Branding - Pic.Sell

Branding Laws

Publicity :The birth of a brand is achieved with publicity not advertising.

Ways to Get Publicity:1. Focus your coverage.

2. Media play

3. Social networking: LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Social media is an excellent way to build relationships with your customers and build word-of-mouth publicity.

4. Powerful press releases: especially when you announce your company's opening, new hires, new product lines or services.

You can add them to the news section of your site, link to them from your social media accounts, and send them to journalists.

Advertising :Once born, a brand needs advertising to stay healthy.

Acts like a defense to protect them against losses.

The Word :A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer.

If you want to build a brand, you must focus your branding efforts to owning a word in the prospect’s mind.

Once a brand owns a word, it’s almost impossible for a competitor to take that word away from the brand.

Examples : Mercedes "prestige" Volvo "safety“

The NameIn the long run a brand is nothing more than a name.

What makes a brand successful : Short term : -unique idea or concept

-Be first in a new category

-own a word in the mind Long term : The Name

Expansion ContractionThe power of the brand is inversely

proportional to its scope.A brand becomes stronger when you narrow

your focus.

The Brand looks at their short term needs and didn’t narrow their

focus.

Dominate the market, build the brand in the mind and increase the sales in the future.

Expand reduce the power of the brand. Contract increase brand's power

Ex: Chevrolet Ex: Nescafé , Starbucks

To build a strong brand in the minds of consumers it's important to contract a brand and not expand it.So narrowing your product and category focus is key to dominating a category market.

Borders:There is no barriers to global branding. A brand should

know no boarders.

The perception of where the brand came from can add or subtract value.

Ex: Watches from Switzerland Automobiles from Germany Electronics from Japan

But we have to know that every brand has to be from somewhere.

"Successful entrepreneurs do NOT go global day one!" --The 7 Habits of Highly Successful Bakers, Con O'Donnell.

By narrowing your focus, you become a specialist rather than a generalist.

A specialist perceives to know more resulting in higher quality.

Perception VS Quality :Quality is important, but brands are not built by quality alone. If it’s Well Branded, It must be more valuable! If there’s no magic, It must be cheap! Be unique

Quality of Service, Not the quality of the product.

  For success to be real and lasting, the perception of quality

must be a reflection of actual quality.

  Just because you have quality to sell, that alone doesn't mean

that anyone will notice.

Generic :One of the fastest routes of failure is giving the brand

a generic name

-Don’t use Generic words : "General, Standard, National, International"

-The vast majority of Brand communication takes place verbally, not visually. The average person spends 9 times as much time listening to the radio and television rather than reading magazines or newspapers.

-A generic word is a generic word in the mind, no matter how you spell it.

Company :Brands are Brands, Companies are companies. There

is a difference.People buy brands they don’t care about the company.

The best brand strategy and the easiest is using the company name as a brand but not on every product you make.

When the customer have to use both brand and company names this means you have serious branding name.

Brand definition

It’s the answer of 5 Questions•What’s your company mission?•What are the benefits or features of your product or service?•What do your customers and prospects already think of?•What qualities do you want them associate with your company?•Who is your target market?

After answering the previous create the personality and character of your company.Use the personality to create a relationship.Then create the brand profile of your company.There should be a team called “Brand Police”.

Extensions :The easiest way to destroy a brand is by putting its name on

everything.

Management measures only the success of the extension. It never measures the erosion of the core brand.

Before you launch a new line extension, ask yourself what the customers of the current brand will think when they see your new line extension.

If the market is moving under you stay where you are and launch a new brand.

If not just stay where you are and continue building your brand.

Sub-branding :What branding builds sub-branding can destroy.

The essence of a brand is some idea or attribute or market segments you can own in the mind. Sub-branding takes the branding exactly the opposite direction.

Ex : Holiday Inn, Crown Plaza.

The Category :A leading Brand should promote the category not the brand.

To build a brand in a new category you have to do 2 things:

1. you have to create the brand in such a way to leave the perception that that brand was the first.

2. you have to promote the new category.

Leaders should continue promoting their category to increase the size of the pie rather than slicing the pie.

The Credentials :The crucial ingredient in the success of any brand is its claim to

authenticity.

As customers are suspicious and tend to disbelieve most product claims.

Leadership is the most direct way to establish the credentials of a brand.

When you don’t have the leading brand, Create a new category in which you can claim leadership.

Fellowship :In order to build the category, a brand should welcome

other brands.

Don’t be greedy.

You should welcome healthy competition. It often brings more customers to the category.

The best thing happened to Coca-cola was Pepsi.

The competition between them made the customer more cola conscious.

Consistency :A brand is not build overnight. Success is measured in decades,

not years.

Markets may change, but Brands shouldn’t. Ever.

The brand has to stand for something both simple and narrow.

Limitation combined with consistency is what build a brand.

Change :Brands can be changed, but only infrequently and only very

carefully.

Brand changing doesn’t occur inside a company, it occurs inside the mind of the consumer.

If you want to change your brand, keep your sights on your target, the consumer’s mind.

Mortality :No brand will live forever. Euthanasia is often the

best solution.

You should know the right time to let your old brand die a natural death.

Opportunities for new brands are constantly being created by inventing new categories.

Ex : Kodak

Singularity :The most important aspect of a brand is its single-

mindedness.

It’s a burned out brand, because it has lost its singularity.

If you lose your singularity, you will weaken your brand.

The brand is a singular idea of concept that you can own inside the mind of the prospect.

A successful branding program is based on singularity. It creates a consumer perception that there is no product or service on the market quite like yours.