Branding For Dummies. Chiaravalle Bill
it will live and grow.
Step 4: Write your brand definition
Your brand definition is a true statement about what your brand stands for. It describes what you offer, why you offer it, how your offering is meaningfully different and better, the unique benefits your customers can count on, and the promise or set of promises you make to all who work with and buy from your business.
You have to know your brand definition before you begin to develop and project the public presentation of your brand. Otherwise the external face of your brand – everything you present through marketing efforts – won’t match up with the internal base of your brand, and your brand will lack credibility.
Figure 2-1 uses an iceberg to represent the relationship between the base and face of your brand:
✔ The external face of your brand rises into public view in the form of your name, logo, website, ads, packaging, promotions, and marketing messages that everyone from employees to consumers, suppliers, friends, and colleagues can quickly and easily see, understand, and believe. Like the tip of the iceberg, the face of your brand is only a representation of the larger brand base that lies out of consumer view.
✔ The internal base of your brand is the substance of what your brand is and stands for. It includes your services, products, culture, mission, vision, and values, as well as the leadership, management, and organization that together create the strong basis for your brand.
As you define your brand, turn to Chapter 6 for help with every step involved.
Illustration courtesy of Bill Chiaravalle, Brand Navigation
Figure 2-1: A strong brand definition reflects both the face and base of your brand.
Step 5: Develop your name, logo, and tagline
This is the point where branding gets exciting. The minute you give your brand a name and face – or logo – you can watch managers, employees, and others inside the company start to buy into the branding process. Here’s a brief introduction to these important brand elements:
✔ Name: Your name is the key that unlocks your brand image in your consumer’s mind. Turn to Chapter 7 for help creating or revising your brand name, including advice for how to recognize qualities of a great name, pick or create the name, test the appropriateness and availability of the name you want, and turn the name you choose into a vehicle that conveys your brand promise and contributes to brand value.
✔ Logo: Your logo is the mark or symbol that serves as the face of your brand on your signage, packaging, stationery, websites, advertising, sales material, and every other communication vehicle that carries your name into the marketplace. Coauthor Bill is the guru on this subject, and he’s filled Chapter 8 with information on how to develop a great logo, avoid logo design taboos, apply your logo with consistency throughout your marketing program, change your logo when and if it’s time for a revamp, and manage your logo so that no one tampers with or misuses it.
✔ Tagline: Your tagline is the memorable phrase that provides consumers with a quick indication of your brand position and promise. Some marketers make their taglines an essential part of their identities, whereas other marketers don’t create taglines at all. Taglines are particularly useful, though, for brands with names or logos that don’t clearly convey their brand position or personality and for businesses that rely heavily on communications in which logo presentation isn’t possible. See Chapter 8 for help deciding whether or not your marketing would benefit from a tagline and, if so, how to create one for your brand.
Step 6: Launch your brand
Your brand launch happens in two phases and in this order:
1. Internal launch
Whether you’re launching a new brand or relaunching a revitalized brand, be sure to launch from the inside out. Before you even think of introducing your brand to prospects, explain it to all the people who have or feel that they have a stake in your business, including the following:
• Shareholders, managers, and employees: These are the people most invested in your business and most apt to serve as ambassadors for your brand. Be ready to answer questions like “Why are we spending money on this?” and “How will this strengthen our business?” by linking your branding program to your business mission and goals. By all means, take extra care with those who sell your product, providing them with a complete set of tools to help them present your brand position and story to prospects and customers (turn to Chapter 9 for advice).
• Key partners and major customers: Before loyal supporters and clients see your new or revised brand identity on packaging or in ads, give them a preview. Chapter 9 helps you plan your approach.
2. External launch
Your brand goes public when you unveil your name, logo, and slogan and when you begin to tell your market the story of how your brand reflects what you stand for. Coauthor Barbara is the marketing guru on our author team, and she’s designed Part III to guide you as you write the marketing plan for building awareness for your brand through digital communications, social media, advertising, publicity, promotions, sales materials, and all other communications that carry the announcement and story of your brand into your marketplace.
Step 7: Manage, leverage, and protect your brand
This is the “care and feeding” phase of the branding process. This stage also requires the most persistence, and it’s where too many brands lose steam. Just like good parenting, good branding management can be summed up in a single word: consistency.
✔ Display a consistent look.
✔ Project a consistent message and tone.
✔ Deliver a consistent level of quality through all communications, products, and services.
✔ Be diligent about consistently protecting your brand from misuse.
✔ Stay consistently true to your brand.
Begin managing your brand from the moment you introduce it for the following reasons:
✔ The minute your name or news of your offering enters the marketplace, you begin making first impressions of your brand, whether they’re the ones you intend to make or not.
✔ By etching your brand onto a blank slate in the marketplace, you don’t have to undertake the difficult task of erasing erroneous impressions and rewriting your brand image.
The chapters in Part IV begin with advice for keeping a tight rein on the way people encounter your brand, called your brand experience, followed by chapters full of tips for creating brand allegiance and loyalty, leveraging value, and, when the time’s right, revitalizing your brand by giving it a partial or full makeover to fit market or business conditions, tastes, and trends.
The chapters in Part V focus on how to protect your brand by establishing and standing up for your legal rights. They also help you create usage rules that protect your brand from well-meaning but misguided attempts by staff members, freelancers, printers, sign makers, and others who are all too willing to help you “refine” or “tweak” your brand image, which usually leads directly to an erosion of the consistency you’re fighting to maintain. And, should conditions rock your brand strength, Chapter 18 helps you