What is Branding?
Branding—going all the way back to its origins with Norse livestock herders—allows a producer or owner to distinguish his/her goods or services. Branding of cattle and livestock goes back as far as 2000 BC. The term Branding has been overused diluted and confused by the advertising industry.
“Brands”, what we call IDENTITIES, are clusters of functional and emotional values that enable a unique promise about an experience to be made. The benefits resulting from strong identities include greater value creation, the ability to charge premium prices, staff retention, loyalty through powerful customer-identity relationships and the ability to sustain differentiation in crowded markets.
Bottom line: Your Brand is a promise, a shortcut for your customer groups to know how to think about you, what you stand for and why you’re relevant.
Art and Science
Vitruvian Man drawn around 1487 by Leonardo da Vinci, to illustrate Vitruvius’s writings on geometry and the human proportions exemplifies the blend of ART and SCIENCE. It is this blend of art and science that forms the foundation of IDENTITY ENGINEERING, we accomplish it through Brand ForensicsTM. Brand ForensicsTM is the strategic and creative process we use to literally track down and identify the person that is the Brand.
The seven phased Brand ForensicTM process:
1. BRAND INVESTIGATION
In this first step our Identity Engineers and Corporate Anthropologists along with outside research, audit a companies existing Brand to reveal the strengths (foundations) and liabilities (opportunities) that exist for It. It is customized to each client but it can include with 3rd party research or what we call “mother in law research”, reviews of current visual communications and consumer touchpoints. From there, we review the clients industry, most specifically the leading brands and direct competition. High gain questionnaires are also distributed to the key Identity owners within and related to the company. The end deliverable is a Category Benchmark Analysis that provides us with the visual evidence – and impetus – to help take an already successful organization to a new level of prosperity. And not just as a company, but as a Brand/Identity with a consistent message.
2.1 BRAND DNA AND FINGERPRINT WORKSHOP
This workshop requires the key Brand owners from across a corporation to be present. Through half day workshops we facilitate our expertise with a companies brain-trust to determine its true core functional and emotional benefits. We call it the Brand DNA. When utilized effectively these words cast vision, guide aspiration, and define action. In the months and years to come we can use Identity Tracking to measure, adapt and maximize how effectively a company communicates its DNA across the five customer groups maximizing ROI.
Customer Groups:
Board of Directors • Staff • End Customer • Shareholders / Investors • Vendors
2.2 POSITIONING A CORPORATIONS BRAND FOR SUCCESS AND PROFIT
Two statements for every company to study, memorize and live by. They answer the 4 proven questions that all of the customer groups need answered:
What you lead at….. Where….. Who it’s for….. How you help them…..
Telling the world what it is you do in clear, concise language and in a manner that creates value and leadership is not easy. That’s why most companies don’t do it.
In this half-day workshop, together, we develop the words that will begin to create a companies unique position in the global marketplace. The statements we create communicate its genuine standing as a category leader. This provides the opportunity to incrementally, and consistently communicate this leadership across the five customer groups.
3. BRAND SKETCH
When becoming familiar with the concept, the best way to consider a company is to think of it as a person. This stage of the Identity process is the first snap-shot of what this person will eventually look like. The Identity Sketch acts as the springboard to solidifying the look and feel of the Identity elements into their more permanent applications. The Sketch translates the thinking from the Discovery workshops into the strategic visuals we will use to craft the person. The five visual tools the Sketch will address and define for a corporation are Fonts, Iconography, Imagery, Key Thoughts/Language and Colours. Every one of these five visual elements, understood and executed consistently, will further emphasize and define a companies functional and emotional benefits throughout the Customer Journey, driving ADVOCACY.
4. BRAND PORTRAIT
A company’s name and logo are the crucial identifiers of the organization. They function as the unique face of a company and when properly executed say many subtle – but important – things about it’s Brand. Given the values and unique position created in Phase 2, the questions arise: what do the current name and logo mean to the company and its customer? What is its history? How does it enhance our Brand promise? At this phase we have the opportunity to answer all of these questions and document them in a way that can bring renewed life and meaning to a Brand, no matter how old or new it is.
5. BRAND TRACKING
Brand Tracking Identifies the key areas of communication that will be needed to facilitate the “Customer Journey” of the 5 customer groups. Every phase of the journey requires specific “Touchpoints”. These touchpoints are aligned to match the nine methods for inspiring change throughout the journey.
The Nine Methods for Inspiring Change:
1) Consciousness raising
2) Social Influence
3) Emotional Arousal
4) Re-evlauation and visioning
5) Commitment
6) Positive Substitution
7) Environmental control
8) Helping Relationships
9) Reward
Customer Journey: Discovery, Purchase, Commitment, Advocacy
Discovery:
Literally what it says, a person discovers a company, at the beginning of this phase the customer is unaware and has no intention of trying something new. At this stage of the Customer Journey we need to use:
1) Consciousness raising
2) Social Influence
3) Emotional Arousal
4) Re-evlauation and visioning
Purchase:
This is that split second, the moment the person has that first thought of making any commitment. What happens at the very next second is what we call buyers remorse, they instantly doubt their decision and look for ways out, alternatives. At this stage of the Customer Journey we need to mitigate buyers remorse with:
5) Commitment
6) Positive Substitution
7) Environmental control
8) Helping Relationships
9) Reward (limited)
Commitment:
This is the phase where everything that we’ve promised in discovery and purchase needs to come true, how do we deal with problems, complaints, managing expectations. At this stage of the Customer Journey we need to continue to use:
6) Positive Substitution
7) Environmental control
8) Helping Relationships
9) Reward (limited)
Advocacy:
The end goal of everything is to manage the customer journey so effectively that it drives Advocacy at every level. Advocacy will sell more and communicate more effectively than any form of advertising. It will retain staff, drive HR, increase value and inspire investment, bottom line, all of benefits of Advocacy increase ROI. At this stage of the Customer Journey we need to use:
8) Helping Relationships
9) Reward (highest level)
6. IDENTITY, THE COMPLETE PERSON
When developing the touchpoints for each phase of the Customer Journey it’s critical that none of them are created in isolation. The Brand Grid is the strategic visual tool that achieves this. It addresses all of the findings of the Identity Tracking and grids them out according to the Customer Journey in the strategically selected colours, fonts, iconography, imagery and messages of the Brand in the context of functional applications along the journey. We call it the Brand Grid, the Complete person. Upon completion, this tool provides a company and its marketing department with total authority and ownership over it’s Brand.
7. BRAND EXPRESSION AND TRACKING
This is the point at which, key thoughts, fonts, colors, iconography, imagery and strategy turn into action! The rollout of a companies Brand grid touchpoints. The Brand grid puts you firmly in the drivers seat with all of your marketing partners. It dramatically improves efficiency, removes risk and saves money. You have an identity that’s built to last.
Following right on the heels of Brand Expression is further Brand Tracking. We help implement the systems so that a company can effectively track, react and report how It’s Brand is impacting the whole company, its complete person. The results? Well we go right back to the beginning of this post:
“The benefits resulting from strong brands include greater value creation, the ability to charge premium prices, staff retention, loyalty through powerful customer-identity relationships and the ability to sustain differentiation in crowded markets.”