Branding 101

I posted the below in my company’s marketing group on LinkedIn in hopes of helping my colleagues better understand what in the world I’m up to…

“Brand” can be a hard thing to get your mind around. Most of us have never thought about brand outside of what consumer brands we buy at the store. But the idea of brand extends to B2B service businesses too, and must be lived, supported and protected by each employee.

I wanted to share some definitions and attributes of branding in hopes of helping you to better understand what I’m trying to build, why it’s time consuming and must be pursued in an orderly fashion. Each step of creating (re-creating) a brand builds on itself and requires a foundation built from marketplace insights coupled with fact-based claims about our ability to deliver what the marketplace wants.

When I say “brand,” what do I mean?
I’m referring to the image or perception of our company – what do our customers and referral sources think/feel about us? One of the key points being made about brands today is that companies don’t own their brand – the marketplace does. This distinction was made more concrete and obvious by the rise of social media – which gave customers power and a voice to quickly impact a brand’s image or perception in the (online) marketplace.

Is our logo our brand?
No, it’s not. A logo is a graphical representation of a brand, but a brand is a promise, an intangible. How do you communicate a promise? With images that evoke emotions, with relevant words and messages that resonate with a group of people who all value the same thing – that group of people is a market segment. You also communicate and reinforce a brand promise by consistently doing what you say you’re going to do.

What is a Brand Platform and why is it important?
A train platform – the support structure you stand on while you wait for a train.
A party platform – a set of principles a political party rests upon.

Both of these definitions play a role in the idea of a Brand Platform – a set of messages that together, create a support structure for how the business is presented in the marketplace. Marketers and sales people must stand firmly on this platform in order to present a cohesive, consistent promise to their customers. Operations people and those that deliver services must believe in this promise and consistently deliver on it.

Positioning – what is it?
Our position resides in the minds of our clients and referral sources – where they place us, relative to our competitors, across of set of criteria. (What are these criteria? What is most important to our customers? This may change from segment to segment.)

Dan (our CEO) has a great analogy for this – a chest of drawers. Each drawer has a label – Quality, Price, Speed, Value – and there’s only room for one (or maybe two) companies in each drawer. Where do we want to be? Ideally, we would like to be in every drawer, right? But there’s a limited amount of space, and many other companies clamoring to get in the drawers as well. So, what should we do? Concentrate resources on one (or two) drawers and “own” that drawer.

What is a positioning statement and why do we need one?
From Advanced Brand Management by Paul Temporal: A positioning statement states specifically and briefly what you want people to think about you. It not only spells out the desired image you wish to have, but is also a good test for strategy, as it quickly tells you whether the perceptions you wish people to hold are believable, credible and achievable.

Before writing a positioning statement it is vital that there is complete understanding of the following:

• Your brand
• Target audience
• Competitive set
• Why you are different/better than the competition
• The desired perception you want people to have

Long lesson, but in my opinion, an important one. I’m happy to answer any questions that you have.