Category Archives: Branding

Brand alignment and positioning is an essential practice beyond marketing

How to Get More Brand Funding from your CFO

19 Tuesday Feb 2013

Posted by in Branding, Measurement

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How to get more budgets for brand building

B2B marketing folks are often deer in the headlights when their CFOs challenge them for proof that brand building funds return value on their investments.

Financial executives – especially in B2B organizations – often have a hard time justifying brand-building investments. That’s mostly because when marketing folks like us are asked to provide ROI calculations for the big bucks we request, we morph into deer in the headlights before their very eyes.

So what do we do? We cloak brand building in marketing execution expenses that the financial guys can wrap their heads around. Simply put, we expense it. Feeling wimpy yet? You’re not alone. But now it’s time to help your CFO understand the value of building brand equity and put it in the asset column where it belongs…because investment in assets and a solid valuation methods are things they can relate to.

Who Doesn’t Want Higher Business Valuation?

For many middle-market B2B companies, brand equity falls off the financial radar completely, mostly because there’s no official GAAP measurement formula for organic brand equity. In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, only 26 percent responded they found their “brand equity” metric very useful. That’s pretty sad, considering that some prominent marketing researchers believe brands are one of the most valuable assets a company owns. This is a measure brand and marketing managers should leverage in their stakeholder relationships.

B2B branding metrics

Who doesn’t want 5% – 20% more company valuation?

Even in B2B, where “branding” is looked upon as something more suited for consumer products, brand equity can account for 5% – 20% or more of a company’s market value.  And who wouldn’t want that (except maybe for that Cheerio-lobbing cherub who disses Jimmy Fallon on those Capital One commercials)?

In certain industries, increasing customer loyalty by 2% can impact the bottom-line in the same way as a 10% reduction in costs (The Market Research Executive Board, “Measuring Brand Equity”). The report continued to cite that a composite of companies with brands considered by business leaders as “superior” grew 402% in the 1990s while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose only 308%. And if that tidbit doesn’t cause pause in your CFO, toss this one at her: research finds that companies with the largest gains in brand equity generated an average current-term stock return of 30%, while companies with decreases in brand equity lost 10%. This is the kind of cred bean counters need to begin viewing brand as an investment instead of an expense.

What is brand equity really?

Brand equity trends are a good barometer overall brand health. But much like measuring the happiness of hippos, no single, comprehensive, industry-wide definition for brand equity exists. If pressed for a broad definition, brand equity essentially addresses the financial value that a brand’s identity, persona, and emotional appeal add to a product or service. It’s less about function and more about the customer experience and relationship.  It all comes down to RAPPORT.

“Emotional value” is a pretty squishy thing to measure in financial terms, but it is undeniable that even in B2B, emotional attachment is a powerful issue. Though it may be expressed on different levels than B2C, people are still involved in the decision-making, influencing, and purchasing processes. And where there are people, there are emotional attachments.

The bottom line is…well, the bottom line…meaning that even if a brand has an emotional connection with its stakeholders, differentiation in the marketplace, high awareness, and easy accessibility, but not sustainable sales and margins; what’s it worth? This could be one reason why many B2B financial folks hold limited regard (and approve fewer, smaller budgets) for supporting this “phantom asset” than in B2C.

The flaws in most approaches to B2B brand equity measurement are their overemphasis on marketing factors and diminished emphasis on business, financial, and operational efficiency factors. After all, equity is a financial concept, so brand equity measurements – especially in B2B companies – should be less about the marketing aspects and more about the business and financial impact, right? One hitch: Marketing folks are more comfortable identifying and measuring brand equity drivers (marketing factors) that are great for prescribing ways to improve the financial equity of a brand, but not so good for measuring the equity. See the difference?

A Scorecard Just for B2B Brand Equity

To provide measurement of brand equity specifically for middle-market B2B brands that balances the marketing (external) and financial (internal) dimensions of the brand, I’ve crafted a scorecard that balances the two. The scorecard framework is based on the perspective that brand and business objectives always work hand-in-hand, because neither would exist without the other (if you believe that brand is a relationship with stakeholders). Another point to keep in mind is that the scorecard metrics are not meant to be used as isolated snapshots, but rather assessed in trends, taking the measurements at different periods over time and watching the delta and direction. This trending approach averages temporary influences and favors long term outlooks for valuation and predictive modeling.

B2B branding

The Devil’s in the Details

Category headers

Dimension: The aspect of the brand to be measured

Eight select business and marketing dimensions of the brand are identified from a balanced “branded-business” perspective

Internal/External: Categorizing each metric as internal or external

Internal factors are things that can be controlled internally, such as setting pricing, aligning people, or switching operational processes or investing in specific capital equipment. These are business metrics. External factors are controlled by forces outside the brand organization. They include factors such as media, marketing, events, economics, etc., and affect the dimensions of external culture, awareness, and preference.

Loyalty is a bridge between internal control factors and external control factors because the organization (internal) has control over loyalty programs, but customers (external) are ultimately the ones who control the loyalty score. These unique qualities make loyalty a very powerful indicator of brand health because they provide an ultimate measurement for the faithful delivery of the brand promise.

Metric: The specific measurement for each dimension

1. Financial: Price premium and positioning over median category pricing

This is a traditional brand equity measure. One caveat: Make sure the category is segmented very carefully (whether you are valuing a product or corporate brand). Price premiums can skew heavily either way if the category includes competitive alternatives or substitutes positioned off your target. If you’re valuing a corporate brand, you can quantify corporate perceived price positioning by using a “basket of brands” approach against the market median pricing of an equivalent basket for each competitor.  This is an internal metric because the B2B brand has control over its pricing.

2. Operational: Operational alignment score

Operational alignment occurs when the operational aspects of an organization and its people are all in alignment with the brand strategy. This means that everyone in a line position knows what to do on a daily basis in their jobs to support the brand’s delivery to its customers. This often combines elements of the corporate and product brand strategies. Operational alignment is not given much credit in the brand equity spreadsheet, but it can dramatically reduce costs in many ways. This is an internal metric because the B2B brand has control over its operational investments, processes, and policies.

3. Efficiency: Employee/customer brand delivery alignment score

Brand delivery is a brand touch point metric that assesses the alignment of stakeholders’ beliefs of what the brand delivers to them, above and beyond the functional aspects of the product or service. When employees and customers share the same understanding of what the brand is delivering (attributes beyond the functional), a brand is well aligned. When operationalized in every employee and customer group, this metric can pinpoint areas of misalignment, leading to clues for significant improvements in customer satisfaction. This is an internal metric because the B2B brand has control over setting and meeting customer expectations.

4. Loyalty: Net Promoter Score

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a measure of customer advocacy and evangelism. Essentially, it measures the percentage of branded customers who actively refer a brand within their personal and professional networks. High NPS has been related to strong brands and sustainable financial success. This is a hybrid internal and external metric because the B2B brand and the customer each have some control over loyalty.

5. Awareness: Brand awareness score

Brand awareness alone is a measure of marketing success and not necessarily financial success. But combined with the other metrics in this scorecard, it can help drive financial success. This is an external metric because awareness is a customer perception factor.

6. Recognition: Logo/packaging

Brand recognition is an important dimension that helps quantify not only differentiation, but also the degree to which a brand cuts through the noise of the modern marketing landscape.  It is an external metric because it is customer perceiption-based.

7. Preference: Market share trend

This metric is a traditional bell weather and helps round out the competitive success of the brand. This is an external metric because it deals with the external market competitive milieu.

8. Cultural: Buzz metrics (segment or industry)
Social media has made “buzz” an undeniable part of our brandscape. Measuring resonance with brand positioning amidst current socio-economic trends is another facet of awareness, but includes richer customer positioning connotations. This is a purely external factor because it is in the control of customers.

All metrics should be expressed in percentages and averaged together for a composite score. Each or any of these factors can be weighted to accommodate specific industry peculiarities.

Once you begin treating your brand investments like investments instead of expenses, you’ll be surprised at how much more confident you’ll be in your brand budget discussions.

Contact GroPartners Consulting for guidance on how to measure your B2B brand equity, either corporate or product. 847-845-6970

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Brand Strategy Roadmap

22 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Branding

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A strong corporate brand strategy is one of the most powerful forces an organization can marshal. Properly operationalized, it can mRoad mapeasurably improve top-line effectiveness for product brands and bottom line efficiencies throughout the organization from the stock room to the board room − and everywhere between. In the best brands, the strategy acts as a guide for every stakeholder decision, from the highest level to the most granular, which can result in reduced management costs and greater employee satisfaction.

But just as any other kind of strategy, the true power of brand strategy is activated only with aligned execution. A brand strategy road map helps brands stay on track with clear process, aligning business, vision, people, and process.

Brand strategy originates in your organization’s  vision and values. Aligning business goals, customer wants and needs, and employee satisfaction with that vision is critical to sustainable growth.

Virgin Logovirgin brandsVirgin operates 53 separate brands, as diverse as airlines, records, books, and health. All Virgin brands are based on the same vision and values:

“Virgin believes in making a difference. We stand for value for money, quality, innovation, fun and a sense of competitive challenge. We strive to achieve this by empowering our employees to continually deliver an unbeatable customer experience.”

Experience…Founder Richard Branson showcases the Virgin brand with his swashbuckling extreme sports, spaceships and experience-steeped TV commercial roles. By contrast, many organizations mistake the branding process for an identity exercise. And while that is an essential piece of brand, there are three major components to branding:

  • Brand Strategy
  • Brand Development
  • Brand Engagement
Brand Strategy Road Map

A brand strategy road map helps communicate the process to senior management and provides “gates” that must be sequentially satisfied to move through the process. (Click graphic to enlarge)

Your company’s best branding strategies will almost always come from aligning customer insights with organizational vision, values and business objectives. Those strategies are brought to life with brand development (logos, messaging, governance, programs, products, services) and should permeate your organization’s processes and culture/employees. Only on this strategic footing is the brand ready to push outward to customers through sales and marketing touch points. This process helps organizations “live the brand,” so customers’ and consumers’ brand experience is consistent with what the brand stands for. This consistency provides a host of business benefits from enhanced productivity, support for premium pricing, and deflection of competition, to higher revenues and margins.

shutterstock_32689690Mergers & Acquisitions

When a merger or acquisition occurs, though there may be solid business due-diligence behind the transaction, brand misalignment is likely. Rarely are two brand cultures so similar that an alignment action isn’t needed to optimize business performance. Developing a brand strategy roadmap, along with some seasoned facilitation and guidance, helps resolve brand misalignment issues so people and processes support a common goal.

Get the (big) picture?

Alignment essentially assures that people, processes, and business goals all understand the vision and support each other. Alignment of talent, brand delivery, marketing, operations, and other functional areas and stakeholder groups make up the entire alignment picture. “People” include not only employees, but also distributors and customers.

Chicken and egg

There’s a debate among brand consultants about whether business strategy drives the vision or vice-versa…that business strategy may change the organizational vision. I’d like to hear your thoughts on this. Leave a comment (see top of post).

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Brand marketing. Oxymoron? Or CEO Secret?

24 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by in Branding, Measurement

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Brand is the network of relationships that surrounds a business or product, including all its touch points.

I once spent the better part of a year convincing the CEO of a marketing organization that brand was not a subset of marketing, but instead, the reverse. To my surprise, during that year, I noticed his perspective is fairly common, even among marketing folks.

To many people (especially direct marketers and finance folks), “brand” associates with really fluffy connotations. In reality, brand is much bigger than marketing. In fact, it’s bigger than the products brought to market and even bigger than the companies that make the products that go to market. Why? Because the brand includes not only the company and its products, but relationships among its people, all its functions, channels (distributors, etc.), customers and even – to a degree – its competitors. It encompasses values, purpose, beliefs, and ultimately, identity. Essentially, brand is about that precisely dicey issue of “what you stand for” and what that means to people in the context of their lives. Finance guys often get heartburn from brand discussions mostly because they can’t easily and accurately prove out ROI on brand investments. An operationalized approach to brand investments can quench the heartburn. This means placing strategic metrics among and between internal operations, customer touch point metrics, marketing results, and financial results.

The difference between Marketing and Brand

Click image for a larger view.

Marketing builds and measures transactions. Brand builds and measures relationships. Even though marketers refer to building relationships through marketing, the goal is transactions, so technically, there’s a little brand blended in with the marketing mentality.  Brand relationships continue after marketing has delivered products to customers. The goal of branding is to build relationships as a pipeline for transactions.

Where marketing is about all the intelligence and activities it takes to drive transactions, brand focuses on the underlying relationships and expectations among stakeholders around the transactions. When positive relationships exist and expectations are met, the stage is set for a continuous stream of transactions (i.e. successful sales and marketing campaigns).

This sets into motion a chain of operational implications, both internal and external. Brand-aligned organizations use this as an opportunity to examine the dynamic and causal relationships among employees, customers, and operations. Identifying cause-and-effect among these forces builds business value – the goals at the core of business operations. To do this successfully, an operationalized brand metrics program should first be in place (for more on this, contact Gropartners).

The truth is, most people feel more comfortable gaining a level of trust before they take the leap into a transaction. Until they experience a level of satisfaction or value as “compensation” for the currency they trade, customers experience anxiety and feel vulnerable. But they may not even take the leap until they feel they can trust the seller (kind of “chicken-or-egg” first). So whether an ad campaign puts a friendly face on the brand, a sampling campaign lets you “try before you buy,” or a recommendation from a trusted friend disarms you, some level of pre-transaction relationship is usually required to help minimize the feeling of risk and start the flow of transactions. This, and it’s post-transaction counterparts (“customer care,” etc.), wrap the transactions up in “relationship wrappers.”

Brands are relationships between people and products, services, or ideas, which are made of three fundamental elements: focus, distinction, and trust. The word “brand” should be distinguished from  ‘branding.” “Brand” focuses on the strategic dimensions of a relationship while “branding” refers to execution. “Branding” is a term that broadly defines the scope of activities that bring the brand to life for stakeholders –- creative application of brand values, identity and communications (logos, taglines, guidelines, messaging, etc.). These activities “voice” the brand to stakeholders. And while these are certainly essential elements of brand, they are usually products of creative execution under strategic direction.

So when you hear or use the phrase “brand marketing,” it generally relates to issues about customer relationships and delivering on the promise. In contrast,”product marketing,” issues are mainly about transactions and delivering the product. That’s how brand marketing and product marketing work hand-in-hand to build business value. And that’s why you find many high-profile CEOs personally driving brand conversations and initiatives. The big picture guys get it.

Your thoughts? Post them below!

### GF

I grok: The holy grail of brand

26 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by in Branding, Measurement

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To have all your stakeholders “grok” your brand is true alignment; the sought-after state of mind.

Robert A. Heinlein originally coined the term grok in his 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land as a Martian word that could not be defined in Earthling terms. The gist of the expression is to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to lose one’s identity in the experience.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines grok as “to understand intuitively or by empathy; to establish rapport with” and “to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment.”

Still with me?

What brand wouldn’t want an experience so poignant that the consumer/customer becomes totally absorbed in the experience – to understand the brand with the same emotional force as the company founders? What are the elusive qualities a brand must possess in order to get their stakeholders to grok?

My initial research on the subject called for a focus group of eight to 10 Martians, but since my space ship is in the shop, I decided to settle for some interviews with humans.

In a recent interview with insurance agents regarding their marketing organization, one agent told me a heart-rending story about how his business was on the brink of failure when his marketing organization provided some free services, empathy, and counsel that not only got him back on his feet, but producing at levels double his past year’s premiums. “They not only saved me,” he said, “they saved my family.”  This gesture has bonded the agent to the marketing organization’s brand for life… and I mean the brand, not the brand name, because to the agent, the brand stands for “my safety net,” “…they truly care…,” “…they are a partner who really understands my situation.” Or, in Martian terms, they grok me.

When strong bonds like this are made between brands and people, it’s usually based on an emotional, rather than logical, appeal driven by a brand’s core values. When the product is not easily emotionally driven (like screws, machinery, and other B2B categories) the brand voice of the organization’s people and marketing carry the brand; increasingly so as the category is commoditized. Consistent alignment of brand values among internal (employees) and external (customers) stakeholders is essential in order to bathe the customer/consumer in the brand halo and feel the love.

Declined my interview.

Emotional attachment is the most powerful force in the brand world — even B2B. It is the quality that allows your customers to grok your brand. This brand loyalty is very difficult to create, yet so easy to destroy; especially with social media’s ability to spread bad juju like wildfire. One instance of misalignment between the brand promise and brand performance is enough to cause a consumer or customer to abandon the brand, especially where switching costs are low. When switching costs are high, the brand elasticity is usually greater. This means there is more margin for error in the brand promise v performance alignment, because the relationship or product is complex and it costs so much to switch brands that many imperfections are forgiven.  These are usually in high involvement-purchases such as capital equipment or contracted professional services. In the consumer realm it could be your doctor, dentist, or car purchase. But even with great elasticity, eventually the bonds can be broken.

In my consulting practice, I’ve seen an uptrend in B2B organizations to “emotionalize” their brands. OK, so let’s see now, you want me to emotionalize a machine screw? Really? Well, I guess if our brand of screw is the hero in a story in which our Earth-bound Martian friends, pining for the friendly red skies of home, finally find the perfect fastener to fix their spaceship, which allows them to streak homeward to their groking flocks…well, then I guess I grok.

Take a fresh look at your brand(s) from a new perspective.  Do your stakeholders truly grok your brands? If not, maybe they could use some emotionalizing, re-energizing, messaging, integrating, or metrics strategies to measure the love. If so, GroPartners can help. And remember, everything is measurable, as long as you keep the commitment to measure it. For more on groking up your brand, contact me.

— Greg French

Bridging Strategy and Execution: Content is King

15 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Branding, Messaging, Social Media and Branding

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Crown

Today, content is king in branding. This is a long post but worth the read, with practical tips you can use today!

Mark Addicks, CMO at General Mills, predicts, “…many marketers will start with content as a way to engage their best customers and grow their business versus advertising.” This powerful statement carries with it some game-changing implications, and signals the realization by Corporate America that brand—the baneful black hole to bean counters everywhere—isn’t some fluffy little eccentricity.

Think about it. If brand is the relationship between two entities (corporations, products, people, etc.), based on focus, distinction and trust, then building that relationship requires more than self-indulgent glorification (aka “brand advertising”). Consumers and end users are more well-informed than ever before and they reward with consumption those who make their lives easier. They are not the lemmings of times past who were really glad they used Dial and wished everybody did. Or who got too wound up after drinking a pot of fully-leaded coffee, so they switched to SANKA and became a better person. No, today, we are a nation of jaded consumers searching for the truth under all that brand advertising.

We digital-age consumers do this with research and social media, mostly. In the epoch BW (before the web), research was hard work, and not often worth the consumer’s time. By contrast, today we can find out in 30 seconds how much a worker building iPads in China earns in a day ($17/day in a single facility employing more than 250,000 workers – one of the best jobs in China, reportedly). So, getting right down to “just the facts, ma’am,” has become the great global kneejerk reaction to seeking the skinny on a product before purchase.

The bottom line for branding? In my opinion, it’s actually good news. While brand advertising as we know it may fade in favor, it will be upstaged by a branded form of content that actually helps people become more productive. Much of this new branded content will be driven by processes such as message mapping.

propeller image

Propel your brand with content that bridges strategy and execution resulting in transactions

Case in point: I’m shopping for a new boat propeller (the old boat prop looks like it went through a shredder). Most marinas are closed this time of year and I don’t want to travel to get one. But I don’t know what size it is, or any of the other technical stuff I should know before attempting to order one on the web. So, I consult Google for “how to size a boat prop.” The results return all kinds of help from places that sell props. I wasn’t yet searching to buy a prop, just to figure out what specs I need. So I clicked on a paid ad that led me to a landing page whose ad seemed to be aligned with what I wanted to know.

A site named prop.com hosted a very helpful landing page, explaining in readily understandable terms how to determine what size, pitch, and style of prop is needed for various applications. It also showed me how to optimize the boat’s power performance by selecting the right prop. It really seemed these guys knew their stuff.

Even though the page design wasn’t highly professional, the content was pretty well written and exactly what I was searching for. The content quickly built my confidence in the brand, which transferred my trust into a same-session transaction. Here’s why:

  • The content matched my search query far better than others (promise matched performance), whose links took me directly to transaction pages of their websites without any acknowledgement of my search for propeller info (promise/performance mismatch).
  • The content was complete yet brief, so I could get on with my transaction. It built an appetite for my transaction without overshooting or losing my interest (didn’t waste my time).
  • An easy-to-find link at the bottom of the prop.com landing page led me directly to the host brand site transaction page (very convenient access to get my prop now that I knew what to buy).

But just when I thought I’d won the ecommerce lotto (found exactly the information I needed, became educated enough to make a confident online purchase over $100, all in less than eight minutes), the entire process derailed. When I clicked on the link at the bottom of the page, the host-brand site loaded and – OMG – charts chock full of unfamiliar jargon and specifications bullied me into a psychological fetal position. No way could I begin to connect the knowledge they provided on their highly informative landing page with my needs. The result: no sale.

In a nutshell, although their content and search strategy was great and the landing page motivated me to visit their website – ready to spend – they fell woefully short at the point of sale. It was not easy to buy! Where was that helpful brand whose content wooed me to the point of transaction? Lost somewhere in transition, I guess.

Lesson? Content-driven digital presence has the potential to immediately and dramatically close the distance between brand building investments and ROI. That translates into excellence in bridging strategy and execution, the key to survival in this New Age of brand marketing.

So here are some useful tips for planning your brand content-to-transaction strategy:

  • Use a content-driven landing page with useful info and no selling between your search ad (or organic result) and your transaction site.
  • Be sure that your search result is relevant to the search term. This builds the first rung of trust.
  • Offer content that is well-written, brief and to the point, yet complete within the scope of the topic (don’t try this at home – consult a professional, and test it) — again … no selling.
  • Use Message Mapping to help you keep your content organized, prioritized, and consistently aligned in all communications (click here to find out more about Message Mapping).
  • Make it easy to buy, by placing a courtesy link to a transaction page that matches the topic of the landing page and makes it as easy as possible for the visitor to buy.

This is the bridge between strategy and execution that will pay off your content posts with a transaction.

How are you turning brand into money using content? Let me know! I love to share examples, good and bad. Post your comments and links here, in frenchonbrand.

Try this quick and easy brand focus metric

08 Wednesday Sep 2010

Posted by in Branding

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Focus makes your brand strong

Do your customers, staff and partners view your brand the way you want them to? Is your brand living up to its promises? There’s a surprisingly quick and easy way to pull a general brand metric and reveal critical alignment issues that could be hurting your brand.

Brands spend millions of dollars every year to measure their alignment (i.e., does our brand really stand for what we think it does with stakeholders?). And while rigorous research is certainly in order on a periodic basis, it usually costs a ton and takes a long time.
There is an alternative to the time and expense of formal brand alignment research: a simple survey and analysis approach you can actually do by yourself in a day or two.
Ask 10 to 20 people (the more the merrier) holding diverse positions within your company (from executives to the stockroom) the following question: “In five words or less, what does our brand stand for; what are we about?” Whether it’s a company or product brand you’re measuring, hold on to your socks. You may be shocked at the misaligned perceptions.

You can do the “asking” with a web survey tool or simply walk the halls with a clipboard. Note the most commonly used key words or phrases in their answers. Count how many times they were used among all the answers.

Next, ask five of your best customers (or users) the same question: “In five words or less, what does our brand stand for, what are we all about?” Again, note how many times the same key words or phrases appear in the answers your customers provided?

Now tie this data to your brand. Does your company have a tag line? Does the key word or phrase identified in your surveys appear in your company tag line? Does the tag line accompany your logo in all uses? If you don’t have a tag line, does the most popular survey keyword or phrase appear in the top line messaging for your organization…consistently on every marketing communication? If not, your brand is misaligned with your stakeholders perceptions.

While this may not be the most scientific of survey techniques, it can help you form a hypothesis about what action to take. Maybe additional research, a formal brand alignment initiative, or it can simply provide the impetus to get your message straight using Message Mapping or other alignment techniques.

Contact GroPartners Consulting for more information on how to launch this quick and easy brand focus survey.

What’s the worst thing that can happen in social media?

27 Tuesday Jul 2010

Posted by in Branding

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It’s a great and wondrous debate in social media planning right now: When are you ready to engage in social media? Which is worse: putting yourself out there with huge uncertainty, but ahead of the game, or being left in the dust?

We feel pretty strongly that marketers need to get ahead of the game in understanding social media, its best uses and pitfalls. In other words, the research and strategy part is relatively risk-free – but exercise caution in execution.  Things like Twitter etiquette and promotional sensitivities are absolute musts to understand before engaging out there in social media land.

But if you’re not doing anything at all, are you at the risk of having customers take over your brand and messaging? Or worse yet, think you’re out of touch? Do you need a presence to ensure you have a say in the voicing of your own brand?

Is social media the best way to create a dialog with your customers and clients? More than 80% of marketers recognize it as an extremely effective way to hear and respond to the voice of their customers, in a real and ongoing conversation.  They understand the increasing value in talking with, and not talking at, their customers. The challenge seems to be in keeping the dialog going with real and meaningful issues, on a continuous basis.

What’s the worst thing that could happen to you in social media? Blog it here.

Social media changes brand’s role from host to guest

04 Tuesday May 2010

Posted by in Branding

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Greg French, M.S.M.C.

As The Most Interesting Man in the World says in the Dos Equis commercials, “Find that thing you do not do well … then do not do that thing!”

Today, accountability for brand performance is heightened exponentially by social media communities, whose members can be ruthlessly truthful about brand performance v marketing promises — in in a highly public setting (blogs, Facebook, etc.). Social media, in essence, becomes the “brand promise police” (or lynch mob). So, more than ever, it is essential that brands deliver flawlessly on their promises.

According to a 2007 global Nielsen survey of 26,486 Internet users in 47 markets, consumer recommendations were the most credible form of advertising among 78 percent of the study’s respondents. According to a 2009 Nielsen report, “Global Faces and Networked Places,” two-thirds of the world’s Internet population visit social networking or blogging sites, accounting for almost 10% of all internet time. Putting these two studies together projects a pretty powerful position for social media in shaping brand perceptions.

Back in the day, marketing was mostly a monologue, with snapshots of research guidance, where brand messaging was a one-way street from brand to consumer. Brands hosted events, ads, and other promotional events to push messaging and product. Today, social media creates a running dialog, taking the neighborhood “fencepost” to a new level. It forms a nexus of potentially millions of people where opinions of brands are voiced in a gloves-off mosh pit of customer/consumer scrutiny. So today, it’s even more essential than ever to NOT over promise brand delivery. Instead, brands must be “surgically” precise in defining their value propositions, while consistently articulating and supporting them through every brand touchpoint, especially product and service performance. Finally, they should be certain to include a continuous feedback loop to update messages in real time to address the shifting sands of vox populi at any given moment.

In contrast to a simple brand model with the customer at the center of the universe, today customer issues are at the core with communities forming around them. These communities accumulate consensus and can reposition brands outside of the brand’s control. If a brand’s promise meets its performance, it is considered “a good brand.” If not, well … then do not do that thing! Or modify your promise.

One way to look at this new paradigm is to understand that brands are now the guests of communities, instead of their hosts. Today, communities more often form around issues than individual brands. And rather than enjoying that time-honored “competitive cushion” offered by media, which avoided competitive ad adjacency, social media pits brands mano a mano in a public forum. This is where your evangelists are indispensable, defending your brand among the detractors.

Bottom line? Promises are intrinsically meant to be kept. Social media trends are simply another club over the head to remind us that we must keep our brand promises faithfully, and that our brands are not the center of the universe, but rather servants of demand.

Your thoughts?

The most misunderstood word in business…

28 Wednesday Apr 2010

Posted by in Branding

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How do you define “brand?” Blog it here.

Exercise caution when you use the word “brand.” You may be saying “elephant” while your listener is hearing only “trunk.”

The word ‘brand’ is widely misunderstood and misused, even by marketing professionals. The holistic nature of brand includes a huge range of factors, from the most obvious identity components to every nuance of actions and employee body language. It’s the sum of these nuances as well as the not-so-nuancy stuff that provides people with a brand impression…the big picture of what an entity or idea stands for in their mind.

I once had a CEO client who asked us to “re-energize” his organization’s brand. Three weeks later, I came back to him with a complete proposal and time line including research and process to help define the brand, messaging to communicate it, and an internal campaign to get employees on board. Finally the proposal recommended a channel launch and external campaign to get the word out to distributors and customers.

On the day of the presentation, my bewildered CEO listened politely for half an hour before he said, “All I wanted was an updated logo.”

My advice? Put together a standardized deck of fewer than 10 PowerPoint slides to orient people around you to the holistic brand. It could save you a lot of angst and time. If you need a deck fast, just contact me.

How do you define brand? Blog it here.