Do You Understand Your Own Brand?
Understanding the emotional triggers, cues, and benefits of your brand will help you define your customer’s emotional relationship with that brand.
“Branding is the process of connecting good strategy with good creativity.” -Marty Neumeier. branding author.
Does the thought of creating a brand strategy framework intimidate you? It’s a concept that is too often overcomplicated and filled with jargon and unfamiliar terms to make almost any business owner shy away. But the good news is that it doesn’t have to be difficult or confusing. Certainly, there is work to be done to achieve it, but it’s something even the uninitiated can tackle with great success.
What is a brand strategy and why is it Important?
Your brand strategy is nothing more than a framework for all your sales and marketing efforts representing your brand. Whether you’re an established business or a brand-new start-up, branding will be a critical element in your growth and potential success. Your brand, however, cannot work for you without a solid strategy behind it. Your brand strategy is the architecture that envelops the plans and tactics you will use to establish a competitive advantage and create brand equity in the marketplace.
How well do you understand your brand? Are your customers perceiving it the same way you do? Successfully defining your company and brand image does more than build awareness, it identifies and details the differences of your product or service from your competitors. Proper construction and careful management of your brand can take a struggling business and transform it into a roaring success. And a properly built marketing strategy is the foundation for that success.
A brand strategy framework template and examples
A brand strategy framework will serve to shape the perception of your business in the market and, if properly executed, will make it more appealing to your customers than the alternatives. It defines your brand’s approach to who gets targeted, how, and with what messages. It is the starting point for all your communications and will influence the decisions of your buyers.
Don’t be confused; brand strategy is NOT the listing of individual marketing tactics, like content marketing, advertising, public relations, and social media, just like your brand is not simply the logo and colors and advertising that face your buyers. Your company’s identity is based on the personality you design for it; its purpose, mission, vision, and values.
A good amount of scholarly research has been done on the concept of brand awareness and the creation of brand equity. Let’s take a look at a pair of brand awareness models that can illustrate brand equity and help you build a stronger brand.
Aaker and Keller: Customer, competitor and self-analysis
In the 1990s, a former professor at the University of California, Berkeley, David Aaker, introduced his concept that interprets brand equity as a combination of a brand's awareness, loyalty and perceived quality. These are the assets that help a company increase the value of its products or services, and that can have several benefits for the customer.
His model stresses research: know your market, and your competitors, and be able to honestly evaluate your own purpose. With those in place, Aaker believes, you have the necessary research you need to influence the various steps in the framework.
In short, he believes successful brand equity makes you uber-relevant, and your business will succeed; not because you are better, Aaker said, but because you have made the other brands not relevant.
An alternative to Aaker’s is the Keller model. Marketing and branding expert Kevin Lane Keller developed his Customer Based Brand Equity Model which relies on four fundamental questions a customer will want answers to about your brand. They are:
· Who Are You?
· What Are You?
· What Do I Think or Feel About You?
· How Much of a Connection Would I like to Have with You?
Keller believes that without customer perception, there is no brand, so you must shape the way your customers think and feel about your brand. In Keller’s model, a customer’s brand experience needs to be so positive that they are willing to personally advocate for it.
While Keller’s model is based on the emotional response that the brand creates, Aaker’s is more concerned with the brand’s recognition; how well it is known, and what it is known for. Both models are widely accepted, however, since Keller’s model requires fewer customers and relies on strong relationships beyond the purchase, it is considered particularly suitable for B2B applications. On the other hand, Aaker’s approach is suitable for products that are mass-produced and in a market filled with competitors where the images associated with the brand can be more impactful.
From Trader Joe’s Brand Book by Christina Fountain.
Examples of successful brand strategies
Here are three brief examples of brands that successfully invented and implemented brand strategies.
Chipotle. With established Mexican fast-food giant Taco Bell dominating the marketplace, Chipotle understood that consumers were more health-conscious, and more aware of what they were eating and where it was coming from. Chipotle chose to source ingredients from farms instead of factories and eliminated artificial fillers and flavors. They also correctly determined that millennials cared about brands with values and would support their company’s mission: “Real is better. Better for You, Better for People, Better for Our Planet. It’s not enough to just taste good anymore.”
Dollar Shave Club. Its subscription razor service disrupted the men's grooming products industry by focusing on the promises of simplicity and honesty. They simplified the archaic process of purchasing high-quality razors and developed an alternative where for as little as $1 per month, they would deliver their own premium razor brand via mail. They made the buyer's journey easy and made the buyer feel like part of an exclusive club.
Trader Joe’s. With a variety of high-quality food at low prices and an injection of fun into their retail space, Trader Joe’s differentiated itself against competitors as a “national chain of neighborhood grocery stores.” The company’s largest marketing expense is sampling, choosing to focus on existing shoppers to increase basket size. While the stores are smaller than all their major competitors, they compete successfully on the shopping experience with premium food competitors like Whole Foods.
In essence, brand strategy isn't just about recognition or emotional connections; it's a blend of both. It's about knowing your market, your competitors, and most importantly, your brand's place in the hearts and minds of your customers. Crafting a brand strategy is an essential step toward transforming a struggling business into a thriving success story.
Sources:
https://www.liquidlight.co.uk/blog/brand-frameworks-creating-and-managing-a-coherent-brand-strategy/
https://youtu.be/-w5_61V0SUA (Young and Profiting podcast)
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/keller-brand-equity-model.htm
https://www.manypixels.co/blog/post/brand-awareness-models
https://www.chipotle.com/values
https://issuu.com/virulentecstasy/docs/traderjoes_brandbook_10x8_small1