Building A Strong Brand: Brands and Branding Basics

by Dave Dolak The word "brand", when used as a noun, can refer to a company name, a product name, or a unique identifier such as a logo or trademark. In a time before fences were used in ranching to keep one's cattle separate from other people's cattle, ranch owners branded, or marked, their cattle so they could later identify their herd as their own. The concept of branding also developed through the practices of craftsmen who wanted to place a mark or identifier on their work without detracting from the beauty of the piece. These craftsmen used their initials, a symbol, or another unique mark to identify their work. Not too long afterwards, high quality cattle and art became identifiable in the consumer's mind by particular symbols and marks. Consumers would actually seek out certain marks because they had associated those marks in their minds with tastier beef, higher quality pottery or furniture, sophisticated artwork, and overall better products. If the producer differentiated their product as superior in the mind of the consumer, then that producer's mark or brand came to represent superiority. Today's modern concept of branding grew out of the consumer packaged goods industry and the process of branding has come to include much, much more than just creating a way to identify a product or company. Branding today is used to create emotional attachment to products and companies. Branding efforts create a feeling of involvement, a sense of higher quality, and an aura of intangible qualities that surround the brand name, mark, or symbol. So what exactly is the definition of "brand"? Let's cover some definitions first before we get too far into the branding process.

What is a brand?
If you ask ten marketing people or brand managers to define the word "brand" you will likely get ten different answers. Most of the answers you receive, hopefully, will have some common themes. In my own experience and study of brands and branding there is one definition of "brand" that seems to most succinctly define exactly what a brand is. The definition of brand: A brand is an identifiable entity that makes specific promises of value. In its simplest form, a brand is nothing more and nothing less than the promises of value you or your product make. These promises can be implied or explicitly stated, but none-the-less, value of some type is promised. Additional definitions Brand awareness is when people recognize your brand as yours. This does not necessarily mean they attach a high value or any superior attributes to your brand, it just means they recognize your brand. Aided awareness occurs when you show or read a list of brands and the person expresses familiarity with your brand. Top-of-mind awareness occurs when you ask a person to name brands within a product category and your brand pops up first on the list. When you think about facial tissue, gelatin, and adhesive bandages do the brands Kleenex, Jello, and Band-Aid come to mind? These brands enjoy strong top of mind awareness in their respective categories. Strategic awareness occurs when not only does the person recognize your brand, but they also understand the distinctive qualities that make it better than the competition. Strategic awareness occurs when you have differentiated your brand in the mind of your market. This is simple so far, right?

Brand awareness is not everything

Brand awareness is vitally important for all brands but high brand awareness without an understanding of what sets you apart from the competition does you virtually no good. This distinction as to why your brand is unique in your category is also referred to as your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). Your USP tells your target market what you do and stand for that is different from all of your competitors. Let's examine a couple examples from the recent "dot com phenomenon" that illustrate a point about brand awareness. Do you remember seeing all those advertisements and all the publicity surrounding certain brands during the recent "dot com" craze? Many of these companies devoted huge advertising budgets to creating brand awareness. They spent millions upon millions to "get their name out there" so people would recognize their names. The problem was they may have created high brand awareness, but they were never very successful explaining why they were distinctive or any better than their competitors. They failed to create strategic awareness. They never taught us their Unique Selling Proposition. For instance, advertisers in the United States never taught me why I would want to buy from Pets.com rather than my local pet store. Sure, I remember the gerbil being shot out of the cannon in an Outpost.com television advertisement, but Outpost.com never clearly told me who they are, what they stand for, or how they are different from everyone else in their category. In fact, after watching their advertisement, I did not even know what their category was.
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Pets.com and Outpost.com focused on getting attention and creating awareness rather than building strategic brand awareness in the two examples above. They made a severe mistake in their branding efforts by not creating strategic awareness. Don't make the same mistake with your brand. These examples also illustrate that while advertising is an important tactical element in building a brand, branding encompasses much more than just advertising. You can not build a strong brand solely through advertising. Branding is also more than a logo, a color scheme, and a catchy tagline. While these all are important components in branding, they are simply tactical tools that help establish and build the brand. Establishing a brand I've heard very strong arguments that publicity is the way a strong brand is truly established and advertising is how the brand is maintained. If you think about this theory for a moment, it makes a lot of sense. If a brand is successful in making a connection with people and communicating its distinct advantage, people will want to tell others about it and word-ofmouth advertising will develop naturally, not to mention writers in the press will want to write about the brand. Once that type of differentiation is established in the market's mind, advertising can help maintain and shape the brand. What you need to do in branding is to communicate what the brand distinctively stands for using as few words or images as possible. So remember, branding is all about creating singular distinction, strategic awareness, and differentiation in the mind of the target marketnot just awareness. When you have been successful, you will start building equity for your brand.

Brand Equity
Brand Equity is the sum total of all the different values people attach to the brand, or the holistic value of the brand to its owner as a corporate asset. Brand equity can include: the monetary value or the amount of additional income expected from a branded product over and above what might be expected from an identical, but unbranded product; the intangible value associated with the product that can not be accounted for by price or features; and the perceived quality attributed to the product independent of its physical features. A brand is nearly worthless unless it enjoys some equity in the marketplace. Without brand equity, you simply have a commodity product.

More things to know about brands

As I mentioned earlier, a brand is more than just a word or symbol used to identify products and companies. A brand also stands for the immediate image, emotions, or message people experience when they think of a company or product. A brand represents all the tangible and intangible qualities and aspects of a product or service. A brand represents a collection of feelings and perceptions about quality, image, lifestyle, and status. It is precisely because brands represent intangible qualities that the term is often hard to define. Intangible qualities, perceptions, and feelings are often hard to grasp and clearly describe. Brands create a perception in the mind of the customer that there is no other product or service on the market that is quite like yours. A brand promises to deliver value upon which consumers and prospective purchasers can rely to be consistent over long periods of time. You already have at least one brand First of all, you must understand that you already have a brand. Everyone has at least one brand. Your name and who you are is, in fact, your personal brand. The brand called "you". The issue then is not whether you have a brand, the issue is how well your brand is managed.

Brand Management
If a brand is not effectively managed then a perception can be created in the mind of your market that you do not necessarily desire. Branding is all about perception. Wouldn't it be nice to have people perceive you the way you would like them to perceive you? That is what branding and brand management are all about. Brand management recognizes that your market's perceptions may be different from what you desire while it attempts to shape those perceptions and adjust the branding strategy to ensure the market's perceptions are exactly what you intend. So you may now have a better understanding of what a brand is and why awareness about your brand does not necessarily mean your brand enjoys high brand equity in the marketplace. You might even understand that brand management is all about shaping and managing perceptions. You may still be asking yourself, however, why you should care about branding in the first place.

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The benefits of a strong brand

Here are just a few benefits you will enjoy when you create a strong brand:

A strong brand influences the buying decision and shapes the ownership experience. Branding creates trust and an emotional attachment to your product or company. This attachment then causes your market to make decisions based, at least in part, upon emotion-- not necessarily just for logical or intellectual reasons. A strong brand can command a premium price and maximize the number of units that can be sold at that premium. Branding helps make purchasing decisions easier. In this way, branding delivers a very important benefit. In a commodity market where features and benefits are virtually indistinguishable, a strong brand will help your customers trust you and create a set of expectations about your products without even knowing the specifics of product features. Branding will help you "fence off" your customers from the competition and protect your market share while building mind share. Once you have mind share, you customers will automatically think of you first when they think of your product category. A brand is something that nobody can take away from you. Competitors may be able to copy your products, your patents will someday expire, trade secrets will leak to the competition, your proprietary manufacturing plant will eventually become obsolete, but your brand will live on and continue to be uniquely yours. In fact, a strong brand name may be your most valuable asset. Brands also help people connect with one another. Have you ever witnessed the obvious bond between people who ride a certain brand of motorcycle? I myself ride a Honda Gold Wing motorcycle and no matter where my wife and I find ourselves when riding the bike, if there is another person riding a Gold Wing, we have instant rapport with them and immediately begin talking about our experiences with the brand. How is it that we can feel such a connection with complete strangers? The answer lies in the psychological connection we have with the Gold Wing brand. I am told that owners of Harley-Davidson motorcycles experience an even stronger sense of connection. A strong brand can make actual product features virtually insignificant. A solid branding strategy communicates a strong, consistent message about the value of your company. A strong brand helps you sell value and the intangibles that surround your products. A strong brand signals that you want to build customer loyalty, not just sell product. A strong branding campaign will also signal that you are serious about marketing and that you intend to be around for a while. A brand impresses your firm's identity upon potential customers, not necessarily to capture an immediate sale but rather to build a lasting impression of you and your products. Branding builds name recognition for your company or product. A brand will help you articulate your company's values and explain why you are competing in your market.

People do not purchase based upon features and benefits

People do not make rational decisions. They attach to a brand the same way they attach to each other: first emotionally and then logically. Similarly, purchase decisions are made the same way, first instinctively and impulsively and then those decisions are rationalized. A strong brand helps mold and shape that emotional reaction in people, which is a very strong influencer in the purchasing decisions they make. Once they have an emotional attachment to your product or your company, then they will justify their purchase decision based upon product features and benefits. So now that you understand some of the reasons why you should want to build a strong brand, let's talk about how you will go about building a strong brand.

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Steps in building a strong brand

1) Start with a quality product. To build a strong brand you must start with a quality product that delivers superior performance. All strong brands absolutely demand a superior product or service. High quality is a prerequisite to entry so don't think high quality is enough to set your brand apart from the competition. 2) Identify your brand's singular distinction, define your message, and position your brand properly in the marketplace. Once you have a high quality product, then you must decide upon the singular distinction for your product that is most important to your target market. Are you first, best, fastest, or most luxurious in your category? If so, then you may have found your point of singular distinction. You should put a lot of thought into choosing your brand's singular distinction because everything you do will reinforce your singular distinction in your market's mind in some way. An interesting thing to know is that many times the first brand in a category emerges as the category leader and can enjoy that leadership position for years and years. If your brand is not first in your category then create a new category so you can position your brand to be first in that category. Being first in your category is often a positioning strategy that allows your brand to be the leader in your category for many years. Federal Express was not the first package delivery company so they invented a new category--overnight package delivery. Not only were they the first brand in overnight shipping but they continue to be the leader in that category. Your brand must make people feel better, be faster, do something much better, or deliver a perceived quality of lifestyle much higher than competitive brands. Take the time to understand your category and then position your brand in some manner that makes it very distinctive within the category. Own a word or phrase When defining your message, try to own a single word or short phrase in the mind of the market. Coca-Cola owns "the real thing". Volvo owns "safe". Miller Lite owns "less filling, tastes great". Federal Express owns the word "overnight". If somebody else in your category already owns the word, choose a different word. The chances are that word is firmly etched in the mind of the target market and they associate it with your competitor's brand. You are not very likely to change that impression regardless of how much money, time, and effort you put into trying to take over ownership of that word. The strongest brands that exist today are strong because they stay focused on that one aspect of singular distinction. Once you try to position your brand to be many different things to many different people, then your brand begins to not really mean much of anything to anyone. Positioned properly, your brand will enjoy a leadership position in your market. 3) Tap into emotion. Develop accessible attributes for your brand. Your brand should readily tap into your target market's psyche and evoke an emotional response. 4) Build the image. Visually, verbally, and through your actions you need to build the message you are trying to create about your company's value. Choose or create a memorable name for your brand. Create a visually effective logo. Write a tagline or slogan for the brand that concisely captures the essence of your unique selling proposition. Your brand should communicate through all marketing channels with one voice, in the same tone, in the same style. In other words, your brand image must remain constant across all channels of communication. 5) Market the image. Projecting the image of your brand should be carried out among all contact points with your market. This means your name, logo, advertising, and all marketing communications materials should communicate your USP and consistently communicate your brand's message. Don't forget about your website, mailings, sponsorships, and events. Your branding effort must permeate your entire organization. The CEO, the customer service staff , the sales force, the people who ship your product, and the people who sweep the floors at night must all know and demonstrate your brand's singular distinction at every touch point with your market. 6) Live the message. You need to deliver on the promise you make to your market. Whatever your brand image, positioning statement, or unique selling proposition, you have made promises to your market that you must deliver on. Remember, your brand is nothing more and nothing less than these promises and you must deliver on these promises in the mind of your market. Everyone in your organization must be trained to think from a brand perspective. All employees who have contact with prospects and customers should speak and act in a way that is consistent with your brand's values.

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You'll know your organization is working together to build a strong brand when there is an underlying sense that your employees act based upon what is in the best interest of the brand rather than in their own self-interest or in the interest of their departments. Tell everyone in your organization that the one yardstick for evaluating every decision will be whether or not the decision is made by answering the question: "What is best for the brand?". The customer's experience must meet or exceed your brand's claims and promises of value. When your entire organization is clear about your brand's values and promises and everyone in your organization works together to build a strong brand, your market will notice and their image of your company will be consistent with your brand identity. Your brand can deliver an enormous sense of satisfaction and enjoyment to your employees--but only if they treat it right. 7) Measure your brand equity against the competition and continue to build and refine your brand. The only way to know how well you are doing in your branding effort is to measure your brand equity against your competition at frequent intervals. This can be accomplished through a variety of market research methods such as conducting market surveys, analyzing the price premium your brand can enjoy, studying the sustainability of your brand, and conducting focus group research. Brand equity is constantly changing just as society's values, perceptions, and intelligence are changing. You must understand the equity your brand has in the market and also understand how your brand's image measures up against the identity you are trying to create. When the image you have in the marketplace is not consistent with the image you are trying to create for your brand, then you must refine your branding strategy and project the newly refined identity. Branding is a continuous process of communicating with your market. When you build and manage your brand properly, your brand will be pay you large dividends and your brand will be the most valuable asset you own.

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