself.
To find out more about Brand ReckoningTM and how it can help your company or organization, please feel free to give us a call at 305.571.1455 or send us an email by clicking here.
