Creating a new brand in trying times – embrace the fundamentals PART 3

Once you’ve created your brand, you must tell people about it – what it means, what’s different about it, the vision that it represents, its values and the promise it makes to its customers and employees. You will need to:

> craft compelling marketing messages that influence and satisfy audiences
> create a ‘look & feel’ that is distinctive and memorable
> develop a brand language
> create advertising that achieves deep emotional connections
> customise communications to your key audiences
> ensure all communications are consistent and recognisable

When it comes to branding consultants – you get what you pay for

Execution
Having put so much hard work into planning the brand and its fundamental components, it makes a lot of sense that your investment in the brand is protected by consistent and accurate application. Your brand consultant should produce brand guidelines that help users to understand the new brand and templates to ensure intelligent and consistent application. Rolling out the brand can include many applications such as stationery, website, presentations, signs, marketing collateral, advertising. This process needs to be planned and managed, particularly from a budget perspective, as it is only too easy to be caught out by the production costs for printing, web development and media placement.

Employee engagement 
Employees are the life blood of your business. Choose them well and treat them well. Above all else ensure they fully understand the brand – what it is, what it means, what it stands for, the promise it makes, its values, vision, what you hope for it to achieve and the role your employees play in its success. If they are in customer facing roles, it is critical that they are able to embrace the brand and communicate its benefits clearly, succinctly and with real enthusiasm.

Brands need constant management and refinement

Monitor performance 
The launch of your new brand is only the beginning. Regularly monitor and assess its performance against the criteria established at the start of the brand building project. Also measure it against the performance of recognised high performing competitor brands. Measurement must be internal as well as external – find out how engaged your employees are with the brand and how well they are communicating its benefits to customers. Remember that when it comes to employees, regular communication is a must if you want to inspire them and retain them. 

I firmly believe a new breed of innovative brands will start to appear in 2009, inspired by fast moving, innovative and committed entrepreneurs with smart ideas to leverage opportunities in changing markets and with new visions for the future. Established brands will suffer as they try to adapt firstly to the challenging conditions afflicting the markets and then again as they manoeuvre to respond to recovering markets. My crystal ball says change will happen in Q3 2009. I guess that gives you 6 months to make your move.

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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Creating a new brand in trying times – embrace the fundamentals PART 2

PART 2 of three blog posts

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

Plan from start to finish
Make sure right from the start that you are clear on the scope of the brand building project. Work with the branding consultant to plan the stages and establish the likely budget you will require to build the brand, market it, communicate it and manage it. This can vary significantly depending on the type and size of the business, and its objectives, products, services and locations. Work out a realistic and achievable schedule and determine performance criteria by which you will measure success once the brand is established and working for you.

Ensure you are very clear on the values and vision that underpin your brand

Discover who you want to be and how to get there
Working with the branding consultant you will be challenged with some fundamental questions relating to the objectives you have for the brand. Basically they need to discover the real you and determine whether your future plans are sound and achievable. Questions such as “What activities will the new business engage in now and in the foreseeable future?” “Have you researched the market to determine whether there is a need for your products and services?” “How different is your offer to those of your competitors?” “What perceptions do you believe customers will have of the business?” “What values and vision will drive the business?” “Do you have a name for the business – one that is distinctive and won’t infringe a competitor’s trade mark?”

Create your vision for the future
Without a bulletproof vision for the future, one that is achievable and sustainable, you will falter all the way to insolvency. All the great companies have a powerful, unique and passionate vision that permeates their entire organisation. Without one there are no clear objectives for the brand to work towards and no identifiable goals to achieve. It only achieves success when it is embraced by all employees and becomes inextricably linked to the brand.

The name is the most important element of the new brand
Everyone with whom you interact will refer to you by name. It is the one element you hope never to change. It must appeal to target audiences and be relevant to the nature of your business. The name you choose for a new fashion house for example, will be very different to that you would choose for a new accountancy firm. Remember that new names are very difficult to register, either as a company or as a URL for your website – there aren’t that many words left in the English language! Consider whether you will need to extend the name in the future. Can the name be extended to accommodate a complementary line of business? Can it be registered in another country in which you may want to operate?

Defining the brand
This is the process of determining the essence of your brand – identifying those characteristics that make it unique, attractive and able to generate positive perceptions in your customers that it is the only one that can satisfy their needs. These include personality, values, differentiators and more. To be successful, a new brand must be differentiated from all others and be easily recognised. The objective is to build a high level of brand awareness by creating an emotional attachment with customers and positioning in their minds that drives incontestable loyalty and sales success.

Creating a powerful ‘look & feel’
Your new brand must look unique and distinctive. Key elements of the brand must be created – logo, positioning statement, colours, imagery and brand language for later application into product packaging, marketing, communications and branded environments. First impressions are important but so is consistent application of the brand. Having a ‘look & feel’ for marketing material that bears little resemblance to the ‘look & feel’ of your website will get you nowhere. Audiences are increasingly looking for interactive experiences underpinned by compelling messages that bring them closer – physically and emotionally.

Tony Heywood is an international branding consultant, founder of Heywood Innovation in Australia, United Kingdom and India, and joint founder of BrandSynergy in Singapore.

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

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HI POD - Are you a brand fanatic?

Click here to listen to HI POD - Are you a brand fanatic?

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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Creating a new brand in trying times – embrace the fundamentals PART 1

PART 1 of three blog posts

Sitting here writing this in balmy 30 degree sunshine and blue skies overlooking the most beautiful harbour in the world, I seem momentarily a million miles away from the economic trauma impacting on businesses all around the globe. Connecting to the internet on my laptop, the BBC News website however brings reality into play with graphic depictions of terrorist strikes in Mumbai, Woolworths in the UK looking for a bailout; and GM, Chrysler and Ford in dire straits in the US. We are being assaulted by endless bad news on the business and political scene.

It seems that countless television news articles, media sites and business blogs are only too keen to update us on the bad news. Distinguished captains of industry, business analysts and academics at leading universities are revelling in the opportunity to lecture us on how recessions happen and the financial, psychological, historical, political, scientific and geographical implications, and the impact it is having on the price of petrol we put in our tank… that this is the recession we had to have, driven by greed and flawed governance of global financial systems.

Get it right on the inside first before you unleash it on the outside

The reaction from many companies affected by the downturn is to go on the defensive and either batten down the hatches and hide below decks until the storm passes, or slash and burn marketing budgets, delay business building initiatives and identify the poor performers in the workforce who are most expendable.

The last thing you would expect someone to be attempting in these trying conditions is to kick start a new business venture and crank up the brand building process. Yet for the more astute entrepreneurs this is probably the most opportunistic time in the last twenty or more years to be planning and building a new business. Why do I say this?

> You are likely to have fewer competitors now than you would have had this time last year.

> Established competitors need to reposition their brands and educate customers in line with the new market conditions

> Businesses are averse to change – those that can adapt to change are the new leaders of tomorrow

> It is a lot easier to catch the attention of customers in a market experiencing low levels of marketing activity

> History tells us that downturns breed innovation, and innovation breeds success

> The present market conditions are changing consumer loyalties – they are re-considering their choices, opening up the opportunity for new brands to steal market share

> Consumers will become more demanding and want more value and reward from the brands they associate with

> Brands with the strongest proposition will be the new winners

Make sure it is uniquely different from those of your competitors

Yes people are cautious, but the world doesn’t stop even for a recession. After the initial slashing and burning of marketing budgets, companies will begin to realise that to maintain their hard won position in the marketplace, they will have to start marketing with strong conviction.

Entrepreneurs will be naturally cautious to start up a new business, particularly in the first half of 2009. Market analysts are suggesting that consumers deprived of their natural spending habits will start to feel the retail itch and the need to satisfy their cravings for new products and new experiences, spurred on by the potential for some of the biggest January/February sales in history.

So how do you go about establishing a new brand and priming it for success in these trying times? You must focus much more on getting the basics right. After more than 20 years in the branding business, I have come to recognise the essential considerations that ensure a brand gives of its best. Here’s a sobering thought – if you don’t get all of these right, there is every chance you will never gain maximum benefit from your brand, which in this economic climate may just make the difference between success and early failure. Here are several of the more important ones:

Invest in advice from an experienced branding consultant

Select an experienced branding consultant
Always work with, and gain advice from, people who are specialists in their field. At this critical juncture, don’t rely on ‘gut feel’. Establishing and building an effective brand is critical to your future success. Select carefully, as there are plenty of ‘creatives’ disguised as branding experts who will be only too keen to take your money and design for you a new logo, brochure and some stationery – which won’t get you very far. An experienced branding consultant goes much further by helping you to define your business, differentiate it, market it and prepare you for success. Ensure they are attuned to the changing market conditions.

Part two of this blog post to follow shortly…

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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A glossary of commonly used branding terms

I have compiled a short list of commonly used branding terms that we use regularly when interacting with clients.

Brand
A brand is a collection of perceptions in the mind of the consumer resulting from their experience of a product, service or company. A brand has functional and emotional elements which create a relationship between customers and the organisation, product or service.

Brand Architecture
The method by which an organisation structures and names the brands within its portfolio. There are three main types of brand architecture system:
> monolithic – where the corporate name is used on all products and services offered by the company
> endorsed – where all sub-brands are linked to the corporate brand by means of either a verbal or visual endorsement
> freestanding – where the corporate brand operates merely as a holding company, and each product or service is individually branded for its target market.

Brand Audit
A comprehensive examination of all aspects of a brand to assess its health, uncover its sources of equity and suggest ways to improve and leverage that equity.

Brand Attributes
The functional and emotional associations which are assigned to a brand by its customers and prospects. Brand attributes can have different degrees of relevance and importance to different customer segments, markets and cultures.

Brand Champion
Internal and external advocates of the brand empowered with the task of spreading the brand’s vision and values and promoting its purpose within an organisation.

Brand Commitment
The degree to which a customer is committed to a given brand based on the likelihood of them re-purchasing in the future. This indicates the degree to which a brand’s customer franchise is protected from competitors.

Brand Equity
The value someone places on an organisation, product or service brand, based on everything that the person thinks, feels and knows about the brand.

Brand Essence
The distillation of a brand’s intrinsic characteristics into a succinct core concept.

Brand Experience
The means by which a brand is created in the mind of a stakeholder. Experiences can be influenced by personal contact, retail environments, advertising, products, services, websites etc. Some are uncontrolled eg word of mouth. Strong brands arise from consistent experiences which combine to form a clear, differentiated overall brand experience.

Brand Extension
Leveraging the values of the brand to take it into new markets or sectors.

Brand Identity
The outward expression of the brand, including its name and visual appearance. The brand’s identity is its fundamental means of consumer recognition and differentiation from competitors.

Brand Management
This involves ongoing management of the functional and emotional experiences of the brand. These can range from exposure to products, packaging and price – to the customer experience of marketing activities and interaction with people.

Brand Personality
Includes all the tangible and intangible traits of a brand, say beliefs, values, prejudices, features, interests, and heritage. A brand personality makes it unique. It describes a brand in terms of human characteristics. It is seen as a valuable factor in increasing brand engagement and brand attachment, in much the same way as people relate and bind to other people.

Brand Platform
The Brand Platform consists of the following elements:
> Brand Vision - The brand’s guiding insight into its world.
> Brand Mission - How the brand will act on its insight.
> Brand Values - The code by which the brand lives. The brand values act as a benchmark to measure behaviors and performance.
> Brand Personality - The brand’s personality traits (See also definition for Brand Personality).
> Brand Tone of Voice - How the brand speaks to its audiences.

Brand Positioning
The distinctive position that a brand adopts in its competitive environment to ensure that individuals in its target market can tell the brand apart from others. Positioning involves the careful manipulation of every element of the marketing mix.

Brand Strategy
A ‘big picture’ plan for the systematic development of a brand to enable it to meet its agreed objectives. The strategy should be rooted in the brand’s vision and driven by the principles of differentiation and competitive advantage.

Brand Tone of Voice
How the brand speaks to its audiences.

Brand Valuation
The process of identifying and measuring the economic benefit that derives from brand ownership.

Brand Values
The code by which the brand lives. The brand values act as a benchmark to measure behaviours and performance.

Brand Vision
A concise statement of what a brand means to its owners and their intent for its future direction.

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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Motor City brands on the road to oblivion?

The crisis meeting of the ‘Big Three’ US car manufacturers last week in Washington served to indicate how a global financial crisis can impact some of the biggest brand names on the planet and highlight their flaws, the majority of which are management induced.

The behaviour of company leaders can have a profound effect on public and employee brand perceptions. From a public perspective the respective leaders of the Big Three, once sworn enemies in the marketplace, are now seen suitably humbled going cap in hand to Washington in a last ditch attempt to persuade the Democrats to take pity on them and rescue a US industry that is basically bankrupt. Here they are, desperate for a bailout, secure in the knowledge that no bank anywhere in the world will lend them money. Why the reluctance to bail them out? Because they have comprehensively proved themselves incapable of managing their companies and creating products that will sell. Yet the fact that so many employees are involved and such an infrastructure of suppliers are reliant on the Big Three surviving, will ensure a bail out happens. You wait and see. Hopefully it will come with conditions attached and hopefully with an external management group in control, preferably Japanese, Korean or even Indian. Sadly all auto manufacturers will now be treated with extra caution by the banks, which will only make life harder for everyone.

Oh how the Japanese and Koreans must be excited at the prospect of damaged or failed US competitors. The M&A guys must also be excited by the potential opportunities, though the challenge of trying to make something out of such a monumental mess is probably too daunting for them.

The Big Three leaders impressed no-one on the day by flying to Washington in their private jets. Are they so arrogant that they didn’t realise how this may turn public opinion against them? Maybe they just don’t care. Where were their spin doctors?

No one in their right minds would ever believe that US$25 billion split three ways will rescue the three biggest US car manufacturers. No way will it turn around management attitudes, never mind magically produce new, smaller and greener cars and new production lines to make them. And who will bail out the dealerships? Chances are that if the $25 billion bail out magically happens, there will be no dealerships left to sell the ‘new’ cars.

Management were ill prepared to recognise and respond to change. Is it a case that the industry is a dinosaur that needs to die in order for a new and leaner one to replace it, one more appropriate to the needs of customers and the environment? What do the Japanese, German and Korean brands think of all this? How will they respond? Is this the big chance of all time to strengthen their brands and take the US market by storm? You bet.

What has not been considered so far is the damage inflicted on the Ford, GM and Chrysler brands. Let’s face it, the brands are forever tarnished, except in the eyes of the fanatical brand loyalists, whose numbers will inevitably decline. Those people who were at the point of purchasing one of their cars before the crisis set in are hardly likely to do so in the near future. Would you? Who wants to buy a car from a bankrupt car manufacturer with an uncertain future?

There is one hell of a job in the offering for a brand turnaround specialist. The most likely scenario, and this is only my view, is the emergence in the US of a new generation of smaller, leaner, smarter start-up auto brands with a focus on small, fuel efficient cars and trucks. Perhaps they may even be bought out and badged Ford, GM and Chrysler. Or are they more likely to be badged Toyota, Hyundai or BMW? Coming soon to a dealership near you...

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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Showroom models caught in a brand trap

The quickest way you can destroy the integrity of your brand is to promise one thing while behaving in a way that is totally contrary to this promise. General Motors is experiencing the biggest crisis in its history, which will either see it die in the next few months or be bailed out by the US government. Ford and Chrysler are not far behind and will be eagerly awaiting the outcome. As far as they are concerned one less competitor will give them a market advantage, but on the other hand, if the bail out money goes to GM, will there be any left to guarantee a future for Ford and Chrysler? One possible scenario will be that a Chinese company will buy them, in similar fashion to the purchase of MG in the United Kingdom; or Land Rover and Jaguar by Indian auto giant Tata.











Back to the brand. GM is to be admired for investing heavily in its Volt electric vehicle, hailed as a ‘response to today’s and tomorrow’s energy and environmental challenges’. Here we are witnessing an attempt at a brand makeover – the rebirth of the GM brand as a caring, environmentally focused, world conscious car manufacturer at the forefront of a new era in automotive trasportation. This beggars belief however when you visit the GM website with an array of vehicles that definitely don’t look as though they have economy in mind – dominated by Hummers, Cadillac Escalades, GMC Yukons, Chevrolet Suburbans – a whole fleet of monster gas guzzlers and polluters that would have those nice chaps at Top Gear in the UK slashing their wrists. What were they thinking? Did they think it would go on forever? Surely there must have been one tree hugger in the product development division brave enough to suggest enough is enough?

As regards brand naming – General Motors’ dual values of the moment make the ‘General’ part of the name rather appropriate. Quite ironic really. GM’s Holden Division here in Australia, while having a more balanced model offering, still persists in churning out V8s to satisfy the petrol heads. And guess what? In the Sydney Morning Herald on 19 November is the headline ‘GM Holden to halve car production’. Chilling stuff, particularly for the poor people on the production line and their families.

GM Holden is to be criticised for not having sufficient foresight and not responding fast enough to changing conditions, particularly in the knowledge that it takes a long time to design, test and gain approval for new vehicles and change production lines.

As far as the GM Holden brand is concerned, it doesn’t alter the fact that it can’t be taken too seriously in these troubled times having a Volt on display in one showroom and a Hummer in the next. A conflict of brand values perhaps?

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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