The Brand: Your Ultimate Competitive Advantage

Les Stern

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Page 1

Developing, Implementing and Measuring
a Branding Strategy

Introduction

Why do people sign their names with a $120 Montblanc pen when they can do the same with a Bic for about a buck? Why do they buy Coke or Pepsi, when lower-priced alternatives are a mere arm's reach away? Why will people refuse to buy a personal computer unless it has an Intel chip in it, a chip they probably will never even see?

The reason is that all of these companies have taken what is more or less a commodity product and made it a product of choice by successfully establishing and maintaining a brand.

The development and implementation of a successful branding strategy is a must for organizations to successfully enter and compete in their marketplace for several reasons.

• Strong branding breaks through the clutter and confusion. For example, the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act a few years ago allowed banks, brokers, insurance companies, mutual fund companies and others to freely enter each other's market and offer a full array of financial services products. Companies from American Express to Citicorp to Merrill Lynch now bombard consumers with marketing messages. Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance and Allstate Life Insurance have rebranded themselves as Northwestern Financial and Allstate Financial to begin repositioning themselves to serve a broad array of consumer financial services needs.
• Strong branding differentiates brands in a commodity market. In many markets, the delivery of health care products is a commodity. There is little differentiation in pricing, most provider systems have a broad network of providers, and people perceive that they will get better no matter which hospital they go into. Providers have found one way they can differentiate themselves is by successfully establishing their brand. For example, Advocate Health System in the Chicago area was able to differentiate itself in the marketplace through implementation of a comprehensive branding program
• Strong branding forces you to clearly identify your target customer base and your core competencies. This even works for small and midsize companies. For example, M-D Wholesale Hardware, a distributor of replacement door hardware to hospitals and schools, started a major marketing campaign by first identifying and ranking its core competencies. This exercise was instrumental in creating the right offers and messages to its target market.

To use marketing to successfully attract and retain consumers, organizations must engage consumers in four different ways. It all starts with branding. A successful branding strategy will allow an organization to generate more revenues and to spend marketing dollars more efficiently by:

• Building awareness (so customers know who they are)
• Develop the right image (so customers know what they are)
• Generating leads (to create opportunities for customer trial)
• Employing ongoing direct sales techniques (to build, maintain and enhance relationships with customers to increase market share, retention and loyalty)

Additionally, a successful branding strategy will allow an organization to:

• Develop and increase customer loyalty
• Protect the organization from future competition
• Leverage specific products and services
• Maintain prices and product differentiation as products and services become commodities
• Allow organizations to enter new markets and cross-sell other products and services. The strength of a brand is why entertainment entities such as professional sports leagues and movie and television studios can create and sell products such as clothing, games and collectibles around teams, movies and television shows.

The value of a brand can be quantified. Indeed, it is estimated that the value of the brand was worth $69 billion to Coca-Cola, the world's most valuable brand according to Interbrand. But you don't have to be an old-line consumer products company to benefit from a strong brand.

It is important to recognize that organizations do not own their brand. Customers and potential customers own the brand; that is, these groups and what they associate the brand with determine the value of the name. To be of value, the brand must be:

• relevant - something the customer cares about
• unique - different from the competition in the minds of customers and prospective customers; something that cannot be copied by the competition
• trustworthy - the customer must trust the organization to deliver on the brand promise (and, in turn, the organization must be able to deliver on it).

This article provides a framework for developing, executing and measuring a successful branding strategy. The benefits of applying this framework are:

• Developing a systematic branding methodology
• Identifying competitive strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats as perceived by all relevant parties
• Incorporating findings into the development of the appropriate branding strategy, including positioning and online and offline media placement
• Ensuring that your branding efforts will be monitored appropriately

Development of this program will require input from key internal and external resources. These opinions are important frames of reference, and making the effort to obtain these opinions will help ensure organizational buy in. Additionally, external sources such as the ad agency, research partner and others will play important roles.

Obviously, a multibillion-dollar corporation such as Coca-Cola has resources not available to most other companies. Spending the dollars on research as outlined in this paper simply may not be realistic, for example. But organizations can creatively still follow the outline. Instead of doing formal research, for example, companies can rely on some of their best customers for input on positioning, creative, etc.

In conclusion, when considering the importance of the brand, think about this statement. "(Company) is a family thing, a set on constant expectations in the public's mind…a certain quality; a certain type of entertainment."

Sound like…Disney? If you think this statement could be talking about today's Disney, you're right. It could be. But it's not.

But talk about the power of a brand. That statement is talking about Disney. But it was made in 1938, by Walt Disney himself.

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