Brand Leadership

What you need to do to achieve it.
After nearly twenty years in the business, I’ve acquired a pretty good understanding of the requirements for a successful brand. Sadly there are many out there who still believe a design make-over will fix all their organisation’s problems, change any negative perceptions and bring untold wealth and success. This may happen in 5% of the cases, but for the other 95% in the real world here is some advice on getting the basics right.

As the owner of a successful Australian branding and communications business I’ve experienced many situations that constantly emphasise how essential a strong brand is to an organisation’s success. Thankfully we encounter many organisations who share this belief and are eager to further their understanding of what branding is and what it can achieve for them.
One of the more exciting aspects of the business I am in is the daily reinforcement that no two companies are alike and no two companies encounter exactly the same challenges and opportunities.

Discover the real you
The first stage in any branding project is to understand what your present brand is, what it is capable of becoming and what it can achieve. This differs significantly from organisation to organisation depending on whether it is an established corporate or new market entrant, its understanding and commitment to the brand, its history, whether is is B2B or B2C, its products etc etc. This requires determined research to gain information, statistics and insight on the organisation, its customers, employees, products and services, competitors and the markets in which it operates. This information is sourced from desk research and face-to-face meetings with key stakeholders and those who are influenced by the brand. Some years ago we introduced a custom-developed facilitated process called TeamPlan that we employ to enormous effect to focus group thinking, ‘cut through the clutter’, develop ideas and enable both teams to take ownership of the brand’s direction. All of this is complemented with an audit of the brand and the way the brand is communicated externally and internally.
Essentially this provides: accurate information on the organisation’s present situation, helps gain insight to what can be achieved and ensures the branding team head in the right direction.

Determine what you hope to become and to achieve
Essential to the success of a corporate brand is a powerful vision for the future. Some companies have a powerful leader with a powerful and motivating vision, others struggle along day-to-day with little understanding of where they are heading and why. Without a powerful vision there are no clear objectives for the brand to work towards and no identifiable goals to achieve. An essential early stage in brand development is to engage with company leaders to create, manage and implement long term vision for their brands. This vision then influences what the brand has to achieve and the methods to achieve it. The vision is then brought to life by visualising it and creating innovative ways of communicating it to your audiences.
Essentially this helps to: gain an understanding of how the organisation sees its future and its industry, identify opportunities and threats that might impair the vision, discover your organisation’s core assets and competencies and generate a powerful and passionate story that permeates the organisation.

The most important brand element – your name
A name is the one element in branding that you hope never to change. It is precious and must be protected. It must reflect the personality of the organisation and its core brand values. In a world inundated with names, they must be differentiated from competitors and be truly memorable. It is not easy to create new names and hope that they have not already been registered and that there will be a URL available. Many common names in the English language have already been taken and there are only so many Latin-based permutations left. The opening up of global markets means that the organisation’s name and those of products and services must transcend cultural and linguistic barriers. Many companies in Singapore with Chinese names for example are having to think hard about how to adapt or change their name in order for it to be understood, be readily accepted and able to trade successfully in other countries. Names should be registered as a trademark to protect your rights.
Essentially you should consider: making your name distinctive and different, ensuring it is easily pronounced and understood by your key audiences and has no negative connotations in other cultures and languages and registering it to protect your intellectual property rights.

Getting to the heart of your brand
Deep within every brand lies a quality, a belief, a differentiator that is central to its success, the one thing that drives your business forward, that competitors cannot match. Some call it ‘brand essence’. Why is it essential to identify this driver of the brand? To be successful a brand needs to be differentiated from all others and hold a perception in the minds of its audiences that it is the only one that can satisfy their needs. Ideally their perception should be based on one clear and endearing aspect of the brand that stands head and shoulders above those of all competitors.

Essentially you need to identify: one clear and endearing aspect of your brand to help differentiate the brand and build a positive perception of it in your audiences’ minds.

A long term investment with interest
Corporate branding doesn’t happen overnight. Expect a rebranding exercise to take anywhere from several months to several years. Organisations need to make themselves comfortable with the fact that they are unlikely to gain the total benefits of a new brand within 12 months. Look at it more as a minimum 2-3 year programme to establish the brand, ensure it addresses the objectives of the organisation’s future vision, nurture it, gain feedback, refine it and monitor its performance. Brands never stand still. They grow and must respond to ongoing external and internal forces. Adjustment and refinement are a necessity and must be built into any branding program. Put in place guidelines to ensure that the agreed direction is followed and the brand is consistently applied.
Essentially you need to be aware that results don’t happen overnight, that performance must be monitored and tested and that adjust and refinement are inevitable.

Branding begins on the inside
If the people on the inside don’t understand and respect your brand, how do you expect the people on the outside to? Employees, managers and executives all play a part in the creation of your brand. They must be consulted right from the start and made aware of the company’s vision and how the brand must be developed around it. It is crucial that they appreciate the very important role they play in its development and its success. They need to be excited, engaged and inspired to live the brand. Without their support and involvement the brand has little chance of success.

Essentially this means involving employees from start to finish, keeping them informed, getting them to live the brand and appointing brand champions.

Powerful and persuasive communications
Investment in a new brand will be compromised if you do not tell people about it. Obvious huh! Tell them what it means, the vision that it represents, what its values are and the promise that it makes to its employees and customers. Craft a consistent ‘look & feel’ for all communications that is distinctive and brings life to the brand. Create a distinctive language style and vocabulary that enhances and distinguishes all forms of communications – corporate, marketing, internal and investor. Consistency of newly branded communications is critical right from the start, to ensure that key messages create the same impression and tell the same story, regardless of the media employed. The task is to create the same perception of the organisation with all of audiences.

Essentially requirements are to create a distinctive, recognisable and consistently applied visual style supported by a unique brand language and a written style. Ensure the communications style can adapt to various audiences.

Express the brand
First impressions are important. Lasting ones even more so. To attract attention and influence its audiences a brand must look good, be differentiated from others and be consistently applied – from business cards, brochures, packaging, vehicle livery, recruitment advertising to your website. And everything in between. Remember however that brand applications are not all visual. If you own a health spa network for example, you want customers to be greeted by a distinctive fragrance, one they will savour and one they will remember regardless of location. Remember that people are affected not only by what they see, what they read, what they hear, what they smell, but also by what they touch. This is multi-sensory branding that takes into account all the senses.

Essential considerations are that first impressions count, consistency is important and you must appeal to more than just what people see and read

Measure and monitor your brand’s performance
Most things in life need ongoing care and attention. A new brand is no exception. Its performance must be regularly monitored and assessed against predetermined performance criteria. Once launched it needs ongoing attention, direction and refinement. You need to ensure it is performing and that you are receiving a return on your investment. Without measurement there is no accountability, and without accountability, brands, products, processes and people cannot be improved. Key aspects of the brand that need to be measure are the level of understanding and appreciation by your employees, how and to what extent it is influencing your audiences and its Influence on sales performance. And much more.

Essential considerations are that brands need constant refinement and that without measurement they are unlikely to improve.

Tony Heywood is a Fellow of the Design Institute of Australia, founder of Heywood Innovation in Sydney Australia and joint founder of BrandSynergy in Singapore.

View some of Heywood’s work on www.heywood.com.au

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