Posts Tagged ‘branding’

General image marketing is…

• a General Motors’ TV “corporate” commercial showing several of their cars in a beautiful field of flowers… With a happy looking family having a barbecue in the middle of the field. It doesn’t really cause anyone to take direct action and buy a car now, it is just supposed to give you a good feeling about general motors in general.

Direct response marketing is…

• a TV commercial from the local General Motors dealer telling you all about the July 4th super sale… special prices, super low payments, additional options added at no charge during the sale period only. This type of advertising causes people to actually flood into the dealership and actually want to buy the dam car right now. This commercial is not overly pretty, no fields of flowers, just straight talk about what you can get, and why it is to your advantage to buy it now.

The direct response ad is what actually brings in floods of money into the dealership.

The general image ad doesn’t make any real money for anyone except the ad agency that produces it.

The advertising world has many annual awards that they give out to ad agencies. When an ad agency wins an award for an image ad or campaign that they created… the people in the winning agency all go around “high fiving” each other in the office and at industry trade events for months… The award sits in a showcase in their lobby… it is their badge of achievement… however, research shows that most image ads that win creative awards FOR THE AGENCY… turn out to be a total non productive bomb for the poor client that actually paid for it all.

Each side of the coin seems to have a different set of values that they call winning. The purpose of today’s post is to help business owners differentiate between dollars that can be quantified and not when planning advertising or public relations budgets.

People often thinking of a brand as the symbol, name or logo associated with a product. In reality, branding involves far more. Branding is basically the process of creating a strong identity for an organization, and it applies to both product manufacturers and companies that provide a service. An organization’s brand identity drives the company as a whole by providing a framework through which the members of the organization can establish a memorable, active relationship with consumers. When a company brands itself successfully, people remember that organization and what it stands for, and they come to know exactly what to expect from interacting with its members or using its products.

In recent years, as marketing has shifted and become more about establishing a relationship with customers and less about bombarding them with names and logos, the role of branding has increased in scope and significance. Branding appeals to people’s memory of an experience with an organization. Clear and consistent messages about a company’s products or services, the experience of interacting with that company, and its appeal to the values and self-concept of consumers make for a successful branding campaign. A brand is, in effect, a company’s way of doing business, which develops as a result of its identity and its reputation. It is also the association that consumer’s have with its products or services. Customer service, or the way a company operates in relation to those it serves, is the action by which a brand is established and imprinted in the memory of a targeted market. Another way to say this is that a company’s brand is its way of standing out and separating itself from its competitors.

Though successful branding is often paramount to a company’s success, there are pitfalls and challenges that must be faced. A variety of common problems can stand in the way of a company’s efforts to brand itself effectively. One such barrier is not having a clear set of values with which to identify the brand. Without a clearly defined mission and vision that all employees share, a brand identity cannot be effectively established. An organization’s own members must connect to a brand identity before that identity can be communicated to consumers. Staff must be motivated to work together and act as representatives of the brand outside the walls of the organization. Management must be willing to make the changes necessary to accomplish this. Resources, processes and tools must exist to automate presentation of the brand to the marketplace, and the organization must stay connected to its customers and be willing to make adjustments dictated by feedback from them.

A brand name and logo are simply an association or way to identify the experience of the brand in its entirety, much like a person’s name or photograph evokes everything you know about who that person is, what he or she stands for, and how he or she behaves. Since all names and images carry associations, brand names and logos must be chosen with care. A good name is a positive influence on the way members of the organization identify themselves as well as how consumers view the product or service that carries that name. This is particularly relevant in cyberspace, where domain names need to be memorable on a global scale. Names that resonate across cultures and languages are crucial to branding success.

In addition to having a good name, a successful brand must be well positioned. The brand’s position is the place it has in the minds of those it aims to serve. A brand must be positioned in such a way that it’s uniqueness and value to the consumer is apparent. Since customers must feel connected to a brand, it not enough for the brand or logo to simply be recognized. Companies and consumers form an interactive relationship that involves an exchange between the organization’s offerings and the consumer’s needs and expectations. In this sense, brands are a form of communication, and a brand that communicates well in a way that is consistent with its actions gives consumers a deeper and more meaningful experience with the brand.

Companies can use any one of five strategies for branding, each with its own shortcomings and advantages. First, a company can develop line extensions, which new items are introduced within a product category, such as “all natural” or “organic” versions of a food product. While the brand may be in danger of losing its specific meaning in the minds of consumers, this strategy can also work well to attract new customers. Another strategy is brand extension. In this case, an existing brand name is used for a completely new kind of product. Using this strategy, a well-known apparel manufacturer may launch a line of perfumes or beauty products. As long as the new product is well received and the brand’s reputation is upheld, this strategy can help a company expand into new markets. A third strategy is multi-branding, which occurs when a company creates a variety of brands within a product category, each designed to appeal to a different audience. The danger here is that the brands may each compete with each other for small shares of the market with none of them doing particularly well on its own. Some companies create entirely new brands to launch products in new categories when existing brands and brand names do not fit the new product at all. There is also an emerging practice known as co-branding in which two well-known brands merge to create a new product that boasts both previously accepted brands.

For product manufactures, packaging is another key feature that affects how consumers view the brand. People often identify a brand by its packaging. Several elements are important here, including the “packaging concept,” which defines what the package should accomplish for the product. The package should be carefully designed with attention to size, shape, color, font and logo, as well as the type of material that should be used. Decisions about pricing, marketing and advertising are often dependent upon the type of packaging developed for the product, which may affect how it can be handled, distributed or displayed. The association that consumers make with a particular kind of packaging is as important as other features of the brand. For example, the Planters Lifesavers Company introduced vacuum-packed peanuts in 1992 to capitalize on the association that consumers already made between fresh coffee and vacuum packaging. Growing concerns about the environment make recycled packaging materials attractive to many people, and safety concerns have highlighted the importance of using “tamper-proof” packaging.

Companies that are successful at branding are able to develop a “story” around a product or service that will create an affinity with customers. Since most businesses today are difficult to distinguish from one another, an intermediary is often called upon to help envision a fresh perspective that can be developed into a lucrative branding campaign. An intermediary with experience in branding can leverage a company’s uniqueness and help launch, build, evolve and grow a business. Branding is more than selecting the right language and packaging, and it requires dedicated personnel and budgets, as well as time and expertise. With already overburdened staff members who may lack the experience, skills and resources specific to branding, it often makes sense to hire an intermediary to manage the venture. In some cases, intermediaries can be brought in as temporary consultants to give specialized, expert attention to developing or improving a communications strategy.

Hiring an intermediary to develop brands can benefit two distinct types of client companies. In one case, a firm that has been victimized in the past by legal or linguistic issues can alleviate fears of future mistakes by bringing in an intermediary. In other cases, firms for which branding is more than an afterthought can become truly excited by the expanded possibilities inherent in bringing in experts in the branding arena. Though the two groups overlap, the decision to hire an intermediary often comes down to a combination of uncertainty and hope that exists for most companies considering brand development.

Essentials of Marketing

Too often, advertisements are created without clear goals! And a campaign without focus is not very effective. The key to deciding what the role of advertising should be is to understand what the advertising can do. Though you may already be familiar with the principles of advertising, a periodic review of them can be helpful as I see many instances where bad decisions have been made - this applies domestically and internationally.

It is useful to think of advertising in terms of three broad categories: Product, Promotion, and Brand.

Product Advertising
Advertising was invented to inform consumers about a product. As competition grew among creators of similar products, it became increasingly important to tell consumers about superior features or attributes of one product versus another. As products became more homogeneous, it became harder to differentiate between them on the basis of features and attributes, so advertisers were forced to uncover subtle “benefits” to differentiate their products or their clients’ products from the competition.

Understanding the difference between a feature, an attribute and a benefit is important because they are hierarchical in terms of their ability to communicate. A feature is something about the product (e.g. twin rear-view mirrors; a price of $100; Teflon coated). An attribute is the functional result of the feature (unobstructed rear view, priced lower than the competition, easy to clean) and a benefit clarifies how this is important to the consumer (safer driving means lower insurance rates; more money to spend on other things; more time to spend with the family). It is generally easiest to describe a feature; most consumers will understand what it is. While an attribute may be a stronger selling point, it may not be relevant to all consumers. A benefit may have even less universal significance, though it is the strongest selling point for consumers that can relate to it. Regardless of which of these is most likely to differentiate the product most clearly, features, attributes and benefits can all be described in both functional and emotional terms. The manner in which you advertise a product should depend largely on the consumers’ knowledge of the product’s features, understanding of its attributes, and insight into how those attributes can be beneficial to them personally.

Promotional Advertising
Promotional advertising is designed to support sales and distribution efforts. A promotion has the singular goal of getting consumers to buy something now, and it is always based on a limited time offer that gives consumers a distinct reason not to wait.

The strategy in promotional advertising is to give the consumer a continual set of exciting reasons to visit your location and/or buy your product. For this strategy to be effective in the long term, however, the inherent value of the product itself must be apparent. If it is not, consumers will see no ongoing reason to buy the product once the discount or premium expires, and you may end up with a “discount brand,” in spite of your best marketing efforts.

Brand Advertising
Brand advertising communicates the superiority of the makers or presenters of a product over all others with similar products. Brand advertising communicates something about what an organization stands for in terms that consumers judge to be important. This information (often called brand attributes) can be functional (i.e.. quality) or ethereal (i.e., trustworthiness) in nature. Again, any brand attribute can be framed in either functional or emotional terms depending on the consumer insights that dictate the creative development of the advertising.

While brand advertising does not result in immediate sales, it is essential to the long-term survival of a company for three reasons:

• A strong brand pre-empts competition. It may be possible to duplicate every aspect of the product, but it is never possible to duplicate the attributes of a well-established brand.

• It supports premium pricing. It is well documented that consumers are willing to pay more for the promise a brand brings to the purchase.

• It builds value for shareholders beyond immediate sales results. Companies are including the value of their brands on the balance sheet as a significant component of the corporate asset base. This valuation is depends directly on the effectiveness of brand development, which in turn depends on advertising investment.

While “rules” in general do not make for great advertising, it is a good idea to keep in mind the general dogma of advertising and what it can accomplish. Product advertising differentiates the product. Promotional advertising communicates a compelling reason to buy now. Brand advertising communicates brand attributes. With this foundation, advertising can be evaluated on its creative merits (likability, intrusiveness, impact, etc.), simple ideas about what should or should not be included in the copy.

Marketing managers and PR specialists do not always talk the same language. Marketing managers are much more bottom line oriented, whereas PR practitioners see their job as preparing and disseminating communications. But these differences are disappearing.

Many companies are turning to marketing public relations companies (MPR) to directly support corporate or product promotion and image making. Thus, MPR, like financial PR and community PR, serves a special constituency, namely the marketing department.

The old name for MPR was publicity, which was seen as the task of securing editorial space-as opposed to paid space-in print and broadcast media to promote or “hype” a product, service, idea, place, person, or organization. But MPR goes beyond simple publicity and plays an important role in the following tasks:

• Assisting in the launch of new products: The amazing commercial success of toys such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, and Beanie Babies owes a great deal to clever publicity.

• Assisting in repositioning a mature product: New York City had extremely bad press in the 70’s until the “I Love New York” campaign began.

• Building interest in a product category: Companies and trade associations have used MPR to rebuild interest in declining commodities such as eggs, milk, beef, and potatoes and to expand consumption of such products as tea, pork, and orange juice.

• Influencing specific target groups: McDonald’s sponsors special neighborhood events in Latino and African American communities to build goodwill.

• Defending products that have encountered public problems: Johnson & Johnson’s masterly use of MPR was a major factor in saving Tylenol from extinction following two incidents in which poison-tainted Tylenol capsules were found.

• Building the corporate image in a way that reflects favorably on its products: Iacocca’s speeches and his autobiography created a whole new winning image for the Chrysler Corporation.

As the power of mass advertising weakens, marketing managers are turning more to MPR consultants and firms. In a survey of 286 U.S. marketing managers, 3/4ths reported that their companies used MPR. They found it particularly effective in building awareness and brand knowledge, for both new and established products.

At KGI, our international MPR activities can contribute to the following objectives:

• Build awareness: MPR can place targeted stories in foreign media to bring attention to a product, service, person, organization, or idea.

• Build credibility: MPR can add credibility by communicating the message in an editorial context.

• Stimulate the sales force: MPR can help boost sales force and channel enthusiasm. Stories about a new product before it is launched will help the sales force sell.

• Hold down promotion costs: MPR costs less than direct mail and media advertising. The smaller the company’s promotion budget, the stronger the case for using
  PR to gain share of mind.