Brands and Bullshit

by Bernhard Schroeder

  What’s the moral of the Yahoo! story? If you are creating a brand or are working in a brand today, you better have several key elements figured out before you do your marketing. Like what is your mission, what are your values, what is your brand strategy, who is your target customer, what’s happening with the competition, what’s your business model and what kind of marketing campaign will be effective in meeting your strategic company goals. I know that’s a lot of thinking going on in one sentence. But I cannot tell you how many brands I have worked with in my career that did not have the above figured out and it led to complete chaos. This would ultimately lead to bad brand and marketing work with these dysfunctional clients. Honestly, by 1996, our marketing agency had become so well recognized, had received top awards and a high “C” level of awareness (recognition from CEO’s, COO’s, CFO’s, etc.) we started turning down opportunities to work with, who we perceived, were unorganized or disruptive clients. Out of every potential client I talked to between 1996 and 1998, I turned 8 out of 10 down. I simply told them we were too busy. The real reason was they were going to be so dysfunctional, it would have negatively impacted the morale and value of our employees, and ultimately, our brand. Learning to say “no” can be a good thing. Especially if a company or brand does not have their act together. Not to be harsh but sometimes you “can’t fix stupid.”

  So before you can actually figure out how to develop a strategy for a brand, you need to know what makes up a brand.

  THE CORE ELEMENTS OF A BRAND

  The concept of branding can be a confusing topic that many seasoned marketers don’t clearly understand let alone the new digital marketers. What is a brand? What is branding? It seems like a simple question, but the answer is anything but simple. If you’re confused by your brand, your customers will be confused, too. The last thing you want to do is waste time and money by developing a weak brand. With all the definitions of branding out there, I am going to focus it down to just five components.

  CORE BRAND ATTRIBUTES

  THE BRAND PROMISE. At its core, a brand is a promise to consumers. What will consumers get when they purchase a product or service under your brand umbrella? The brand promise incorporates more than just those tangible products and services. It also includes the feelings that consumers get when they use your products and services. Example: Think about your favorite brand and what that brand promises to you. If you’re a Nike fan, the brand might represent athleticism, performance, strength, good health, and fun. Your brand promises something to consumers. What is it?

  THE BRAND PERCEPTIONS. Brands are built by consumers, not companies. Ultimately, it’s the way consumers perceive a brand that defines it. It doesn’t matter what you think your brand promises. The only thing that matters is how consumers perceive your brand. You need to work to develop consumer perceptions that accurately reflect your brand or else your brand is doomed to limited growth potential. Example: What are consumers’ perceptions of Lady Gaga? You can bet everything she does is meant to create specific consumer perceptions.

  THE BRAND EXPECTATIONS. Based on your brand promise, consumers develop expectations for your brand. When they pull their hard-earned money out of their pockets and purchase your products or services, they assume their expectations for your brand will be met. If your brand doesn’t meet consumers expectations in every interaction, consumers will become confused by your brand and turn away from it in search of another brand that does meet their expectations in every interaction. Example: Imagine if Porsche launched a $10,000 car. To say the least, consumers would be extremely confused because such a product doesn’t meet their expectations for a luxury performance brand.

  THE BRAND PERSONA. Rather than asking, “What is a brand?” a better question might be, “Who is a brand?” Every brand has a persona. Think of your brand as a person. What is that person like? What can you expect when you interact with that person? From appearance to personality and everything in between, your brand persona is one that consumers will evaluate and judge before they do business with you. Example: Think of it this way. Who would you rather spend time with if they were a person, Apple or Microsoft? These two brands have very different brand personas. Your brand should have one, too.

  THE BRAND ELEMENTS. Your brand is represented by the intangible elements described above as well as tangible elements such as your brand logo, messaging, packaging, marketing and so on. All of these elements must work together in an integrated way to consistently communicate your brand promise, shape brand perceptions, meet brand expectations, and define your brand persona. If one element is awry, your entire brand can suffer. Remember what happened with the new Gap logo introduced a few years ago? Customers hated it. Don’t make the same mistake. Example: There is a reason why that blue Tiffany’s box has been around for so long. It means something to consumers.

  Bottom-line, a brand is clear, reliable, and believable to both your consumers and your employees. However, brands aren’t built overnight. Before you can define and live your brand, you need to do some research so you don’t waste time taking your brand in a direction that won’t allow you to reach your goals. You must understand your competitors and target audience so that you can develop a brand that promises the right things to the right people. Research should be first, definition, strategy, and marketing implementation should follow, and in time, your brand will grow.

  AIM YOUR BRAND FOR A BLUE OCEAN

  In an earlier chapter I talked about a form of research called Observation Lab that you can use to get customer insights by observing them in their environment. But if you want a more strategic view, say from 10,000 feet, of an entire marketplace, including the competition, then you need to elevate your perspective and examine an entire market. One methodology you could use would be Blue Ocean Strategy. I love using blue ocean strategy in the classroom. I loved using it in my professional life. It’s so simple to understand and it forces the students, and perhaps marketers, to answer really simple questions regarding a current product or service:

  BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY

  What can I eliminate?

  What can I reduce?

  What can I raise the bar on?

  What can I create that is new?

  You can set sail for a blue ocean all in the hopes of creating a new product or service in a growing marketplace with little initial competition. Blue Ocean Strategy by Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne was published in 2005 by Harvard Business School Press. It became a best-seller and still remains popular today. The authors’ thesis is that most companies focus on competing against rivals for market share in existing marketplaces. I will provide you with more insights and some detailed information on how to use Blue Ocean strategy in Chapter Ten.

  WHY DO BLUE OCEANS MATTER?

  Blue oceans matter because these markets are potentially large and with less competition, so there is more opportunity for you to grow as the dominant brand as long as you continue to innovate. Let’s look at a real example of a company that created a blue ocean all for themselves. Cirque du Soleil, the Canadian company, redefined the dynamics of a declining circus industry in the 1980s. Under conventional strategic business analysis, the circus industry was a loser. Star performers had “supplier power” over the company. Alternative forms of entertainment, from sporting events to home entertainment systems, were relatively inexpensive and on the rise. Moreover, animal rights groups were putting increased pressure on circuses for their treatment of animals. Cirque du Soleil eliminated the animals and reduced the importance of individual stars. It created a new form of entertainment that combined dance, music, and athletic skill to appeal to an upscale adult audience that had abandoned the traditional circus. Cirque du Soleil attracted a new customer, mostly adults as opposed to children, at a high price point, and redefined what a circus is supposed to be. Today, Cirque du Soleil has a valuation of over $2.5 billion.

  Let’s examine another tool you can use to define a “brand opportunity space” in an existing marketplace.
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  CREATING A PERCEPTION MAP FOR YOUR BRAND

  Perceptual maps are an important element in determining marketing strategy for your brand. First, what are perceptual maps? “Perceptual mapping is a graphics technique used by marketers that attempts to visually display the perceptions of customers or potential customers. Typically the position of a product, product line, brand, or company is displayed relative to their competition.” Although perceptual maps (also called product positioning maps) can have any number of dimensions thanks to the wonders of modern computers, commonly perceptual maps are graphed on two dimensions for clarity and simplicity. Why would you want to do perceptual mapping? Perceptual maps help you understand what consumers think about your brand and your competitor’s brand. Most importantly, perceptual maps help you build an effective marketing strategy by visually identifying potential gaps or areas of a marketplace that are possible opportunities to exploit.

  I think it might help you see how valuable perceptual maps are by showing you an example. Know that you can chart any industry or marketplace and determine where you brand might be today and where it might have to be tomorrow. This kind of mapping also identifies potential “gaps” in the marketplace that might actually be potential blue oceans for your brand. I started my marketing career in Detroit and worked with every major automotive brand there and then with Mercedes Benz in New Jersey. So, as an example, let’s look at the automotive industry. This example maps automobile companies based on two criteria; sporty versus conservative and practical/affordable versus classy/distinctive. The key element in perceptual mapping, from the standpoint of marketing strategy, is the axis should measure attitudes related to something that determines which products/brands consumers purchase.

  MARKETPLACE PERCEPTION MAP

  From the standpoint of marketing strategy, the key element in perceptual mapping lies in the axis; it should measure attitudes related to something that determines which products/brands consumers purchase.

  If you look at the perception map, you will see where I have placed these brands based on where customers perceive them to be based on research. Creating perceptual maps will give you a sense of where your brand stands among all the completive brands in your marketplace. If you agree, awesome. If you don’t agree, your brand is in potential trouble. Also, if you look at the map, you can see some potential “opportunity” gaps. Look in the lower right quadrant. There seems to be an opportunity to create a brand that is sporty and affordable. In the lower left quadrant, perhaps you could create a brand that is conservative and affordable. If that’s what customers want or better yet, need. And that is the critical point of view you need to have when creating perceptual maps. It’s has to be based on what customers believe today and potentially want tomorrow. Not what you want or what you believe.

  Now that we understand what a perceptual map is and why we should create one for any brand, let’s talk about how you construct one.

  Determine which characteristics of the product are consumer hot buttons. This is going to be a function of your market, so the characteristics that consumers use to determine which car to buy are entirely different from which doctor to use, where the criterion might be reputation (high versus unknown) and location (near versus far). You can’t guess on this stuff, because if you have the wrong criteria, then the rest of your efforts will be wasted. So ask your market what is important to them. You can do a survey or a focus group to find those hot buttons that control consumer behavior. There are also ways to use a Customer Relationship Management system (CRM), to measure customer satisfaction or customer loyalty. If properly designed, you can learn what consumer hot buttons are based on actual purchase behavior and their feedback.

  Survey your market. Once you’ve identified consumer hot buttons, you need to find out how consumers rate your products, as well as how they rate your competitors. My preferred way of doing this is to have consumers identify competing products, then rate them based on hot button criteria. It’s also good to get core customer demo-graphics and psychographic information to see if there might be some segmentation value i.e. different segments generate different maps and you can use this to reach the segments better with unique brand offerings.

  Graph the results. Computer programs can make this a lot easier and if you’ve got more than two dimensions you want to graph, computers are necessary. You can use Excel to do this, although there is special software for perceptual mapping and you can buy other statistical and analysis software like Tableau, which is more expensive, but can be used for lots of analysis projects. If you have to, do it manually in PowerPoint. Regardless, the map should not only display the position of various brands, but the size of the brand on the map should reflect its market share (so you’ll need to gather this info from secondary sources).

  Interpret the perceptual map. This step is where you get strategic brand value from the map. Here are some things to look for on your map.

  Do consumer attitudes toward my brand match what I want them to think about my brand?

  Do consumer attitudes toward my competitors match what I thought about them?

  Who are the competitors that consumers see as closest to my brand?

  Are there gaps in the map indicating a potential for new brands?

  Make changes in your brand or marketing strategy. If consumers don’t see your brand in a favorable way, you need to make changes. If there’s really something wrong with your brand leading to poor consumer attitudes, then fix your brand. If not, changes to your messaging and marketing campaign are needed to help moderate these attitudes. If consumers view competitors as being very similar to your brand, think about how your brand can stand out. You really don’t want to go head-to-head with competitors and price is the last tool you should use to differentiate your brand. If there are gaps you think represent viable products that your company can produce, think about introducing a new product, a new sub-brand or moving your brand into the unfilled position.

  CRAFTING YOUR BRAND STRATEGY

  In a situation where you’re selling to multiple personalities within a target segment, it’s best to first connect everyone on common ground and then articulate clearly what’s in it for each of them. The goal is to stimulate an engaging conversation that allows you to change perception, set expectations and bring clarity to the conversation. That’s the essence of developing a brand strategy. The foundation of your marketing communications actually builds authentic relationships between you and your target audience. It is defining your brand strategy first that allows you to utilize marketing, advertising, public relations and social media to consistently and accurately reinforce your character. Without defining the core brand strategy, all channels of marketing communication can often become a hit and miss expense. Don’t “spray and pray.”

  Here are 10 brand strategy principles I believe to be the key in achieving both business and marketing success.

  Define your brand. It starts with your authenticity, the core purpose, vision, mission, position, values and character. Focus on what you do best and then communicate your inimitable strengths through consistency. There are many examples of companies acquiring other brands only to sell them off later because they don’t fit within the brand and its architecture.

  Your brand is your business model. Support and challenge your business model to maximize the potential within your brand. Think about Dollar Shave Club and how they set out to lower the price of razors and simplify shaving. That also matched their strategy of selling directly to their customers via their subscription based business model.

  Consistency, consistency, consistency. Consistency in your message is the key to differentiate your brand in the market pool. Own your position on every reference point for everything that you do. Nike tells you to “Just do it” and BMW has always been known as the “ultimate driving machine.”

  Start from the inside out. Everyone in your company can tell you what they see, think and feel about your brand. That’s the story you shoul
d bring to the customers as well, drive impact beyond just the walls of marketing. As an example, look at how Zappos empowers its employees to strengthen consumer perception on its brand by allowing them to solve customer problems on their own without supervisor approval.

  Connect on the emotional level. A brand is not a name, logo, website, ad campaign or PR; those are only the tactical marketing tools not the brand. A brand is a desirable idea manifested in products, services, people, places and experiences. Starbucks created a third space experience that’s desirable and exclusive so people would want to stay and pay for the overpriced coffee. Sell people something that satisfies not only their physical needs but their emotional needs and their need to identify themselves to your brand.

  Empower brand champions. Reward those that love your brand, customers or employees, to help drive the message, facility activities so they can be part of the process. If your brand advocate doesn’t tell you what you should or should not be doing, it’s time to evaluate your brand promise. Go and talk to someone that works at the Apple retail store or an iPhone owner and you’ll see just how passionate they are about Apple. The Apple brand to them is a lifestyle and a culture.