In the last chapter there was the description in how to create a brand. However, as technology further advanced, there’s the increase of information bombarding around us, making the world work quicker, make us select the useful and useless information inside our brains every day.
In this situation, it’s inevitable that every consumer will witness numerous and different brands in department stores, supermarkets, streets, etc. Wherever they go, there are many different brand identities using varied advertisements to attract their attention, but how a few selected ones succeeded in stand out from the crowd? What kind of processed thoughts and planning generated a successful brand?
As mentioned before, a brand should be based in a simple and clearly defined idea. A brand should not be complex, confusing or mysterious in any way. Consumers use brands as shortcuts to make purchase decisions, therefore they need to be perfectly informed that the brand they selected is a correct choice. The brand should be also clearly aligned with its business strategy, making easier for the brand organization to effectively signal to consumers its differentiation over the competitors.
Coherently manage the brand so it’ll make it authentic to everyone’s eyes, clear characteristics that will build the trust between the company and the consumer.
Also, a brand needs to stand out by offering something authentically different from competitors (doesn’t have to necessarily show new features or benefits). The best brands are set apart from other brands on the same playing field by both communicating and delivering on different promises. It has to have a differentiated meaning to the consumer, but also this difference should be relevant to make them consider become part of their lives. Bring up solutions from existing problems from the everyday struggle, or bring a whole new experience that will unforgettable.
Often the most old-fashioned element in marketing plans is the (implicit) definition of what a brand is. The classical idea of this was expressed as follows:
S = P X D X AV
Strong brand = product benefits x distinct identity x added values A brand marketing programme would thus be aimed at:
- Communicating a distinctive product benefit or sets of benefits
- Communicating a distinctive identity: name, logo, look, feel and personality - Communicating distinctive emotional brand values.
However successful this formula used to be on the past, however, it became so overused that it numbed to many consumers as they also began to reject it. Therefore, there’s the need of a new thinking nowadays, as described in The brand innovation Manifesto (John Grant, 2006):
- A brand experience event - Thought leadership publishing
- Customer training courses and seminars - The rich, searchable information on a website - The brand as author of new language/terms - User groups, communities and fan sites - The countdown to a launch or event - Rumors, gossip, word of mouth - Helplines, call centres
- Viral e-mails and promotions.
Society is busy, they are inundated by messages and there are too many brands for them to choose from. Capture their interest, make it easy for them to get the idea. The brand is a shortcut for a consumer’s decision to pick one product among plethora of others placed on the shelves. To become this shortcut, his stories and values should be ingrained inside people’s head, the stronger the message, the less the indecision to make them choose (or not) this brand.
In the past, where the concept of brand wasn’t as established in everyone’s mind, all traditional brands slowly built their image through time, thus the origins of their name aren’t as important as the
product they are selling. (for example Macintosh, inspired on a type of apple that the founder of this company liked) As the brands were slowly increasing and society began comprehending this concept, there’s the need of creating strategies that will quickly associate the brand to its product/service.
In Brandsimple shows the progression of a brand, a BAV chart (BrandAsset Valuator) (Adamsom, 2006)
Table 2. BAV chart
Niche Market/
Unfrealized Potential
Leadership
Mature
New/Undefined Eroded
Brand Status
(Esteem & Knowledge Brand Strength (Differentiation & Relevance
Differentiation Relevance Esteem Knowledge
Source: Young & Rubicam Brands’ BrandAsset ™ Valuator
high
low high
Each pillar has its brand dimension:
1. Differentiation – what makes your brand unique
2. Relevance – how appropriate this difference is to the audience you want to teach 3. Esteem – how well regarded your brand is in the marketplace
4. Knowledge – how well consumers know and understand your brand.
As pointed in the graphic, once starting to create a brand identity, the strongest asset is differentiation. And to make the brand as unique as possible, they should narrow down in one sharp idea. Focus your audience to ensure that your brand idea is relevant to the right group. Sometimes, having a smaller audience is more profitable because it allows for greater operating efficiencies and greater margins. As an example; don’t try to sell a camera. Try selling a camera that has the special ability of creating photos in 3D. A lot of brands have started out with narrowly focused target markets and then have gone on to expand the base of customers.
A lot of changes have taken place in the cultural and commercial worlds over the past years, there are 5 major changes taken place that have a great impact on brands and branding. Those are:
1- It’s about the individual: With the internet, it’s easier to attain information regarding anything, the trust placed in institutions are lower than in comparison to the past. Everyone has developed to be finely tuned credibility sensors, with the capacity in detecting a lie or an obscure facet of the company sooner or later. Make sure that the branding signals that you transmit meet consumers expectations by genuinely delivering on your business strategy and the brand idea you choose to deliver on is credible and authentic.
2- The world is moving faster: As mentioned before, with the advance of technology;
information is arriving faster and faster and in shorter versions than before. Any person is forced to process and respond very quickly and usually, no one has the time to read detailed information regarding anything. There is tons of information surrounding the consumer, so take in consideration all of the new ways people are picking up those data and assess them relative to your business and brand
strategies. Determine which branding signals will be most effective.
3- Consumers are in charge of how they consume marketing and media: Because the pace of life around us is speeding up, everyone needs to absorb all information at the shortest time. The media has been coping with this speed, all lengthy news is now chunked in short phrases, swift videos.
Making the brand idea fixate on the consumer proves to be increasingly difficult, with the deficit of attention generated in this new style of life. Consumers are aware of all traditional marketing and they continuously prefer to reject it, since it’s not worthy to be absorbed. Consumers expect marketers to use technology to improve how to appeal to them, so the winners are the people behind branding that can creating a new media that capable in communicating messages in a way that best connects to consumers.
4- We are operating on a global scale: The distance between countries is shortening; we are becoming a global village. With this global scope, companies working internationally, arise new problems to be considered, if the brand should establish one standard or adapt country per country, if there’s the need to reach globally, where are the risks. An extra thought always save some future speculation; a consistent brand name may more easily allow for cross-country sharing of all types of branding signals, including packaging and signage. Nevertheless, it’s always important to check the prospective name of a new brand for cultural correctness.
5- The world is aging: Healthcare and science is lengthening the life time, there are a great decrease of birth rate, especially on metropolitan areas. As there are a growing percentage of people over 65, there’s the need for the marketing to move away from a youth oriented culture. Consider how these changes will affect the brand.
As the branding is becoming increasingly centered on the consumer whim’s and choices, there’s the need to comprehend their personalities, attitudes and reasons to choose their product.
The consumer generally is divided at first by segments of Age, Gender, Family Structure, Social Class and Income, Race and Ethnicity, Lifestyle and Geography. Each segment has an importance to
be considered, each one play an important role for the consumer to decide his products and brands.
There are four distinct types of consumption activities, as described in Consumer Behavior (Solomon, 2002):
Consuming as experience: an emotional or aesthetic reaction to consumption objects.
Consuming as integration: learning and manipulating consumption objects to express aspects of the self or society. For example, wearing shirts from your favorite soccer team.
Consuming as classification: the activities that consumers engage in to communicate their association with objects, both to self and to others.
Consuming as play: consumers use objects to participate in a mutual experience and merge their identities with that group.
However, to reach the point of choosing to consume, as well as their reasons to maintaining their consumptions also depends of several factors:
1. The consumer’s attention must be directed to the appropriate model, who for reasons of attractiveness, competence, status or similarity it is desirable to emulate.
2. The consumer must remember what is said or done by the model.
3. The consumer must convert this information into action.
4. The consumer must be motivated to perform these actions.
Picture 3 below depicts the order of these processes.
Picture 3. Process of Consumption The consumer acquires and performs the behavior earlier demonstrated by a model.
For a brand to succeed, there’s also the memory factor, grinding the signature into the consumer’s minds:
Picture 4. Memory factors
This is also connected with each hierarchy of Effects once they are using a product or service.
Picture 5. Learning Hierarchy
ATTENTION
Information that passes through an attention gate is transferred to short-term memory
ELABORATIVE REHEARSAL
Information subjected to elaborative rehearsal or deep processing (e.g., its meaning is considered) is transferred to
Duration: Less than 1 second (vision) or few
The Standard Learning Hierarchy: A consumer approaches a product decision as a problem-solving process. First, he/she forms beliefs about a product by accumulating knowledge (beliefs) regarding relevant attributes. Next, the consumer evaluates these beliefs and forms a feeling about the product (affect). Finally, based on this evaluation, the consumer engages in a relevant behavior, buying the product or supporting a specific footbal team by wearing its t-shirt. With this careful choice the consumer may “bond” with the product over time and is not easily persuaded to experiment other brands. The standard learning hierarchy assumes that a consumer is highly involved in making a purchase decision. The person is motivated to seek out a lot of information, carefully weigh alternatives and come to a thoughtful decision.
The low-Involvement Hierarchy: The consumer does not initially have a strong preference for one brand over another, but instead acts on the basis of limited knowledge and then forms an evaluation only after the product has been purchased or used. The attitude is likely to come about through behavioral learning in which the consumer’s choice is reinforced by good or bad experiences with the product after the purchase (or in whilst of the product searching). To catch the interest from those type of consumers causes for many marketing researchers and management enter in a tight situation; devising many different strategies and new ways to catch their eyes, stimulating and enticing the consumer to buy it.
The Experiential Hierarchy: It is already confirmed for many the importance of emotional response that will connect the consumer to the product/brand. The mood of one person when exposed to a marketing message influences how the ad is processed, so it’ll determine the likelihood in how this information presented will be remembered and how the person will feel about the advertised item and related products in the future.
It’s in this moment that the brand enters in the consumer’s mind. A successful brand is the one who can bring positive emotions to the consumer and will continuously remind him/her about their existence through their attributes, the package design, advertisement, product service and etc.
For every brand to comprehend their niche of consumers, there’s one well-known segmentation system that is The Values and Lifestyles System (VALS ™). Consumers with a Principle orientation make purchase decisions guided by a belief system. Actions or Self-orientated individuals buy products to have an impact on the world around them. Those are (Solomon, 2002):
On top are:
- Actualizers: successful consumers with many resources. This group is concerned with social issues and is open to change. As one indication of this group’s interest is in cutting-edge technology.
Group with sufficient resources but differ in their outlooks on life:
- Fulfilleds: are satisfied, reflective and comfortable. They tend to be practical and value functionality.
- Achievers: are career-oriented and prefer predictability over risk or self-discovery.
- Experiencers: are impulsive, young and enjoy offbeat or risky experiences.
The next four groups have fewer resources:
- Believers: have strong principles and favor proven brands
- Strivers: are similar to Achievers, but have fewer resources. They are very concerned about the approval of others.
- Makers: are action-oriented and tend to focus their energies on self-sufficiency. They will often be found working on their cars, canning their own vegetables or building their own houses.
- Strugglers: are at the bottom of the economic ladder. They are most concerned with meeting the needs of the moment, and have limited ability to acquire anything beyond the basic goods needed for survival.
Aside the individual buyers, there are also consumption communities. Reference groups may exert either a positive or a negative influence on consumption behaviors. In most cases, consumers model their behavior to be consistent with what they think the group expects of them. In some cases, though, consumers may try to distance themselves from other people or groups that function as avoidance
groups. They may carefully study the dress or mannerisms of a disliked group and scrupulously avoid buying anything that might identify them with that group. Therefore, the reference groups have the capacity to alter the action of others, there are different classification in the mannerism in how those groups influence one person:
- Referent power: If a person admires the qualities of a person or a group, he/he will try to imitate those qualities by copying the referent’s behaviors. Referent power is important to many marketing strategies because consumers voluntarily change behaviors to please or identify with a referent.
- Information power: A person can have power simply because he or she knows something others would like to know. People with information power are able to influence consumer opinion by virtue of their (assumed) access to the “truth”.
- Legitimate power: Sometimes people are granted power by virtue of social agreements, such as the power given to the policemen and professors. The legitimate power conferred by a uniform is recognized in many consumer contexts, including teaching, hospitals, etc. This form of power may be
“borrowed” by marketers to influence consumers.
- Expert power: One prominent person that possesses a specific knowledge about a content area, evaluates certain products/restaurant/services/etc in our behalf to aid us have a better knowledge over this.
- Reward power: When a person or group has the means to provide positive reinforcement, that entity will have reward power over the consumer to the extent that this reinforcement is valued or desired. The reward may be tangible, as occurs when an employee is given a raise. Or, the reward may be intangible: Social approval or acceptance.
- Coercive power: A threat is often effective in short-term, but it does not tend to produce permanent attitudinal or behavioral change. Coercive power refers to influencing a person by social or physical intimidation. Fortunately, this type of power is rarely employed in marketing situations.
With those labels in mind, in The Brand Innovation Manifesto created a Periodic Table for
Brand Ideas (Grant, 2006):
Table 3. Brand Ideas
(A)Personal (B) Immediate (C) Partisan (D) Official New traditions Habits
In each column it contains those cultural ideas:
(A) Personal: ideas that are entertained in a very individual and idiosyncratic way, for instance personal fantasies, fascinations, preferences and interactive products such as customization and self-publishing.
(B) Immediate: ideas that are experienced and felt in the here and now – be they aesthetic experiences, sporting events, social interactions. These often have a social context, for instance being in a public space, rather than being private like those in the first row.
(C) Partisan: social ideas that are “bigger” than anything we experience individually. They often have to do with identity and allegiance; for instance clans, taking sides, belonging to an elite.
(D) Official: these are the “biggest”, most institutional forms of culture – something “given”
rather than chosen. This is more like the cultural life of a nation – its public forms – rather than individual or social choices. This is also the level at which the effects of globalization are most seen.
Even with those parameters described through researching about consumer behavior, it is advisable to refine even further your audience. Trying to create a brand idea that can’t be extremely
relevant to everybody will become a costly mistake. Create a big degree of difference that can make a huge difference in how people view your position in the category. Don’t focus on young adults at the start of their career, focus on young men who are struggling to buy their first house in whilst with their first work and need copious amount of coffee to keep them awake. Narrow your target consumer as accurate as possible so your brand will be as well-defined.