Best Practices in Brand Management – Some Insights

Introduction

There is a strong correlation between successful / less successful brands and

successful / less successful companies. Great companies are often characterized by
great brands which give them a strong advantage against their competition for a long
time. Building, managing and operationalizing such brands is the biggest challenge
faced by all management teams. This white paper presents some of the best practices
employed by the successful companies in brand management.

1. Understand the Brand

A brand is not just an image identifiable by the customers. Neither is it a product or

service with unique differentiation. The concept of brand goes beyond these
definitions. A brand encompasses the whole relationship a product or service has with
the customer. And building such a brand relationship begins with precise definition
and understanding of the target customer group with whom we hope to form a
relationship with.

Avoid looking for techniques or quick-fix solutions to build brands. Instead take a
holistic approach and see how your product or service can relate to a customer in
every possible way. Building brands is both an art and science. It involves careful
fine-tuning of various ingredients that go into building a brand.

2. Know the Strength of Your Brand

Brand value and brand equity are the core of almost everything your organization
means to the consumers. You are only as good as your brands. The strength of a brand
is characterized primarily by two most important parameters – customer loyalty and
differentiation. Strong bonds command customer loyalty for a long, long time and
they also enjoy a differentiated positioning vis-à-vis their competition in the market.

Analyze all your marketing activities from these perspectives. How much of your
marketing effort goes into building customer loyalty and how much to differentiating
positioning of your product.

Best brand management practices focus on retaining customer loyalty as much as

attracting new customers. The entire spectrum of sales and marketing processes of the
organization are built around the customer as their focus. Right from marketing
communications to after-sales support, every core business activity of great
businesses strives to differentiate their products and satisfy their customers.

3. Commit the Organization to Building Long-lasting Brands

While every business executive pays lip service to the necessity of brand building and
brand management, very few manage to actually follow what they preach. Brands
 don’t get built in a day. They are the result of a focused and consistent effort over a
long time.

How strongly does your organization recognize the need to build brands? How
seriously is it committed to brand building? Does your organization have a long term
brand strategy? If so, how strongly was it communicated across the organization?
How many functional areas and marketing activities of the organization are aligned to
such a long term brand strategy?

Did your management assign critical brand portfolio management responsibilities to

specially appointed brand manager or brand management team? How strong is the
support of the senior management in executing the company’s long term brand
strategy?

4. Align Brand Strategy with the Functional Strategies

Very few companies focus on aligning their brand strategy with other functional
strategies. Companies that fail to build strong brands often have disorganized
functional strategies that do not fit into a cohesive brand strategy.

Their brand building investments continue to focus on traditional marketing activities

while ignoring other areas such as customer service, HR training which are actually
very important from the perspective of a long term brand strategy.

Check if the functional strategies and core sales and marketing processes of your
organization are aligned to your long term brand strategy. Do they focus on building
customer loyalty and differentiating your offering? Do they create that ‘aha’
experience to the customer when using your product or service?

5. Be Consistent with Your Brand Positioning

To build a brand, your product must have a distinctive and meaningful position in the
minds of the customers. The strength of a brand springs from such distinctive
positioning. And to strengthen that positioning your brand management activities
must be consistent in its communication over time and across all marketing platforms.

All your functional strategies must take this consistent and distinctive positioning
aspect into consideration. The strategies being employed in product development,
product quality, advertising, logo design, PR, sales communication, marketing
activities, packaging, customer relationship management, and even internal
communications and HR training should consistently strive to strengthen the unique
positioning of your brands.

6. Keep Studying What Your Customer Wants

Successfully selling a product to your target consumer group usually throws the
organization into a comfort zone. That is until the competition springs a surprise.
Turning a successful product into a strong brand requires continually identifying the
 needs of the target consumer group and building upon the unique differentiating
positioning of the product.

Does your organization have a mechanism to systematically study the target consumer
group or does it merely depend on superficial analysis? How frequently do you
conduct market research? How does your brand manager gain insights into the
lifestyle of the target consumer group?

How do you evaluate the marketing choices available with the target consumer from
his or her point of view? How do you reach your target consumer through the new and
evolving marketing channels such as social media and e-mail? How meaningful is the
differentiation offered by your brand to the consumer in this rapidly evolving digital
age?

7. Match the Price with the Value of the Product to Make the Most of the Brand

Along with the needs and desires of the customers, the product too must change. But
the way it differentiates itself from the competition and consistency in offering such
differentiation are what separates a successful product from a successful brand. To
exploit the full potential of your brand, your pricing should match the perceived value
of the brand.

While the consistent differentiation keeps the consumer loyal to the brand, brand
improvisations and extensions can command premium by offering a net positive value
to the consumers.

Implementing an Enterprise-wide Brand Strategy

Successful brands are the result of top-down commitment and rigorous

implementation of a long term brand strategy. The support of senior level
management is very essential to the success of a brand. The resources allocated to the
branding activities often reflect the seriousness with which the top level management
pursues brand strategy.

Organizations need to clearly communicate the role and importance of brands both
internally and externally. They need to identify the critical driving factors that impact
the strength of the brand and support them with adequate resources and rewards.

Using various metrics to measure brand equity and brand value will help to put things
in perspective. Such measurability also simplifies the prioritizing tasks in brand
management. Tie rewards and incentives of your organizational force with brand
performance.

Integrate brand management activities across all levels of the organization and
motivate cross-functional teams such as R&D, sales and finance to have clear
understanding of how they contribute to the brand management.