One thing that both these natures of brand have in common: ultimately they depend on the values, integrity and effectiveness of the organization that creates the brand. If the brand is a promise of a level of quality, you can’t break the promise with immunity, especially in a digitally amplified world of blogs, forums and buzz. Each of the “promise” brands I used as examples, GM, United and Microsoft, stand in danger of their promises losing all meaning with customers. A promise is only as good as the level of trust you’ve built with the recipient.

But if the brand is a religion, the culture of the organization becomes even more important. Irrational decision factors run amok: the perceived culture of the organization, how the brand label connects with who we are, the social circles it places us it, or the circles we wish it would place us in, the values the company stands for, the exclusivity of the brand. The brand relationship becomes a complex stew of beliefs and emotions. We only make this investment for brands that hold a unique position in our mindscape. We feel we have to get as much from the brand as we’re willing to give it in terms of our emotional loyalty. And if a brand doesn’t reciprocate, it is quickly downscaled from a religion to a passing fancy.

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• Trust – can you deliver ‘on time?’
• Security – Does your program focus on client’s privacy and security?
• Relationship – Can clients IM you, ask questions, follow the project step-by-step?
• Increase Customer’s Potential – Can you offer something no one else can offer?
• Social Standing – Can you make them look wealthier, sexier, more influential?
• Power – Do you have what it takes to increase your client’s power?
• Free – Consumers who are motivated by price can feel they are being ‘treated right’ if they give their clients something real. Not an ebook – but a membership or passing on an association newsletter.

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This is a brand which, through a sea-change in its culture and mental set, is staking everything on a speedy, ongoing, renewal of its products, its technological research, the quality of its design and a new constructive relationship with customers. This new-found philosophy has already generated the Panda, Croma, Grande Punto, and Fiat Sedici and will shortly give birth to the Nuova Bravo.

So a new identity, represented symbolically by the new logo through the retrieval of the colour red and the shield as central element, features that characterised Fiat logos up to the ‘Sixties; and through certain formal aspects, the three-dimensional nature of the logo and colour, which suggest an idea of advanced technology, of Italian design, of dynamism and of marked individuality.

says the official press release of the company.

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The strategy is set. You clearly know who you are, you’ve decided on your brand difference, you’ve found folks who want what you have, and you’ve mapped out the great experience you will deliver. Now you must employ the big brand bang and let your message resonate through every point of market contact.

The next step in building your brand is tactical. What specific weapons are you going to launch, at whom, and with what frequency? How will you be heard, noticed, and remembered in a crowded, chaotic playing field, possibly working with less money than your competitors? I refer to this engine as ‘‘speaking loudly even when you whisper,’’ by which I mean making sure that even your smallest effort is on target, relevant, and working to build the brand.

Tactic 1: Visual Identity

The footprint of a brand—your corporate identity, graphic system, or visual voice—can take your brand many good places. It can also head you straight into a wall if it does not accurately project what the brand is and consistently stick to the story.

Tactic 2: Advertising

Advertising can be used to generate leads, sell product, advocate beliefs, persuade, calm unrest, and build brands. Advertising is the act of paying to showcase a message, and more. Advertising gives the brand builder a high-speed lane to the market. On the other hand, it is not immune to falling trees, lightning, bad weather, careless drivers, or an occasional competitor with wings. Smart advertising can fertilize the brand soil and aid in the brand’s growth.

Tactic 3: Brand Partnerships

Sometimes two brands are better than one. Collaboration with other brands, vendors, and distribution channels not only adds firepower and reduces costs, but it ultimately can strengthen a brand.

Partnerships can be as simple as two brands co-hosting an event or as formal as an agreement involving new selling channels, co-op ad spending, joint research, and licensing contracts. When choosing any brand partner, you should adhere to an established set of guidelines that complement your brand and meet business goals.

Tactic 4: Media Relations

Twenty-four-hour news, free-flowing information, and breaking reports offer vast opportunities to get your brand message out with an added layer of authority and third-party endorsement. Despite the cynics, the media has immense influence on the market.

Organizations that don’t take full advantage of this powerful vehicle will miss sales, stature, and a substantial brand bang.

Tactic 5: Community Relations

Community relations encompasses any niche community where having a strong positive relationship is important and valuable to the brand and the market you serve. For many organizations, this includes your category industry and nonprofit interests.

Tactic 6: Sales Promotions/Events

Promotions are any activities that stimulate purchasing. Promotions can work well in both consumer markets and the business-to-business space if planned and executed correctly. A great sales promotion can launch new products, reintroduce new and improved ones, clean out an old line or inventory, synergize co-brands, cross-sell among product lines, arouse loyalty, and entice first-time sampling or trial purchases.

Tactic 7: Customer Service

Serving customers seems like a simple task, yet many savvy business leaders are blind to the huge service cracks in their business. A crack in service is extremely dangerous. One too many rude encounters, another insensitive act, or a downright bitter battle, and your customer will not only make you history, but his rage can spread like wildfire and burn up even the best brand.

Tactic 8: Sales

Selling with brand in hand shortens the distance to the finish line. Selling today is no cakewalk. New products, trillions of choices, and floods of options surround us. Pressure is high, competition is everywhere, and the economy is faltering. So what. Quit your whining. Add some brand to your sales arsenal, and the process gets easier and more effective.

Tactic 9: The Environment and Merchandising

Visual seduction is not just for retailers. Merchandising and environmental branding needs more respect. Once thought of as merely decorative displays or point-of-purchase sale stimulators, today merchandising and the environment are a significant brand-building tactic.

Tactic 10: Online

Building a brand, one thousand clicks at a time: Online technology has catapulted the brand like no other tactic. The impact on all business sectors and models is immense. Small companies can be global. Virtual stores can operate without inventory. Time to market is condensed to a warp speed, and the customer has more options and choices than ever before. As with every new horizon, there lie vast opportunities and difficult challenges

Tactic 11: Alternative and Buzz Activities

Guerrilla or alternative marketing has no rules. The more you can get away with, the better. Such campaigns are nontraditional. They disrupt and surprise. They can be crazy, irreverent, or bizarre, and many times they are extremely potent and effective for a lot less money than the ordinary campaigns

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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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Try to create complementary relationships between your business [tag]name[/tag], its [tag]slogan[/tag], and other communications devices, such as the Web address. Avoid redundant messages. In other words, don’t pick a slogan that simply reiterates your company name. It should enhance and complement that primary statement about your company and provide would-be customers with new, positive information about you.

#1 Define your niche.

Once you have an idea how the slogan will advance your brand, sit down, either by yourself or with a key group of collaborators, and take a hard look at what your company is, what it does, and why the world should care.

“Ask tough questions about your vision, the rationale behind your firm, how is it unique, and what will separate your company from the pack,” advises Eric Swartz, president of TaglineGuru.com. “Come up with some nouns and adjectives that you think are attributes of your company—words you and others would use to describe it. Think specifically about defining what is your niche.”

As you begin listing the values and vision of your company, some powerful words should start emerging that reflect your “brand promise,” Swartz notes. “Your slogan should reflect the experience that you want your customers to have with you,” he says.

#2 Test Adaptability.

After that brainstorming session, you, or someone to whom you assign the task, should come up with several ideas for slogans that you can discuss at a second meeting. If you’re working alone, you do need to get some feedback at this point on the ideas you’re generating. “Use slogans you admire as… models,” Price suggests. “Ask for and collect creative ideas from friends and associates.”

Rank the top few slogan possibilities by how well they hit your message and how clever and compelling they are (see BusinessWeek.com, 8/28/06, “Small Company, Big Brand”). The winning possibilities should lend themselves to permutations and variations that might be improvements if a word is tweaked here or there.

Ideally, a slogan should be fewer than seven words. “It should be used everywhere, including your e-mail signature line,” Swartz says. “It doesn’t have to be funny, clever, or rhyme, but it should be simple, positive, believable, memorable, competitive, original, and benefit-oriented. Always avoid [slogans] that are vague, awkward, confusing, complicated, or communicate an unintended double meaning. Don’t use trendy business jargon.”

#3 Check for matches.

Narrow down your selection to the top three or four slogans and run them past people whose opinions you respect, making sure that you aren’t so wedded to one possibility that you ignore constructive criticism. Sometimes an outsider can have a better perspective on how well a particular slogan works, or doesn’t work, than you do.

Run your finalists through the Web site of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, http://www.uspto.gov, to check whether someone else has already filed or registered the same, or a very similar, slogan. “Query the database to make sure there are no obvious violations,” Swartz says. “Don’t go with anything you think raises a red flag.”

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Brand loyalty reduces customer loss, which improves business growth. You are not replacing lost customers to stay at the same sales volume. Customers must have a favorable attitude toward the product to develop loyalty.

Looking at the future of [tag]loyalty[/tag]-[tag]marketing[/tag] [tag]innovation[/tag], three major trends will emerge.

Trend #1: the power of the network

Marketers have long known the power of engaging in dialogue with customers. But those who push the boundaries of customer dialogue also understand the power of communities of consumers united in affinity for a brand, bound by geography, or engaged in similar lifestyles.

In the loyalty game, helping to create customer groups bound by shared interests is a way to develop a sense of community around your brand. The better your ability to grow dialogue between you and your customers and among your customers themselves, the stronger your brand will become.

Trend #2: the power of data

It’s a hoary truism: Information is power. Simply put, you can’t manage a relationship or enhance the in-store experience without knowing whom your customers are. And indeed, before you can really leverage loyalty-program information to enhance your company’s core product, you need to understand what insights you can glean from the data you’ve already collected. Basic ROI analysis is no longer the end game. It’s just the starting point.

Trend #3: the power of convergence

An epic confluence of events and factors outside the loyalty space will form the third seismic shift that will influence your loyalty strategy. In the global marketplace, three major areas of convergence are giving rise to a second generation of multimerchant loyalty coalitions: corporate convergence, in which mega-corporations continue to gobble one another up, with the corresponding size of their customer bases growing more astounding every day; CRM convergence, in which the next generation of CRM technology helps these same companies organize every aspect of their businesses around customer segments; and point-of-sale (POS) technology convergence, in which the next wave of payment and identification innovations will eventually collide in their ability to enable sustainable brand-customer relationships.

As consumers pull out their coalition cards several times a week while shopping at top brands, coalitions will win the battle for share of mind. And the first companies in each sector to align their brands with a top-tier loyalty coalition will enjoy a formidable first-mover advantage. The bottom line: You’ll need a strategy to evaluate whether an emerging coalition is the right one for you.

via

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People increasingly see the product experience as a key driver of the brand relationship. The quality of the product experience is growing in importance after a couple of decades when some companies perhaps lost focus on product performance, particularly in developed markets. If true innovation is defined as product change that provides real solutions to real consumer issues, then it’s not unfair to suggest that some brands ignored this in favour of quick-fix brand extensions which lacked any longer-term impact

Surface innovation that fails to truly innovate or differentiate can have a short-term positive impact on profits. This may be enough for a new product manager under pressure to deliver, but it can turn off consumers in the medium term, as marketing becomes a surrogate for product innovation and stops being truly effective.

Consumers buy products, and for many the product experience is by far their most important touchpoint. It should be stressed that, although it has been over-emphasized on occasion, the so-called softer side of the brand remains an important component of the brand alchemy. Through a brand’s emotional story, the product experience is amplified and linked to the consumer’s imaginative life – it is all a matter of balance.

The second trend is the development of corporate brands, which have traditionally stayed ‘behind the scenes’. Procter & Gamble’s name is increasingly visible on many of its brands. Its main competitor Unilever also announced early last year that they would use their corporate name in customer-facing marketing activities. We could also mention Nestlé, Danone and many others, which have been historically keen to hide their wide range of branded products from consumers. Many reasons drive the decision to appear as one company under an ‘umbrella brand’. In part it is a response to a global marketplace, but the main factor is the need to rationalise marketing spend.

Many companies have developed multi-layered and extremely complex brand architectures over the years – some for historical reasons (like brand acquisitions), some possibly due to a lack of internal cohesion or communication. The trends toward corporate branding and an emphasis on the product allow us a different perspective on what brand architecture could and should look like. They imply a simplified brand structure in which the corporate brand would directly endorse a range of product brands, with all intermediate brand levels progressively disappearing. This would clarify the offers, put the product back at centre stage for consumers, and force companies to really define their corporate brand and related values.

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Mr. Wreden takes ambitious steps in explaining the significance of “sustainability” in customer relationships and the value of measuring marketing spending to establish accountability and profitability. Sustainability is critical, since by some estimates 80-95 per cent of products fail to become brands, he writes. Sustainability is also important because more than two-thirds of purchases are one-off buys. Only a brand focused on sustainability will take the steps that lead to second, third or even a lifetime of purchases.

ProfitBrand amplifies this concept, known in direct-marketing circles as the true value of a brand: “A brand is not built by acquiring customers; it is built by keeping them,” he writes. “Most competitive product advantages can be duplicated. The one advantage that cannot be duplicated is customer relationships.” Branding strategies that aim to make a company No. 1 in the market, for example, are doomed to failure, Mr. Wreden argues. That’s because brand sustainability can be achieved only on the basis of relationships formed on customer terms, not company terms.

Read the full review of the book here. (free registration required).

Other leading business books selected by the editors at Strategy + Business in marketing categories include:

• All Marketers Are Liars : The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World, by Seth Godin
• Brand Hijack : Marketing Without Marketing, by Alex Wipperfürth
• How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market, by Gerald Zaltman

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The functions of a brand for consumers

• Brands play a role in terms of communication and identification. They offer guidance, convey an expectation of quality and so offer help and support to those making purchase decisions. Brands make it easier for consumers to interpret and digest information on products.
• The perceived purchasing risk is thus minimized, which in turn helps cultivate a trust-based relationship.
• A brand can also serve as a social business card, expressing membership in a certain group. Premium brands, for instance, can even engender a sense of distinction and prestige.
• Consuming certain brands is also a means of communicating certain values. By opting for particular brands, a consumer demonstrates that he or she embraces particular values; the brand becomes a tool of identity formation.

The functions of brands from a company’s perspective

• A brand fosters brand and customer loyalty. Particularly strong brands can establish the prevalence of premium prices on the market and soften consumer reactions to price changes. Specifically brand-oriented buyers – who are more concerned with brands than prices – are more resilient when it comes to changes in the competitive scenario. This decreased sensitivity to price changes makes them more valuable as customers.
• The reduction in perceived purchasing risk lays the groundwork for a relationship of trust, giving brands a role to play in lashing customers to a company.
• Brands can counter the swelling ranks of trade because dealers stock their shelves and fill their order lists with products explicitly requested by consumers. Strong brands in particular keep sales levels and market share constant and considerably lessen dependence on short-term special promotions.
• A brand unlocks great potential in terms of licensing opportunities as well, helping companies achieve plans for international expansion.
• Finally, brands also offer companies potential for honing a clear profile and overshadowing the competition. Strong brands in particular can reduce the risk that new product launches will flop and can be used as platforms for successful brand stretching (also in terms of launches in completely new product segments and sectors)

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