Here is an interesting list, Michele Schermerhorn President of Online Business Institute Inc. has put together:

1. Know Your Customers Better Than You Know Yourself
2. Understand Your Competitive Environment & Competitors
3. Define Your Brand Personality
4. Make A Brand Promise
5. Define Your Brand Strategy
6. Identify Your Branding Game Plan
7. Be Consistent in Action

Now, the second point is not the most commonly use when setting-up such branding rules lists, but I find it very true and usefull:

Your competitive environment has a major impact on how you brand your products or your company. For instance, retail is a highly competitive environment. There are companies that deal in the high end of the market and those who don’t. WalMart has chosen to compete in the low price arena of retailing. They work hard to build a brand of “low price, friendly company”. They obviously do it well. All one has to do is look at their financials to draw that conclusion.

You need to understand your competitive environment as well as WalMart understands theirs. But how can you do that effectively, without WalMart’s budget?

Start by asking your existing customers, “If you weren’t working with us, with whom would you be working?” Identify the companies to whom you most often lose business. Learn as much as you can about these competitors, including how customers perceive them, what makes them unique, and why they win the business they do.

Full read here.

No related posts.

With toursim as the world’s second largest industry, and countries spending more to promote themselves, their product and their assets, FutureBrand feels it is time to look at countries in a whole new way – as brands. Since I presented here the 2005 Country Brand Index, is time now the 2006 Top 10 (number in brackets are representing last year standings):

1. Australia (2)
2. USA (3)
3. Italy (1)
4. France (4)
5. Greece (6)
6. UK (-)
7. Spain (-)
8. New Zealand (-)
9. Maldives (5)
10. India (-)

Here are some excerpts from the FutureBrand report:

While the concept of countries as brand is becoming more accepted, the category continues to be dominated by generic marketing; true adoption of brand as a critical country assett ontinues to be underdeveloped. This study focuses on the tourism component of country brands, since it is currently the most visible and marketed manifestation of a country.

However, the Index also acknowledges other significant areas of country brand opportunities (for instance, investments and exports), and strongly encourages countries to view their brand holistically, rather than in discrete government silos.

While Tourism is often the most consciously marketed aspect of a country, it is only one of many country offerings. It is clear that the image, reputation and brand value of a country impacts the perception of its products, population, investment opportunities and even foreign aid or funding. A country brand at the highest level is much more than a logo or slogan, it is a unifying and identifiable platform that is manifested in the country experience, communicated by officials and citizens and delivered through different government and private agencies. The idea of a country brand is not merely a marketing wrapper, but a value proposition that changes perception and preference, drives usage and increases the economic interests of the country.

You can read the full report here.

Related or not with dropping from the 1st to the 3rd place, Italy now has a new logo and slogan to promote the country as a brand in areas like tourism.

The logo and slogan were presented Wednesday to the press by Premier Romano Prodi and Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli, who oversaw the tender for the initiative The presentation preceded by a day the one for a new Italia.it portal, which will be illustrated at the BIT international tourism trade fair in Milan. You can see the new Italy logo and read more about it here.

No related posts.

The simplest direct measurement is to add all the brand’s communication investments, adjusted for inflation. An additional adjust- ment is sometimes made to account for and reward the risk taken by past managers. This adjustment is called the discount rate and it is used to compute the net present value of the successive investments, that is, what they are worth today. The method is simplistic and overvalues the brands; but brand buyers use it for that very reason. It also penalises brands that do not advertise heavily.

Another direct measurement is the awareness and franchise valuation method. Marketing/product managers, when projecting the volume for a new product, routinely use equations that convert a given advertising budget into its resulting awareness, awareness into trial, and trial into its resulting consumer franchise and consumption volume. Valuation just takes the same path but reverses its direction. This method is easy to use and requires less research than the one previously mentioned.

One of the indirect valuation method is excess-earnings method that tries to assess the increase in profit (or cash flow) attributable to the brand. Then it projects these cash flows over the useful life of the brand (usually limited to 10 years) and does a discounted cash flow analysis, where each year’s projected cash flow is discounted according to the assumed risk of the investment and how far away it will materialise. The sum of these cash flows plus the residual value of the brand at the end of the analysis gives the brand value. The major difficulty with this analysis resides in estimating the incremental effect of the brand on sales or profits.

Relief-from-royalty is another method used by financial analysts. It is based on the concept that, if the company did not have the use of its brand name, it would need to license that right in exchange for a royalty fee. These royalty fees are usually based on a percentage of sales (not profits). The valuation consists of first estimating the fee as a percentage of sales and then projecting that fee over the useful life of the brand.

via

No related posts.

1. An emphasis on “engagement.”
Inserting itself between traditional marketing activities and an increasing demand for return on investment assessments, engagement will become the Holy Grail for marketers and advertisers. Defined as the outcome of ad and marketing activities that substantively increases a brand’s strength in the eyes of the consumers, engagement will be used more and more to allocate marketing budgets.

2. Using technology to better meet consumer expectations.
Consumer expectations in all categories will continue to grow. Expectations have increased more than 26% in the past five years while brands have kept up with these expectations by only 8%! Watch for smart marketers to take advantage of unfulfilled expectations via such values as “convenience” and “customization.” More and more marketers will rely upon Web sites and high-tech capabilities to accommodate these values and differentiate themselves from the competition. Professional services and other non-traditional brands will probably take advantage of the new technologies and start build up brands for themselves.

3. Expanding the potential of Websites and blogs
Engagement concerns and attempts to meet or exceed customer expectations will fuse and be most observed online, particularly on blogs. Watch for increased development of blogs and Websites in general beyond propaganda, information, and use as an electronic cash register toward the creation of “communities of ones.”

4. “Recombinant” experiences.
Disney and Vegas: Oil and water? Consumer values indicate a bipolar continuum for recombinant experiences. Watch for this to reveal itself in more online gaming, especially for adults. Interactive gaming with more and more players being able to compete at once will become table stakes for online games. Marketers concerned with engagement will close their eyes to “appropriateness” and leverage online gaming as a more acceptable venue for virtually every brand.

5. More branded entertainment.
Popular culture, with its rabid consumption of music and technology, will see market and brand leaders leverage plugging-in as a method for customizing entertainment and selling products. For instance, music-related paraphernalia such as T-shirts, posters, and artist-related merchandise will infringe more and more on the dominance of bricks-and mortar retail.

Read full article here.

Tags: branding trends, blogs, branded entretainment

No related posts.

Market: 10% of brand strength. Brands in markets where consumer preferences are more enduring would score higher.

Stability: 15% of brand strength. Long-established brands in any market would normally score higher, because of the depth of loyalty they command.

Leadership: 25% of brand strength. A market leader is more valuable: being a dominant force and having strong market share matters.

Profit trend: 10% of brand strength. The long-term profit trend of the brand is an important measure of its ability to remain contemporary and relevant to consumers.

Support: 10% of brand strength. Brands that receive consistent investment and focused support usually have a much stronger franchise, but the quality of this support is as important as the quantity.

Geographic spread: 25% of brand strength. Brands that have proven international acceptance and appeal are inherently stronger than regional brands or national brands, as they are less susceptible to competitive attack.

Protection: 5% of brand strength. Securing full protection for the brand under international trademark and copyright law is the final component of brand strength in the Interbrand model.

No related posts.