1)
Brand Management Audit – Marion
suggests creating a baseline against which
to measure future success. Areas examined
and rated: Brand Research, Brand Strategy,
Brand Positioning, Brand Identity Standards
and Systems, Brand Advertising, Internal
Brand Building, Marketing and Advertising
Employee Skill Sets.
Methodologies:
- Surveys and in-depth interviews with
all Marketing and Advertising staff.
2)
Define Current Brand Architecture – Marion suggests
constructing a brand matrix and overlay it with
business information, such as distribution, cost
of sales, percent of sales, brand impact on the
business as a whole, etc. As results are obtained
from focus groups, surveys, interview, etc, the
brand architecture matrix will be developed further.
Methodologies:
- Surveys
and in-depth interviews with Marketing
and Advertising staff.
- Gather business
information
- Construct
the Brand Architecture matrix document under
guidance from Marion.
3) Prepare Your Marketing and Advertising Department
for the Process– Marion suggests that we present an overview
of the brand management process to your advertising and marketing group so
that the final goals can be agreed upon, responsibilities clearly defined
and focus maintained.
In addition, we recommend that we establish a common brand management vocabulary
so that your Marketing and Advertising Department and Marion can communicate
with fewer misunderstandings, and more importantly, help communicate and reinforce
key brand management principles throughout the rest of the company as we proceed
with the project. Some concepts to understand:
- Brand
- Brand Equity or Value
- Brand Image
- Brand Associations
- Brand Positioning
- Brand Essence
- Brand Promise
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- Brand Personality
- Brand Identity
- Brand Portfolio
- Brand Architecture
- Trade Dress
- Brand Extension
- Brand Management Process
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This effort can also provide
material to start your Brand Management Manual.
Methodologies:
- Marion
to prepare a Brand Management Seminar for your
Marketing and Advertising department.
- Define the roles and duties of the Brand
Management research team and those of Marion. Consider this a “kick-off” meeting
for the project.
- You can start the preparation of a Brand
Management Manual. Marion can provide text and editing. You can
produce electronically and create associated graphs and imagery.
Without senior management
and key employee buy-in, your final brand management
and equity building plan will just collect
dust.
One of the most difficult tasks in brand
management is transforming the organization
from a low level of brand management to one
that embraces it and actively builds the brand
as an important source of sustainable competitive
advantage. Support for such a transformation
has to start with senior management. This is
true for b-to-b businesses, and especially
true for manufacturers.
Why this difficulty?
The key to success for brand building is the
effective delivery of the brand promise - the
promise of a relevant, compelling and differentiating benefit to the target customers that is delivered at each point of contact with customers -
from the executive who visits important customers,
to sales people, customer service, advertising,
public relations, the internet, etc. Only the
support of senior management can make this
kind of cultural evolution happen.
Therefore,
it is critical to gauge the current temperature
for support and to get buy-in of a Brand Management
and Equity Building Plan with senior management.
You need to identify any potential obstacles
early to assuage any concerns they may have
and in order to take corrective action. Also,
the full scope of the benefits of brand building
must be understood and appreciated:
- Increased
revenues and market share in Mexico, USA and
Canada
- Deceased price sensitivity
- Increased customer loyalty
- Additional leverage with retailers and end-user customers
- Increased profitability
- Increased company equity
- Increased clarity of vision
- Increased ability to mobilize all employees and focus activities
- Increased ability to expand into new product and service categories
- Increased ability to attract and retain high quality employees
Methodologies:
- Surveys
and interviews with senior executives and
sales managers.
- Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities
and threats (SWOT) analysis for the company
as a whole. Marion will guide you
in the process.
1) Get an In-depth
Understanding of Your Customers
Research these customer
attributes:
- Segmentation
(e.g. agriculture, construction, hardware
stores, regional, etc.)
- Product
Purchase Decision Making Process and Purchaser
Motivations
- Distributor
- End-user
Customer
- Workplace
Environment
- Needs/Desires
- Hopes/Aspirations
- Fears/Concerns
- Product
Usage Behavior
Methodologies:
- Customer focus groups
and surveys
- Sales and customer service focus groups and surveys
- Visit outlets and stores where your products are sold
2) Get an In-depth Understanding of Your Competition
When
a company positions its brand in a
customer’s
mind, it is positioning that brand
against other brands. It is critical
to understand the strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats (SWOTs)
of each competitor along with the
industry structure itself. This
knowledge is important because
you want to uniquely "own" an
important benefit in your customer’s
mind.
Methodologies:
- Competitor
information will come from all the customer and sales focus groups and surveys
and from industry sources
- Marion can guide you as to where and how to find additional competitive
information.
- Marion can help you setup an on-going competitor monitoring program.
- Marion can help you compile a comprehensive competitor SWOT report
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1) Determine Brand
Positioning
Once the target customers have been
identified and profiled, and competitors understood,
this portion of the Brand Management Plan will
focus on the three major components of brand
positioning for a differentiating space in
customer minds.
Brand Essence – the
brand’s “heart and soul.” It
is constant, timeless and enduring. Unchanging
overtime, across geographies or in different
situations.
Brand Promise – the
promise of a relevant, compelling
and differentiating benefit to
the target customer that is delivered
at each point of contact with customers
Brand Personality – the
adjectives that describe the brand
(trustworthy, appealing, unique,
etc.)
Once these three elements are established for
each brand, it is the responsibility of the
Brand Management Plan team to keep the focus
and build the brand.
Methodologies:
- Brand Positioning Workshops, involving
key stakeholders such as company leaders
and marketing and sales managers.
- Brand Essence Exercises as part of focus groups.
- Test resulting brand positioning with customer focus groups.
2) Create Brand
Identity Standards and Systems
Marion can help in
the development of tools for maintaining brand
identity consistency.
- Develop
a corporate graphics style
- Publish brand
identity standards and systems accessible
on intranet sites: use and treatment of names,
logos, taglines, typography, symbols, package
design, brand voice, visual style etc.
- Develop a
simple, formal methodology for your Marketing
and Advertising to address internal customer
needs for communications (printed sales pieces,
letters, trade journal advertising, etc.).
Develop an internal project checklist.
- Develop a
methodology for Marketing and Advertising
to evaluate the effectiveness of their communications
- Create photo
libraries
- Brand message
guidelines and the use of scripts for sales
and customer service.
Methodologies:
- Marion
can
assess
current
practices
and then
guide
you in
implementation
When executed effectively,
websites are effective at building brand
differentiation, accessibility and loyalty,
assisting existing customers and generating
new customers.
Methodologies:
Marion will provide an evaluation of your
website and suggestions for improvement with
respect to:
- Meeting the current
objectives of your website
- Where you stand
with respect to your competitors (traffic,
length of visits, incoming links, web presence,
rankings on search engines, etc.)
- Driving desired actions from users
- Providing a true brand experience
- Creating an engaging, interactive, informative
and helpful customer experience
- Creating an opportunity to expand customer
relationship
- Appealing to multiple customer segments
- Providing detailed information about products
- more than typically available offline
- Generating leads
- Performance metrics
- Navigation structure
- Additional Internet marketing opportunities
- More…
Moving the customer
from brand awareness to brand insistence
will reflect the growth of brand value.
Factors
influencing brand insistence:
- Awareness
- Accessibility
- Value
- Relevant
Differentiation
- Emotional
Connection
Resulting
in:
- Decreased price sensitivity
- Increased customer loyalty
- Increased flexibility for growth
- Increased market share
- Increased company value
Methodologies:
- Marion
will help you set up a methodology for monitoring brand value.
Throughout the whole Brand Management review
process, it is important to keep senior management up-to-date and engaged.
At the end of the process, Marion will assist you with a final report
on all findings, vision, goals and specific tasks for the Marketing
and Advertising department and the company as a whole. Marketing and
Advertising can then present this final report to Senior Management
and seek their approval and support for implementation.
Developing a brand management plan and building
brand equity, is complicated task, but not that difficult. It requires
a methodical and focused team, and a company ready to take a giant
step to preserve what it has achieved and to reach even higher.
For assistance with developing a brand management
plan and an ongoing plan to build and measure brand equity, please
call Marion at 832-369-8210 or use the Contact Form on this page.
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