Brand Launch

Research drives strategy and design

Brand to Get Away from the Pack

Think back to your university days, last night’s television or any of the 3,000 to 5,000 messages you received today or any day. What do you remember? Our overburdened minds have room for no more than one thing from each new information stimulus. Unfortunately, most companies trying to pierce the cluttered minds of their prospective buyers want to say too much. The result is that nothing gets through.

In a crowded marketplace, distancing yourself from competitors is a constant challenge. But we fight in vain on most battlefronts. Technological innovation is too often quickly matched to create a sustained edge. You may not be able to squeeze another dollar out of overhead and production to lower prices. Promotional strategies can give your company a short-term uptick, but short-term gains are usually just that—short term.

The most effective long-term strategy for customer loyalty and ultimately your defense against competitors is branding. The key element of a successful brand is that it has to have intrinsic value for the customer. The seller’s perspective is immaterial.

The Value of a Brand

Brands enjoy long-term loyalty, shorten the buying cycle and tilt the buying decision in favor of the products or services they identify. But what is a brand and how are brands built? Here’s a working definition: “A brand is a distinct identity based on a promise of value, different from any other.”

Sounds simple, but it’s not so easy to pull off. People often mistakenly call their logo or tagline “our brand.” Unfortunately, that’s too simplistic and underestimates the enduring power of a brand. A brand is a set of associated qualities (the “promise of value”) that are triggered when you see that distinct logo or hear that distinct tagline. If you understand a brand as a whole personality built around a product or service, then you have a better idea of its richness and complexity.

Brands Are Like People

Forget everything you think you know about sales. People buy from whom they like. The decision is emotional even if the reasoning appears pragmatic.

Successful brands are just like successful people—you like or trust them. Just like people, they don’t change much, except to modify their surfaces to keep up the times. But those modifications don’t change the essence of a brand any more than a new haircut or a new clothing style alters the essence of a person. There’s a limit, of course, to what you can really know about most folks. The same is true of a brand. And that’s important: Andy Warhol was once accused of being “superficial.” He responded, “Yes, but I’m deeply superficial.” And so are brands.

Brands are as personal as our own individual reputation. If you lie to your children, they never again care what you say about the importance of telling the truth. Action is dispositive.

In Tanzania, Coca-Cola has a locally tailored campaign to that market. Pepsi is still marketing to “Generation-Next.” Both are selling sugar, water and food coloring, but only one is building trust. Is there any doubt why Coca-Cola is the world’s dominant cola beverage?

The Defensive Strategy

If, as we insist, a brand must contain “a promise of value different from any other,” then the process of branding automatically differentiates your company from your competitors. We’re not just a rental car company (sameness), but we try harder (difference). We’re not just a cola (sameness), we’re the real thing (difference).

Brands have a better chance of success when the distinction is meaningful, but do not assume that “meaningful” means “tangible” or physical. In fact, the most powerful brands are emotional and promise something the buyer can identify with. For Apple Mac devotees, it’s independence from convention; for Nike enthusiasts, it's athletic possibility. Rarely is branding about bits and bytes or the durable fibers that may make one tennis shoe better or worse than another. That emotional difference grows into loyalty based on “like” and “trust.” Once in place, the brand helps defend your firm or company against assault from competitors because, much as they perhaps should change, people don’t like change.

The thing that is important about your brand is that, once you deliver on its promise, you have built trust and are then allowed to take the relationship to the next level.

The Payoff

Branding creates a halo for the launch of new services or products—a presumption of competence and quality. Familiarity with the brand also helps speed new services or products to market, which is certainly a distinct benefit for services or products that have short life cycles. It also speaks to journalists who will feel more compelled to work the brand and its company into related news stories. As they do, your brand becomes more truth than advertising.

Branding simplifies marketing. With the basic look and feel defined and the key message(s) articulated, new campaigns build on the old. Refreshing an existing and familiar brand is much cheaper than building a new one. Launches go more quickly. Approvals are more often streamlined. Rather than limiting creativity, such variations on the theme are often as exciting as the original. Think Absolut.

Brands open doors. A principal from Ernst & Young has little trouble getting an appointment at the same company that stonewalled the local accounting firm. A local accounting firm, however, that is positioned to guide closely held businesses may get a leg up on E&Y and other competitors. So it’s not just the “brand name” but also the differentiation that matters. The one that paints a likeable and friendly face has an even greater chance of success. (Don’t think that means saying, “Hey, I’m likeable and friendly.” It means being likeable, friendly and unselfconscious in the creative presentation of your brand.)

How We Learn

Overburdened with information and responsibilities, we instantly associate meaning with words. We do not have the opportunity for much personal research or experience. We examine the brand (not the company) and, if it answers our need and it seems true, we begin a relationship.

Most executives want the brand to be about a distinguishing feature—“smarter, better, faster.” In the end, we may be able to sell these features, but it is the creation of the emotional benefit that will carry our brand into the hearts and minds of our customers.