Is Your Brand Planned?

Every single proper noun is a brand; if it begins with a capital letter then it is a brand.  That includes you, the city you live in, the school you went to, the company you work for, the sports team you follow, and of course, the multiple products that you use or consume each and every day.  ‘London’, ‘Chicago Cubs, and ‘MasterCard’ are brands, ‘city’, ‘baseball team’, and ‘credit card’ are not.   The most simplistic definition of a brand is ‘the image or perception created in the mind of a person when considering or encountering any proper noun’.  Your brand is a consequence of the expectations and experience individuals associate with you. Your brand is your responsibility and, more often than not, your brand reputation is generally deserved. It is, after all, just reality with a lag effect.

Here’s the problem though; your brand is vitally important to you and critical for your business success. Everybody needs to care about their brand, individuals and organizations alike.  It is the single most valuable asset that you own. It is your one point of differentiation in an increasingly commoditised world.  You may not have a formal process for managing your brand. You may not even think of yourself as a brand business.  But like it or not, you already have a brand, in fact you may have more than one brand, and you need to invest sufficient time and effort to understand how you are perceived in the market place and what position you own in your customers minds. More importantly, you need to take control of your brand and harness its considerable power to drive your business forward and to be an instrumental part in achieving your business goals and objectives.  

The term ‘commodity’ is over used in business.  True commodity markets are essentially supply and demand driven; the actual situation that many businesses find themselves in is one of ‘perceived parity’, where customers discern little difference between potential suppliers.   This is an important distinction because when you are dealing with a perception you can attempt to change it. 

Having said that, changing perceptions can be difficult. Perceptions evolve over time shaped by experience, word of mouth and prejudice. The first step in taking control of your brand, therefore, is to truly understand how you are perceived by your existing customers and the way you do that is to ask them. What do they think of you? How would they describe you? What one word sums you up best? What makes you different? What value do you deliver? Are you easy to work with? Fun? How are your people perceived? Helpful? Friendly?  

Next, perform a similar exercise with your own people, especially those with direct customer contact.  See how accurately they mirror the comments supplied by the customer group. Pay particular attention to the questions ‘what makes us different?’ and ‘What value do we deliver?’ This ‘reality gap’ can give important insight, if your customer’s opinion of your company is different to the one you would like them have it’s your problem not theirs. 

This first step is simply a calibration exercise.  It will frame the challenge ahead.  You will then need to invest some time in developing a thorough understanding of the customer’s practical and emotional needs (don’t underestimate emotion, even in a B2B market) together with a detailed picture of the marketplace and the environmental factors that shape it. These will include external factors, over which you have little or no control, and the competitive dynamics created by the number of alternative choices that are available to satisfy your target customer needs.

Providing you have a good framework for collecting and analysing this data you do not need to spend a fortune.  A common mistake that many businesses make is to hire outside consultants and end up getting more data than they know what to do with (and consequently do nothing with it).  Your best resource is usually internal, at least in the first instance. By following an iterative process, with a cross functional team, you will build knowledge effectively and can then prioritise what, if any, external research is required.

True brand management requires true customer insight. Quick fixes and ‘rebranding’ exercises are cosmetic at best and counterproductive at worst.  Brand strategy is business strategy and vice versa.  Your business can begin to take control of its brand and the position it holds in the mind of your customers today, however it will be a long term commitment requiring engagement of all employees and the collective courage to do things differently.  This is why many businesses use price to differentiate and then complain about the fact that they are in a commodity market.   

Being different takes effort but pays dividends.  If it was easy then everybody would be doing it. 

Sean Welham

www.seanwelham.net