How to Build Key Requirements for a Strong Brand Identity

Have you ever defined your favorite brands and questioned why? It is a key exercise we often use with our clients. It helps to evaluate what should be the heart of your company’s strong brand identity.

We believe the heart of all killer brands is the promise they commit to delivering to their clients. No matter how clever or memorable their brand marketing is if they fail to deliver on that promise, they fail. And those promises represent what the brand stands for and its strong brand identity.

Related: What the Lego Brand Teaches About Branding Your Business

Failure to deliver on your promise or be that strong brand identity is like a politician promising no new taxes. Mark my words. Those kinds of promises are a prescription for a brand marketing disaster.

Importance of a brand identity

We like to quote from the book Funky Business Forever when we discuss brands or branding with our clients:

The ‘surplus society’ has a surplus of similar companies, employing similar people, with similar educational backgrounds, coming up with similar ideas, and producing similar things, with similar prices and similar quality.

It is not easy being different, is it? But all the more important.

The key to a good brand is being different. There are 4 critical things to remember about brands and branding:

Every business has a brand, whether explicitly defined or not. The important question to be answered is how good is the brand.

Brands deliver an emotional connection to a business’s products and services. Most purchase decisions have critical emotional components.

Your brand represents a collection of your customers’ perceptions of how they see you, how they feel about you, and what they say about you.

Your brand communicates every time it touches a customer. This makes you, as a marketer, responsible for this communication ‘moment of truth’.

Most brands sell products or services. GM sells cars. Borders sell books. Real estate brokerages sell homes. A strong brand identity, however, satisfies a desire to get at the emotional heart of the matter. Let’s review 8 strong brand identities and what they promise … what they stand for. This is the best way to appreciate the importance of branding.

Differentiation

JetBlue’s brand success centers on the achievable – the simple things – they knew would make a difference for their guests. This set the stage for direct TV and XM radio, the provision of first-class seats to everyone, more legroom, great snacks, and high-end service at lower-end pricing. No other airline others these value propositions. They are different and their brand stands out because of those differences.

Simple. Attainable. Targeted. They delivered.

Solving customer problems

Best Buy’s marketing team, led by Drew Panayiotou, senior VP of marketing, worked to reframe the retailer’s brand proposition. Best Buy’s new tagline, representing its brand identity is ‘Making technology work for you’. A strong focus on solving its customers’ problems.

Giving back

Ben and Jerry’s have a progressive, nonpartisan social mission that seeks to meet human needs and eliminate injustices in local, national, and international communities. They do this by integrating these concerns into their day-to-day business activities. Their focus is on children and families, the environment, and sustainable agriculture on family farms.

Much has been made of corporate America’s propensity for internalizing the fruits of doing business while socializing the costs. Ben & Jerry’s, by contrast, is dedicated to what they call “linked prosperity”, which essentially recognizes the possibility that business can and should be a powerful force for the betterment of society.

Delivering Happiness

They don’t sell shoes. They deliver that extra dose of love we all need from time to time. There is no secret here. Zappos became Zappos because of the fanatical customer support it offered. That is the company’s brand. As Hsieh puts it, “Back in 2003, we thought of ourselves as a shoe company that offered great service. Today, we really think of the Zappos brand as about great service, and we just happen to sell shoes.”

Building trust

Look inside to find the best processor technology, the Intel tagline. The trust mark symbolizes customer trust and faith they are receiving the best in technology. Technology that is life-changing.

Product presentation

Lifestyle brands march to a different drummer. They have a clear and distinct point of view, are outspoken, and are inherently polarizing. For many brands, this polarizing effect is very risky, but for brands seeking to be disruptive in mature categories or sectors, it can be the path to huge success and bear great dividends. Whole Foods is a textbook case.

When brands have a clear, distinct point of view it forces choices that may forfeit short-term gain for long-term benefit. It is a conscious decision to invest in the brand. The values of the brand permeate the behavior of the organization, the customer experience, and, ultimately, public opinion. The result is a very powerful appeal to a much smaller audience.

Customer experience

Customer experience brings us a space rather than a product. Some would say that it fills a psychological need that other companies have not had to do in quite the same way. The emotion is all about uplifting moments and daily rituals. Something definitely worth remembering.

Customer immersion

Disney is all about magical, fantasy entertainment. Being bringers of joy, be affirmers of the good in each of us, be — in subtle ways — teachers. To speak, as Walt once put it, “not to children but to the child in each of us.”

They do this through great storytelling, by giving their guests a few hours in another world where their cares can be momentarily put aside, by creating memories that will remain with them forever.

So is this what killer branding is all about for companies?

We think so.

Making promises and keeping them.

Some organizations work very hard to weasel in the promises they make. They imply great customer service or amazing results or spectacular quality but don’t deliver. No, they didn’t actually lie, but they come awfully close. The result: angry customers and negative word of mouth.

It’s very easy to overpromise. Tempting to shade the truth a little bit, deliver a little bit less to save a few bucks. Who will notice?

The customers notice. If you need to overpromise to make the sale, don’t bother. It’s not worth it.

The best way to generate a strong brand identity is simple: know the key requirements and over-deliver.

Reasons Why Companies Often Require a Rebrand

Your brand forms the core identity of your business. It’s more than simply the name of your company, but is a fusion of all the values, standards, ideals, and characteristics that are embodied by your organization. Brands, indeed, often require a rebrand. That is your business’s personality.

However, sometimes, even the most well-known and beloved brands need to revisit and reinvent their personality. Perhaps it’s simply because the times have moved on, and what was once a winning brand identity no longer speaks to its audience in the same way that it used to. In other instances, the reasoning may be more complex.

Whatever the reasons are, however, rebranding is in fact a very common business move that companies have been doing for years. From a consumer’s perspective, a rebranding often appears to be just a subtle transformation – perhaps we might notice an updated logo, for instance. However, although this may appear not to be a particularly big deal, what it indicates is a company’s intent and commitment to evolution and growth.

Other times, the rebranding is a much more substantial and considered effort, designed to actively shift consumer perception of a brand in no uncertain terms.

Either way, the time will eventually come for all organizations when their brand identity is no longer up to scratch. The epiphany may come for a number of reasons, and below we’ve outlined 10 of them.

1. New Product or Service Launch

The launch of a brand new product or service is exciting, and will no doubt have been actioned in response to consumer demand and changes in the market.

However, companies must make the effort to reflect this update in their branding. You want your new venture to be firing on all cylinders, and a strategic rebranding campaign will help draw the attention that you’re after.

2. Customer Engagement Is Waning

Nothing lasts forever, and, as time moves on and more competitors move into your market, it’s not unusual to find that your once-loyal and engaged customers have started to look elsewhere.

If you start to notice a drop-off in consumer engagement, then perhaps it’s time to assess whether your branding needs an overhaul. Rebranding in these circumstances may be your one true chance to rescue your company from paling into obscurity.

3. Bad Reputation

If a brand, for whatever reason it may be, starts to gain a bad reputation, then the impact on business operations can be crippling. Rebranding in this case is the only option to mitigate and hopefully dispel (eventually) any negative associations that are routinely being made with the brand.

It’s important, however, that it’s not just exterior alterations that are made (to your logo, for instance), but that the changes are also effected through all aspects of the company. Remember, a brand is not just a name or a logo, but a representation of all the values, standards, and principles that your organization stands for.

4. Mergers, Demergers, and Acquisitions

Changes in company ownership will often trigger a rebranding as a matter of course. For instance, in the case of demergers, the company that has split off will be obliged to develop its own new brand in order to make it clear and apparent that it is no longer part of the organization.

There is slightly more flexibility in the cases of mergers and acquisitions. There is an opportunity here for the new company to completely rebrand, though sometimes the name of one of the companies is kept. However, even in this instance, a rebranding will normally take place even if the name of the company remains the same.

5. Differentiation

Competitors are a part of each and every company the world over. The moves of a rival will trigger a response within your own walls, and, as such, your competitors are directly responsible for affecting critical decisions you make every day.

Whatever the strengths of your competitors, your own company will of course hold its very own USP – and that needs to be communicated through your branding. However, some of your rivals may have a very similar brand message to your own, in which case you need to make efforts to differentiate through rebranding.

You need to be unique to avoid client confusion, for if people have bad experiences elsewhere, you don’t want to absorb any negative press through perceived, albeit false, association.

6. Internationalisation

Expanding into the international market can often mean that you need to rebrand. In some countries, for instance, a brand name may have unfortunate or negative associations. Values, of course, are not necessarily international either, and although the image you portray may curry domestic favor, research needs to be conducted to ensure that this is carried across into other countries where you wish to operate.

Another reason for rebranding may be because you may have a geographical location in your company name. In this instance, you will need to rebrand without emphasis on location.

7. Change in Leadership

A new CEO will often want to breathe new life into an organization, and a rebranding will quickly follow the appointment. Successful leaders will have a clear direction in which they wish to take the company and will want to reflect this in its branding.

8. New or Wider Audience Appeal

If you’re not reaching your intended audience – perhaps you’re only attracting people in their senior years when you want to be targeting a younger demographic – then it’s time to reassess your branding.

The rebranding will help you engage with new audiences, and win new customers from key demographics you are looking to target.

9. Lack of Brand Clarity and/or Consistency

A new company might start off as one thing, but over the course of time transforms into something else, perhaps with a completely different focus and set of values. The branding needs to be updated to reflect this, otherwise, there will be a jarring inconsistency in the image it portrays.

In other circumstances, a company may acquire different services from different consultants along its journey, and some of these may have strayed off-brand. Again, there is a clarity issue and this needs to be addressed with rebranding.

10. A Particular Product or Service Is Overtaking All Else

Sometimes, brands that offer multiple products or services may find that they become known for one above all the others. This may or may not be desirable, but, either way, a rebranding will be needed. If you think that your business can survive off just a single line, then rebrand accordingly. If you want to try and reemphasize your other products or services, then a rebranding that shifts focus onto these will be necessary.

8 Rookie Mistakes to Avoid in Small Business Branding

Have you ever defined your favorite brands and questioned why? It is a key exercise we often use with our clients. It helps to avoid rookie mistakes in small business branding.

It also helps to evaluate what should be the heart of your company’s strong brand identity. It is all about how to be heard in a world too busy to listen and with too much to hear2

We believe the heart of all killer brands is the promise they commit to delivering to their clients. No matter how clever or memorable their brand marketing, if they fail to deliver on that promise, they fail.

And those promises represent what the brand stands for and their strong brand identity.

Related: What the Lego Brand Teaches About Branding Your Business

Failure to deliver on your promise is akin to a politician promising no new taxes. Mark my words. Those kinds of promises are a prescription for a brand marketing disaster.

Importance of a strong brand identity

We like to quote from the book Funky Business Forever when we discuss brands or branding with our clients:

The ‘surplus society’ has a surplus of similar companies, employing similar people, and with similar educational backgrounds. It is also like coming up with similar ideas, producing similar things, with similar prices and similar quality.

It is not easy being different, is it? But all the more important.

The key to a good brand is different. There are four critical things to remember about brands and branding:

Every business has a brand, whether explicitly defined or not. The important question to be answered is how good the brand is?

Brands deliver an emotional connection to a business’ products and services. Most purchase decisions have critical emotional components.

Your brand represents a collection of your customers’ perceptions of how they see you. It also represents how they feel about you, and what they say about you.

Your brand communicates every time it touches a customer. This makes you, as a marketer, responsible for this communication ‘moment of truth.’

Most brands sell products or services. GM sells cars. Borders sell books. Real estate brokerages sell homes. A strong brand identity, however, satisfies a desire to get at the emotional heart of the matter.

Let’s review eight strong brand identities and what they promise and what they stand for. This is the best way to appreciate the importance of branding.

Differentiation

JetBlue’s brand success centers on the achievable. They wanted it to represent the simple things. The things they knew would make a difference for their passengers.

This set the stage for direct TV and XM radio, the provision of first-class seats to everyone. It included more leg room, great snacks, and high-end service at lower end pricing.

No other airline others these value propositions. They are different, and their brand stands out because of those differences.

Simple. Attainable. Targeted. They delivered.

Solving customer problems

Best Buy’s marketing team, led by Drew Panayiotou, senior-VP marketing, worked to reframe the

retailer’s brand proposition. Best Buy’s new tagline, representing its brand identity is ‘Making technology work for you.’

A strong focus on solving its customers’ problems, wasn’t it?

Giving back

Ben and Jerry’s have a progressive, nonpartisan social mission that seeks to meet human needs. It seeks to eliminate injustices in local, national and international communities.

They do this by integrating these concerns into their day-to-day business activities. Their focus is on children and families, the environment and sustainable agriculture on family farms. Good targets, yes?

Much has been made of corporate America’s propensity for internalizing the fruits of doing business while socializing the costs.

Ben & Jerry’s, by contrast, is dedicated to what they call “linked prosperity.”

They essentially recognize the possibility that business can and should be a powerful force for the betterment of society.

Delivering Happiness

Zappos doesn’t sell shoes. They deliver that extra dose of love we all need from time to time. There is no secret here.

Zappos became Zappos because of the fanatical customer support it offered. That is the company’s brand.

As Tony Hsieh, the CEO puts it,

“Back in 2003, we thought of ourselves as a shoe company that offered great service. Today, we think of the Zappos brand as about great service, and we just happen to sell shoes.”

Small business branding … building trust

Look inside to find the best processor technology, the Intel tagline.

The trust mark is symbolizing customer trust and faith they are receiving the best in technology. Technology that is life-changing.

Product presentation

Lifestyle brands march to a different drummer. They have a clear and distinct point of view. They are outspoken and inherently polarizing.

For many brands, this polarizing effect is very risky, but for brands seeking to be disruptive in mature categories or sectors, it works. It becomes the path to huge success and bears great dividends.

Whole Foods is a textbook case.

When brands have a clear, distinct point of view, it forces choices that may forfeit short-term gain for long-term benefit.

It is a conscious decision to invest in the brand. The values of the brand permeate the behavior of the organization. They permeate the customer experience and, ultimately, public opinion.

The result is a very powerful appeal to a much smaller audience.

Small business branding … customer experience

Customer experience brings us space rather than a product.

Some would say that it fills a psychological need that other companies have not had to do in quite the same way.

The emotion is all about uplifting moments and daily ritual. Something worth remembering for small business branding.

Customer immersion

Disney is all about magical, fantasy entertainment. Being bringers of joy, to be affirmers of the good in each of us, to be — in subtle ways — teachers.

To speak, as Walt Disney once put it, “not to children but the child in each of us.”

They do this through great storytelling. They do it by giving their guests a few hours in another world. A world where their cares can be momentarily put aside. A world where creating memories which will remain with them forever.

So is this what killer branding is all about for companies?1

We think so.

Making promises and keeping them.

Some organizations work very hard to weasel in the promises they make. They imply great customer service or amazing results or spectacular quality but don’t deliver.

No, they didn’t lie, but they come close. The result: angry customers and negative word of mouth.

It’s very easy to overpromise. Tempting to shade the truth a little bit, deliver a little bit less to save a few bucks. Who will notice?

The customers notice. If you need to overpromise to make the sale, don’t bother. It’s not worth it.

The bottom line

The best way to generate a strong brand identity is simple: know the key requirements and over deliver.

Customer engagement improvements are worth the effort.

Need some help in capturing more customers from your branding design strategies? Such as creative branding ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?

Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.

Call Mike at 607-725-8240.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?

Do you have a lesson about making your brand marketing better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add to the section below?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.

New York Yankees … 11 Awesome Lessons From Yankees Brand

The CVS Rebranding Strategy: a Case Study

Building a Brand … A How-to Guide for Small Business

6 Favorite Brands and Why I Like Them So Much

Brand Management … 12 Ways to Humanize the Brand to Build Trust

Walmart E-commerce Strategy … 6 Reasons Why It Won’t Beat Amazon

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.

Brand Creator … 9 Ways Creative Branding Can Rescue Your Marketing

Creative branding? An implicit or explicit effort? You would know what I meant if you were a brand creator. Let me explain.

Brand creator.

Every business has a brand, whether explicitly planned or not. The critical question is how good the brand is. And how well it contributes to your marketing campaign. If you are leaving your creative branding to implicit efforts … well, it is not going to be very good and certainly not very creative.

Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.

You just can’t say it. You have to get people to say it to each other.

– James Farley

Before we continue, let me ask you a question.

What works best for branding design in your business? We would love to hear what it was. Would you do us a favor and post it in the comments section below? Be the one who starts a conversation.

With the advent of the Internet, the number of marketing options available to both budding and experienced entrepreneurs has become staggering.

Quite simply a brand is the collection of customer perceptions of:

How they see you
How they feel about you
What they say about you

So you see it’s not about what you think. And people will form opinions about your business whether you want them to or not. So why not take explicit branding actions to influence these opinions.

Companies need to influence positive opinions by positive actions. Influence is the key operative word here. Meaning to inspire desirable and measurable outcomes. Emotional connection to our products and services.

Why emotional? Simple. Most purchase decisions have critical emotional connections.

So what are some of the best ways different businesses use their creative branding to market their products and services? Let’s take a close look at these businesses and their creative use of branding forces:

Differentiation.

Tailor brands … differentiation

There is no more powerful component of a brand’s force than its differentiation. JetBlue’s brand screams out how it is different. And better. Free Direct TV and XM satellite radio on board their aircraft. Leather seats. Unlimited snacks. Great legroom. Think of these discriminators and you’ll think of the JetBlue brand.

Unique positioning

Businesses should always be looking to reinforce their unique positioning. Like Best Buy and its employee expertise in home electronics. They have continued to strengthen this unique positioning with the Geek Squad and with Tweep Force.

Brand creator … positive experience

The Starbuck’s experience. Certainly, defines a positive brand feeling for its target customers. Unique products. Unique store atmosphere. Experiences to stimulate all the senses … visual, hearing, aroma, taste, and touch.

Creative branding … unforgettable

Have you ever been in a Whole Foods store? Not your average presentation style of culinary products. Helping customers visualize the full store experience. Or customer engagement. And taking grocery shopping to an interactive and collaborative new level. Unique and unforgettable. No wonder more top of the line grocery chains are quickly following this lead.

Positive image

Create positive mental images? Our opinion no one is better at this than Zappos, the on-line shoe and clothing retailer. Focused on delivering happiness and being the best in the business in customer service. Lots of use of surprising customers with random acts of kindness and special service.

Communications

A brand communicates every time it touches the customer … the moment of truth. It communicates with words, stories, emotions, and its personality. Yes, it’s personality. Marketing needs to manage all of these communications, making marketing responsible for each ‘moment of truth’. We include everyone in the marketing realm. No one does more of this communication management or does it better than Google.

Immersion

Customer immersion in the product and services. Disney World is certainly very good at customer immersion at its entertainment themes. Bass Pro Shop is very good at immersion in its products by setting up areas around its stores where customers can go and try their skills with Bass Pro Shop products. A unique branding style.

Giving back

As Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream brand puts it: “There is a spiritual aspect to our lives – when we give we receive – when a business does something good for somebody, that somebody feels good about them.” And that emotion reflects positively on the brand.

Branding design inspiration.

Trust

Not many customers think about what company’s processor is on their computer. And it is not because they don’t care. They just assume it is an Intel product. They buy the best technology and its reflection of customer trust in the brand and its products.

The bottom line

A significant portion of a company’s value is intangible, so a strong brand is a significant competitive advantage. As Philip Kotler wrote:

The art of marketing is the art of brand building. If you are not a brand, you are a commodity. Then the price is everything, and the low-cost producer is the only winner.

Brands, marketing, and communication have long been highly related. From TV ads and press releases to events and endorsements, the way consumers view a brand will influence their decision making, so crafting and reinforcing a brand image has long been a top priority for marketers.

To be effective in this new era, we as marketers need to see our jobs differently. No more just focusing on metrics like clicks, video views or social media shares. We must successfully integrate our function with other business functions to create entire brand experiences that serve the customer all the way through their experiences throughout the business.

We can do better. Much better. But first we need to stop seeing ourselves as crafters of clever brand messages and become creators of positive brand experiences

Remember this last input. Markets and customers are constantly changing. Therefore a business must constantly adapt its branding to the changes in the marketplace.

Do you have a creative branding tip or experience to share with this community?

Need some help in capturing more customers from your branding design strategies? Such as creative branding ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?

Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.

Call Mike at 607-725-8240.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?

Do you have a lesson about making your brand marketing better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.

More reading on brands and branding from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

What the Lego Brand Teaches About Branding a Business

What 10 Killer Brands Stand for; It’s Personal

Building Key Requirements for a Strong Brand Identity

Branding Your Business … Examples from the Zappos Culture

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