How to develop a Brand?

Brand is the management of consumers’ expectation innovatively. When a PROMISE distinctly position in the consumers mind, we call it is a BRAND. If a company likes to manage the expectation of the consumers, it has to know its customers from the very depth of the heart. Only then it will be possible to connect the brand with human minds where it will be born and will live in. The words sound so simple, but the real tasks don’t. It requires a lot extensive consumer research to proceed on. In this write up, I will be trying to give a glimpse of the steps required in developing a Brand.

A brand is a ‘Brand, it will be certified by the consumers not by the marketer. Hence, the work starts with the in depth analysis of consumer mind. ‘Why do the consumers consume the product?’ In the very beginning this is the most vital question to be answered by the marketer. In branding this is called ‘consumer insight’, the very basement of preparing ‘Brand Architecture’ which is the first step of the whole process. Finding out a unique consumer insight is so important that there are some companies whose business is to just find out the consumer insight. So what is that consumer insight? It is a discovery about the consumer that opens the door to an opportunity for the brand. The stronger the insight, the stronger the brand will be.For clear understanding of the consumer insight here I have given two links of two ads of Pampers. The first one uses a poor insight, ‘The fear of the parents of facing awkward situation because of the wet baby’.

The later one uses a stronger insight, ‘Babies with healthy, dry skin are happier....and so better able to play, learn and develop’

Then we need to identify the values we are going to provide. How can we find the values? At first we list down features (functions i.e. a quality stereo system of a car), then the functional benefits derived from the features (i.e. quality sound) and then the emotional benefits derived from the functional benefits (i.e. feel like a rock star when we listen music in a quality sound system). So far we have got the benefits, now we need to ensure which benefits will cause the consumers buy the products instead of the competitors’ and these will be the values. We have to remember we cannot consider each and every value rather we will choose the most powerful value for the branding purpose and thus we design our USP-Unique Selling Proposition (some marketing men say value proposition). Still we are in Brand Architecture! This is the time; we take a Payoff line (tag line) for the brand keeping match with the consumer insight and the USP. Let’s have a look on the example:

Brand	Insight	USP	Payoff Line
GP	We feel better when the dearest is close to us	Unbroken network to make you feel better	Stay close

Now we need to decide what kind emotion we want to create in consumer mind as post reaction of experiencing the brand and we have to proceed on for his next activities accordingly. For example, the brand essence of Disneyland is Magical. When someone experience the park, the only word appears in his/her mind is Magical. This is the brand essence, Disneyland wanted to appear in their customers mind and accordingly they designed each and every items of their service.

There is a caution here, if one can apply anything what we have developed so far to any of the competitors, we have to look back and fine tune the work again to make it a unique one.

The second step is Designing the Brand Strategy where courses of actions are planned to connect the target on a common ground through ‘a single IDEA’. For the purpose, the marketer chooses a compelling personality of the brand to better connect the consumers with the brand. Same time the marketer specifies the way to convey the personality (e.g. inspirational, trusted etc) termed as Brand Tone (e.g. funny, serious etc).

Personality of the Brand and the Ambassador (Inspirational)

These are the basics of the Brand Strategy. We have to find a unique idea (big idea) on which we will proceed on. We have to remember that whatever the big idea is we have to stick on it that means consistency is a MUST. Based on the earlier findings, the marketer now works on two elements of the brand strategy, which help to establish the linkage with the consumers: 1) Message Development, 2) Communication Plan.

Let’s move on third step i.e. Brand Story development. It’s a very short statement which describes what the brand is and what it means to the consumer. Starbucks’ story is ‘Third place between home and work’, ‘The fastest burger anywhere on earth’- McDonald’s, ‘Mint with a hole. Fresh Breath’- Polo’s.

We are on our fourth phase of Brand development, where we will be working on Visual Requirements of the Brand i.e. Logo, Color, and Font. Based on Brand Architecture and matching with the Brand Personality, Tone and Story, we have to design the logo, select the color and font differentiating any of our competitors so that the consumer can easily remember the brand name when they see the logo, font or color.

When we see light sky blue, we remember the brand Grameenphone; similarly yellow reminds us about Caterpillar and so on. Think about the fonts used by Coca-cola and Nokia. A bitten apple reminds us the brand Apple. Jingle can also refer a brand name.

The last but not the least phase is Operational Requirements which really signals whether a name will be a brand or not in future. Operational requirement suggests the day to day operations to keep the promise given by the marketer earlier. It might include the promised quality, experience and so on. Say for example, a retail store promises that the customer will always feel ‘honored’ when he/she enters the store area. But in reality, the store employees are not much caring, well behaved and cordial. What would happen to the brand? Definitely it’s going to fail for not fulfilling its operational requirements in line with the promise.

This is the case for Branding but for rebranding the only addition is Brand Auditing to be placed on the very top of all steps. In Brand Auditing we need to conduct research to find out the perception of the consumers regarding the brand, then we need to diagnose where the problem lies and what it is and then accordingly we move forward to the next steps mentioned here.

Chittagong, July 11, 2011, 6.50 PM