Here is an example of that from Martin Lindstrom:

…branding is much more than developing a familiar consumer image.

I realized a couple of years ago, when one of my colleagues was asked by a major U.S. airline to write a standard announcement to be used by the airline’s captains, that many operational elements, as well as deliberate promotional strategies, are all integral to branding and the establishment of image and identity.

The speech was carefully composed incorporating the advice of a psychologist and a marketing expert, and the writing of one of the country’s best copywriters. The aim was to achieve an announcement that would carry the airline’s image message to the passenger, just as the company’s logo did. This event made me realize the full potential of branding: the 360 degrees that I briefly discussed last week. And 360-degree branding is everything.

Full article here.

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1.   Presentation (basic look/feel) – this is less a true branding exercise, than an attempt to arrive at consistent visual standards. Often, this will involve a logo of some sort, and some graphical/color standards that are designed and enforced in all production (e.g., a stylized T&D with a red and grey scheme).
2.   Message and Presentation – this includes the above, plus the addition of some sort of defining and aspirational message that truly represents the aim of the group.
3.   Identity, Message, and Presentation – this involves a more thoughtful process of seeking to articulate the value, culture, outlook, and goals of the department, now and for the future, and crystallizing this in clear summary statements and messages. In this case, an exercise of “brand-storming” precedes development of messages and presentation element, since those are the outflow of identity definition.

More here.

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The conclusion of the article tells it all: It’s time to remember that advertising needs brands more than the brands need advertising. A good product creates its own relationships.

Understanding what the consumers want and bringing solutions that will inspire them is the most powerful way to support any business strategy. Putting consumers and the product at the center of the equation is fundamental to a brand’s success. Design then becomes the message and the advertising, as it’s proof of a company’s commitment to people and to innovation.
In an emotional economy, success is judged by a profound and indelible connection with people through sensory experiences. The challenge for CEOs, CMOs, and clients the world over is to remember what’s at the soul of their brand: the credibility of a well-respected product and the passion of the culture behind it. Design is the expression of that culture and the link that will cause people to be irresistibly drawn to the brand. If your brand doesn’t connect emotionally, you will have to rely on media or advertising hype, a short-term and risky proposition.

By forgetting to focus on the way your product will be experienced, and failing to respond to people’s need to be stimulated, you fail their expectations. No amount of money can buy the media to fix a boring product, no PR message will work once you lose that trust. The best brands of all jam with their consumers to invent and imagine ideas designed for the future—ideas designed to revive the advertising impact and exponentially maximize your communication dollars.

Read full article here.

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The experts cited understanding of Customer/Target frequently. This mirrors the finding in this report that metrics and brand research are key tools. Communication and Creative effectiveness were also frequently mentioned as critical aspects of successful branding.

These open-ended responses provide a useful counterpoint to the other findings in this report. They reflect the classic tenets of branding and marketing, which are focused on knowing the customer, maintaining a consistent brand in the marketplace, and delivering winning content and creative.

study says.

Here is the list of the top 10 aspects of successful branding, as resulted from the study:

1. Consistency (36.0%)
2. Understanding of Customer/Target (18.2%)
3. Message/Communication (14.7%)
4. Creative/Design/Brand ID (12.8%)
5. Relevance (12.4%)
6. Differentiation/Uniqueness (12.0%)
7. Key Stakeholder Buy-In (10.9%)
8. Positioning (9.7%)
9. Clarity (8.9%)
10. Connection to Customer/Target (8.9%)

Read the study here.

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As the people who deliver the brand promise are employees, making sure they understand and can deliver the brand to customers is vital—especially for companies within the service industry, where the relationship between employees and customers essentially is the product the company sells.

Re-branding takes time. The planning process that produces a new brand can take as long as two years. Educating employees about the new brand, and its implications on the company and their work, can also last years. That effort typically starts several weeks to several months before the new brand is unveiled to customers and continues after the official unveiling to external audiences.

The first step in getting employees on board is to get leadership on message. Once the leadership has been engaged, HR can begin to disseminate the new brand into lower levels of management.

The objective of the internal communications effort is to inspire employees to embrace and own the new brand. You want employees to hear first what their customers will eventually hear. The next step, training, even if it tends to be most intense in the months and weeks leading up to the external launch of the new brand, it does not necessarily end after the public unveiling.

Engaging events to commemorate a launch are often a component of internal re-branding efforts, and they usually occur immediately before the new brand is unveiled to customers and the public. When communicating about a new brand, there is no one way right for every person. So, deliver the message in as many ways as possible to reinforce the message.

The brand is about our client’s interaction with your company and your employees. It’s a small but crucial distinction. The aspect of the brand that matters most inside the company is an intangible one: how employees’ understanding of the company’s brand influences their behavior, whether they interact directly with customers or not.

Full article with details and examples, here.

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Here is a list of 9 things that should be taken in consideration when naming a new business or product:
1. The Name Achieves Differentiation From Competition – your name should be different from the competition, as should your messaging.
2. The Name Reinforces Positioning in Marketplace – a name should make an impact and should bring forth some sense of the company’s position as it enters the marketplace.

3. The Name Engages Customer or Prospect – it should be something that causes interest, causes inquiry and causes potential for action.

4. The Name Is unforgettable – it should embed itself in the collective consciousness, tie to mental signposts in the consumer’s brain and help the consumer remember the name when speaking to friends.

5. The Name Has a Life of It’s Own – A company name needs to carry a self-sustaining message, something that identifies what the company does or provides, without additional messaging or clarity being added.

6. The Name Evokes Deep Well For Graphical Images – it helps develop a logo, and design for websites, etc.

7. The Name Rises Above the Goods and Services You Provide – it should have a greater, more encompassing edge than the things you provide – because if it is tied to services or products, and they change, your name might well need to, also.

8. The Name Has What It Takes to Dominate the Category – this comes from the idea of timelessness, of speaking to the consumer in an unforgettable way, but it also goes above and beyond that.

9. Url has to be Available for Registration For Web Address- extremely important issue in today’s time and age of the internet.

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Employee branding is a process by which employees internalize the desired bran dimage and are motivated to project the image to customers and other organizational constituents. The messages employees take in and process influence

• the extent to which they perceive their psychological contracts with the organization to be fulfilled
• the degree to which they understand and are motivated to deliver the desired level of customer service

In so doing, they drive the formation of the employee brand. The messages employees receive must be aligned with the employees’organizational experiences if the psychological contract is to be upheld. Therefore, the conscious development of organizational messages is the fundamental building block in this process.

The messages must then be delivered through appropriate message sources.The following guidelines provide a starting point in this process:

1. Organizational messages should be carefully thought out and planned in much the same way mission and vision statements are thought out and planned.
2. The organizational messages should reflect the organization’s mission and values.
3. Messages directed toward external constituencies must be in line with the messages sent to employees.
4. Messages directed toward external constituencies should be sent internally as well.
5. The design of recruitment and selection systems should incorporate messages that consistently and frequently reflect the brand and organizational image.
6. The compensation system should incorporate messages that consistently and frequently reflect the brand and organizational image. For instance, managers in organizations that value training must be held accountable when they fail to train and develop their employees.
7. Training and development systems should help managers and employees internalize their organization’s mission and values and help them understand how the mission and values pertain to their roles in their organization.This should enable them to more effectively articulate messages that consistently and frequently reflect the brand and organizational image.
8. Advertising and public relations systems should communicate messages that consistently and frequently reflect the brand and organizational image.
9. Managers should be taught the importance of communicating messages that are consistent with their organization’s mission,vision, policies, and practices.
10. Performance management systems should address inconsistencies between practices and policies to minimize violations of employees’ psychological contracts.
11. Accurate and specific job previews should be given to new employees so that realistic expectations are incorporated into their psychological contracts.
12. Corporate culture (artifacts, patterns of behavior, management norms, values and beliefs, and assumptions) should reinforce the messages employees receive.
13. Individual output should be measured and analyzed to determine if there are message-related problems at the departmental, divisional, or organizational levels.
14. Individual messages should be continually examined for consistency with other messages.
15. Message channels should be examined to ensure consistency of message delivery.
16. In the event that messages need to be changed or psychological contracts altered, organizations must take careful steps in rewriting the messages.
17. Measures should be used to assess outcomes such as customer retention, service quality, turnover, and employee satisfaction and performance

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