Essential requirements for a successful brand – PART 2

A strong brand is an essential contributor to a company’s success. Consequently my company Heywood Innovation encounters many companies who are eager to further their understanding of what branding is and what it can achieve for them. No two companies encounter exactly the same challenges and opportunities. This requires of a dedicated branding consultancy like Heywood Innovation an in-depth understanding of your business and what will influence the future success of your brand. The following are key influencers of a corporate brand’s success.

ENGAGE YOUR PEOPLE
They’ll love you for it
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. Make them aware of the company’s vision and how the brand must be developed around it. Explain to them the role they play in its development and its success. Excite them, engage them and inspire them to live the brand. Without their support and involvement the brand will undoubtedly fail.
>    involve your people from start to finish
>    keep them informed
>    get them to live the brand
>    appoint brand champions

CREATE POWERFUL AND PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATIONS
... that are consistent with the brand
Your investment in a new brand will be compromised if you do not tell people about it – what it means, the vision that it represents, what its values are and the promise that it makes to its employees and customers. Crafting a ‘look & feel’ that is distinctive and brings life to the brand. Create language that enhances and distinguishes all forms of communications – corporate, marketing, internal and investor. Consistency of 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.
>    create a distinctive and recognisable visual style
>    develop brand language and a written style
>    ensure communications styles adapt to various audiences
>    introduce and maintain consistency

STRONG EXPRESSION
Create a positive impression
First impressions are important. To create a positive first impression a brand must look good and be differentiated from other brands. Strength is built from consistency. All applications must be consistent in the way they present the brand – from business cards to brochures to your website. Applications however 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 influenced by what they see, what they read, what they hear, what they smell and what they touch.
>    first impressions count
>    consistency is important
>    consider more than just what people see and read

MEASURE RESULTS
Determine your brand’s performance
A new brand’s performance must be regularly monitored and assessed against predetermined performance criteria. Once the new brand has been 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. What aspects of the brand do you need to measure? ... understanding and appreciation by your employees, how and to what extent it is influencing your audiences, influence on sales performance... and much more.
>    accountability is an important factor
>    brands need constant refinement
>    without measurement it is unlikely that your brand will improve


Tony Heywood is an international branding consultant and founder of Heywood Innovation in Sydney and co-founder of BrandSynergy in Singapore.

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

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Essential requirements for a successful brand – PART 1

A strong brand is an essential contributor to a company’s success. Consequently my company Heywood Innovation encounters many companies who are eager to further their understanding of what branding is and what it can achieve for them. No two companies encounter exactly the same challenges and opportunities. This requires of a dedicated branding consultancy like Heywood Innovation an in-depth understanding of your business and what will influence the future success of your brand. The following are key influencers of a corporate brand’s success.

DISCOVERY
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. To source this information we engage your team with our facilitated TeamPlan process that we employ to enormous effect to focus group thinking, ‘cut through the clutter’, develop ideas and enable the team to take ownership of the brand’s direction.
>    provides accurate information on your present situation
>    helps gain insight to what can be achieved
>     ensures the branding team head in the right direction

FUTURE VISION
What you hope to become and to achieve
Essential to the success of your brand is a powerful vision for the future. Without this there are no clear objectives for the brand to work towards and no identifiable goals to achieve. We work with company leaders to create, manage and implement long term vision for their brands. Jointly we develop an achievable vision and bring it to life by visualising it and creating innovative ways of communicating it to your audiences.
>    understand how you see the future of your company and its industry
>    identify opportunities and threats that might impair the vision
>    discover your organisation’s core assets and competencies
>    make it a powerful and passionate story that permeates your organisation

WHAT’S YOUR NAME?
The most important brand element
A name is the one element in branding that you hope never to change. It must reflect your company’s personality and its core brand values. In a world inundated with names, yours must be differentiated from competitors and truly memorable. The opening up of global markets means that your company name and those of your products and services must transcend cultural and linguistic barriers. It must also be registerable as a trademark to protect your rights.
>    make your name distinctive and different
>    ensure it is easily pronounced and understood by your key audiences
>    ensure it has no negative connotations in other cultures and languages
>    register it to protect your intellectual property rights

KEY BRAND DRIVER
The heart of your brand
Deep within your brand lies a quality, a belief, a differentiator that is central to its success. The one thing that drives your business forward, that your competitors cannot match. Why is it essential to identify your brand’s driver? 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 your brand that stands head and shoulders above those of all competitors.
>    one clear and endearing aspect of your brand
>    helps differentiate your brand
>    helps build a positive perception of your brand in your audiences’ minds

IT'S A LONG TERM PLAN
An investment with interest
Corporate branding doesn’t happen overnight. It’s unlikely that you will gain the total benefits of a new brand within 12 months. Look at it as a minimum three year programme to establish the brand, ensure it addresses the objectives of your future vision, nurture it, gain feedback, refine it and monitor its performance. Brands grow and must respond to ongoing external and internal forces. Adjustment and refinement are a necessity. Put in place guidelines to ensure that the agreed direction is followed and the brand is consistently applied.
>    results don’t happen overnight
>    determine performance criteria
>    monitor and test
>    be prepared to adjust and refine


Tony Heywood is an international branding consultant and founder of Heywood Innovation in Sydney and co-founder of BrandSynergy in Singapore.

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

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