Blue Dots Partners

If positioning is the battle for the customer’s mind (the classic 1981 book authored by Al Ries and Jack Trout), branding is the battle for the customer’s preference. Brand equity built over time is the most powerful marketing weapon you can buy or build. A brand promise executed well establishes powerful perceived competitive differentiation and superiority. High “Perceived Brand Leadership”[i] creates the potential to deliver superior shareholder valuations because a leading brand can often charge higher prices, increase the likelihood of purchase, insulate against functionally equivalent products or services, make every marketing dollar work harder, and attract the best talent.

What is a brand? It is the combination of the product, website, packaging, promotions, positioning, traditional advertising, social media presence, and, of course the visual identity or logo. In the words of Starbuck’s Howard Schultz, “Authentic brands don’t emerge from marketing cubicles or advertising agencies. They emanate from everything the company does…”[ii]

A great brand is easy to recognize. When you think of Apple or view its logo, what pops into your mind? Your brain calls up the communications and experiences to which you have been exposed and mashes them together to form an instant impression. First, a net positive or negative assessment. Then specifics that combine to form that impression. Branding is all about creating the desired perception. “Brands get their value from how customers perceive them,” as Wharton’s David Reibstein says.[iii]

Where did commercial branding originate? Companies like Procter & Gamble pioneered branding and brand management back in the 1950s and 1960s. They understood and exploited the power of a winning brand image. Conscientious and effective brand management is the main reason their Tide detergent has prospered for 70 years and was ranked as one of the three brands consumers would be least likely to give up during the Great Recession.[iv] Leading the market through decades of reformulations, form factors, price changes, and competition, Tide remains the top-selling detergent. It has $1.2 billion in annual sales and twice the market share of the second-ranked brand.[v] Barring a complete disaster, no product will unseat Tide in the foreseeable future.

Execs in large corporations and their ad agencies await with some trepidation the annual publication of annual brand rankings. One of the most respected is the Forbes “World’s Most Valuable Brands” list, which is purely financially-driven.[vi] Another is WPP’s “BrandZ™ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands”, which combines financial performance with customer opinion surveys.[vii] This year, the top three brands in both rankings are technology companies: Apple, Google, and Microsoft, although the two reports differ on the choice for the number one company. Technology enterprises account for nearly one fifth of the top 100 brands in both the Forbes and WPP rankings.

With so much at stake, it’s no wonder that an entire industry formed to offer branding and corporate identity services. Today, global firms such as WPP, Omnicom, Publicis and Young & Rubicam have built or acquired large branding operations. Complementing the giant firms are hundreds of smaller and boutique agencies and even crowdsourcing options.

The marketing budget of a Fortune 100 company is not necessary to build a strong brand. However, a disciplined, thoughtful process and a serious long-term commitment are essential. Before plunging into execution, it is important to think about upfront actions that can prevent most common missteps and create a great outcome.

First, formulate a brand strategy that aligns with your business strategy.

Dave Studeman was a senior executive at major branding firms such as Landor and now heads his own firm, Connector Branding. He cites Jack-in-the-Box as one company that understood the imperative to create the brand-to-business strategic alignment. As the company evolved toward a more sophisticated, expansive menu, the shift to “Jack’s” as the brand name directly supported the business strategy. In contrast, Burger King’s brand and name do nothing to help them sell chicken and salads.

Second, ensure that the brand strategy also aligns with your target customers. Simply doing business with customers does not automatically create a sufficient fact base of their preferences, needs, habits, practices, and decision-making process. Do whatever it takes, including formal market research, to capture that information. As part of the research, it is important to also identify the emotional impact your products or services can create. Without some emotional value, a brand will fall flat. Technology companies in particular suffer from relying too much on what the product is or does rather than the emotional result.

Third, resist the temptation to start executing on specific branding tactics, such as creating a logo, before the strategic alignments and customer knowledge are in place. Studeman talks about GAP going straight to crowdsourcing to create a new logo. The different look surprised consumers and had no connection to what GAP stood for or its heritage. Consumers rejected it, forcing GAP to return to its familiar blue and white logo.

Fourth, stay focused. Successful brands never attempt to be all things to all people or present an image resembling a camel assembled by a committee.

Last, maintain consistency across all marketing, customer, and internal programs. In Studeman’s words, “When consumers see the same brand execution across advertising, packaging, website, social media, sales literature and other materials, they get the message much more easily and the company spends less to get there.” Microsoft is a good example. At one point they redesigned all of their Mouse and Keyboard packaging in a red-dominated theme. Then they proceeded to develop their computer peripherals website in a blue format. The inconsistency forced the company to spend significant additional funds to fix the website and the brand had to work much harder to get its message across. Red is still the product brand color today.

Whether you use an agency, consultants, or your own team to guide your company through the brand-building process, there is plenty of industry guidance to help. To that end, in Entrepreneur, John Williams recommends eight basic brand-building guidelines:

1. Get a great logo
2. Write down your brand messaging
3. Integrate your brand across every aspect of your business
4. Create a voice for your company that reflects your brand
5. Develop a tagline
6. Design templates and create brand standards for your marketing materials
7. Be true to your brand
8. Be consistent

Brand-building isn’t easy but its rewards…or penalties…resulting from the quality of execution can be immense and lasting. In Jeff Bezos’ oft-quoted words, “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room”.

[i] A Blue Dots Partners proprietary analytical tool.

[ii] Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time.

[iii] David Reibstein, Professor of Marketing, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

[iv] Paynter, Ben, “Suds for Drugs”, New York. January 6, 2013.

[v] Statista, 2016 reporting data for 2014.

[vi] Kurt Badenhausen, Forbes, May 11, 2016.

[vii] WPP BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2016, June 8, 2016.