The Brand: Your Ultimate Competitive Advantage

Les Stern

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Page 2

Process Overview and Ownership

Like most other initiatives, a successful branding program consists of three parts: development, execution, and measurement. Also like most other initiatives, the most critical part is development. The best way one can be certain that the branding strategy will be successful is to make sure the strategy is developed properly.

The following table shows the individual phases in the branding process. While each phase has multiple elements to it, this provides a high-level roadmap of the process.

 

The Branding Process
Development
Phase I	Understand the behavior of current customers and prospects
Phase II	Understand the perceptions of current customers, prospects and stakeholders and establish benchmarks
Phase III	Develop strategy, positioning, messages and media plan
Phase IV	Conduct research to validate strategy and tactics
Execution
Phase V	Execute all aspects of the program
Measurement
Phase VI	Conduct research to measure changes in target market awareness/image, and monitor changes in indirect measures
Phase VII	Justify the branding investment

Looking back at the three critical factors that determine the success of the brand, it is the development phase that will ensure the brand is relevant. Solid research and analysis will ensure that what the organization is communicating as its brand promise will be important to customers and prospects.

The execution phase will help create a unique brand. By developing strong, memorable messages, and communicating them appropriately, the organization can create a unique brand. It can also succeed in creating a unique brand by developing innovative products and packaging.

It is important to note that this process focuses on creating and communicating the brand promise. Equally as important - if not more so - is the ability to deliver on the brand promise. That is what will make the brand trustworthy. Here are just a few anonymous examples of how an organization can fail to deliver on its brand promise, despite great advertising:

• A retailer with great ads, but whose sales are falling because they are not stocking what customers want
• An auto manufacturer that advertises safety, but has a poor safety record
• A healthcare provider that promotes a quality medical staff, but has poor patient satisfaction scores
• A dot.com advertises on the Super Bowl, but doesn't have the infrastructure to support demand

Because of these factors, it is easy to see that ownership of the branding initiative is organization-wide. True, the marketing department can conduct the research and execute the marketing plan, but it cannot deliver on the brand promise. That is the responsibility of the entire organization.

Therefore, it is crucial that the marketing department keep all other areas of the organization in the loop as the branding strategy is being developed. If, for example, the strategy calls for a high level of service, the operations department needs to be aware of this.

f the campaign will be heavy on direct response marketing techniques, there must be call projections, so the call center can be staffed to handle the calls. After all, not being able to respond to calls is not "a high-class problem;" it's just a problem.

Development

Phase I - Understand the Behavior of Current Customers and Prospects

Big companies may invest hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising, promotion and other brand-building initiatives. Even for the vast majority of companies that won't spend that much, they don't want their investment to be wasted. Therefore, it is important that they commit resources to research and analysis so they know exactly what they are doing before executing the branding strategy. The money they spend on research and analysis can be looked at as an insurance policy to make sure the execution money is spent wisely.

The first step is understanding the behavior and attributes of current customers and prospects. This can best be accomplished by building and then analyzing a Master Customer Information File (MCIF).

Note that this is a "build or buy" decision. An unsophisticated database in Microsoft Excel might work very well for some smaller companies. Remember, before computers, many companies tracked their customers' behavior with handwritten index cards.

On the other hand, the more sophisticated the database, the more value can be derived from it. There are companies that specialize in building databases such as this, and these companies have powerful, sophisticated modeling capabilities that can predict behavior and calculate important measures such as lifetime value. Either way, building this MCIF will take several months.

 

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