Brand Strategy: It’s A Business Triumph if You Do It Right
In today’s fast-paced and highly interactive marketing ecosystem, brand strategy has gained a reputation as a superfluous – even outdated – exercise, especially for smaller and mid-size organizations. With marketing budgets not as large as they used to be and an increased emphasis on measurable results, these organizations can thumb their noses at investing in an exercise that seems hypothetical – or, at best, not as central to their core key performance indicators. And with companies more conscious than ever of a need to create and sustain relationships with their end customers, a process that is largely focused on building internal consensus can appear esoteric. With all these forces at work, I’d argue that branding has gotten a bad rap.
Prior to joining Off Madison Ave, you could definitely count me as one of the skeptics. In my time on the “client side,” holding various positions with in-house marketing departments, I went through several branding exercises with marketing agencies – none of which ever really “stuck.” After a few times of investing the money and time to go through an exercise that failed to motivate our internal teams or give me any clarity around my go-to-market positioning, I summarily dismissed branding as a one-size-fits-all solution to the need to find “white space” in a crowded market.
What I’ve realized, though, is that it’s precisely because the market is so crowded that differentiation through brand work is so crucial. With consumers being exposed to thousands of marketing messages a day and every organization rushing to have a “presence” on online marketing channels, it’s more difficult than ever to stand out from the crowd.
At Off Madison Ave, we genuinely believe that a clearly-articulated brand that both encompasses what makes your organization different or unique and serves as a commitment to provide value to everyone who interacts with your organization is the key to creating long-term growth and viability. In this sense, brand strategy is not a stand-alone set of words or visuals; it is a marriage of your business plan and marketing positioning that will translate to greater return-on-investment, because with each brand interaction, a layer of sustainable and distinct emotional and functional value is communicated and the relationship between the consumer and the brand grows in a much more meaningful and concrete way. Not convinced? Ask anyone off the street to describe Apple, Google or Disney’s brand. Consumers will likely be able to explain with certainty what the “big picture” is behind each of those consumer brands.
So, if we accept that brand strategy is a crucial step in every organization’s business planning process, how do you ensure that you are approaching it correctly? What are some of the rules of engagement to ensure maximum value?
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The process matters. In looking back at the branding strategy exercises I had participated in, it is clear now that the process had been short-changed a bit. To be truly viable as a go-to-market strategy, branding should consist of, at the very least, the phases showcased below. The exploration and evaluation phase is especially crucial and is often overlooked. The purpose is to review all existing research, determine any gaps, perform any missing research (often including internal stakeholder interviews) and then consolidate and analyze all of this data. Ultimately, the goal is to gain key qualitative and quantitative insights that form the foundation of brand positioning.
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There must be internal buy-in. It is not enough for the marketing or public relations team to support a branding exercise. In fact, not having the support and investment of other key stakeholders – whether other members of the executive team or other key departments influencing or managing customer interactions – is a death sentence for brand work. Recently, we began brand strategy for Phoenix School of Law, an independent school with an integrative and holistic approach to legal education, and were beyond impressed with the cohesion and collaboration of the leadership team. Their collective vision for where the school would go as an organization facilitated the brand planning and made the comprehensive application of the results possible. This isn’t always the case, but having those tough conversations can open stakeholders’ eyes to how the differing internal visions can be causing inconsistent brand communication that ultimately end up affecting consumer experience. Furthermore, it’s the entire organization that’s responsible for carrying out and living up to the brand’s values and positioning – ranging from the adjunct professor answering a student’s question during office hours to the dean addressing the entire student body – and not just the assignment of the marketing department and its initiatives. This makes comprehensive internal buy-in and constant reinforcement of the vision imperative, as it ensures that your marketing messages truly align with all touchpoints within your organization.
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The brand positioning must be layered. Much of the brand positioning I’ve seen is too simple to really hold water in a competitive rainstorm. Saying a brand is “distinguished by service” or the “premier [insert service here]” doesn’t do much; similarly, brand positioning focused solely on features or benefits invites comparison and puts you in a fact war with your competition. Great brand positioning is layered – incorporating multiple emotional, practical and sensory aspects of your brand and leveraging words that have multiple connotations. As words and values can have different meanings for different people, adding clear definitions to these layers, pillars or dimensions will allow your organization to march to the same beat, ensuring your audiences can clearly recognize what you represent.
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The brand strategy must be supported by marketing planning and outreach. While the brand is the sum of many different experiences (e.g. customer service, sales, etc.) within your organization, part of effective brand work is making a commitment to communicating the brand at every relevant touch-point to your target audiences. However, all too often, companies attempt to make the leap from brand positioning to outreach without stopping to plan the marketing channels and programs that make sense in light of the brand. As evidenced by the above process graphic, strategic marketing planning is a crucial next step after brand strategy and ensures that the translation of your brand to visuals, words and campaigns is strategically sound.
What have your experiences with branding been? What have you seen be successful – or fall flat?
About the Author: Christine Olivas
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