Si Muddell: 6 Steps to help you create a successful brand (Part 1 of 2)

You have a new business idea, you're are bursting with enthusiasm and energy to get the product or service to market, you have hopefully spent a decent amount of time researching the marketplace and have a clear understanding of your audience and goals.

Before you can get the ball rolling with all the many things you need to do to, you find you are stumped... you need a name. You may or may not know this but in fact you need a lot more than just a name, you need an identity - you need a brand.

When you look over the many brand logos in the image above, you probably look beyond the logos themselves - each logo represents more than a design - they represent a feeling, a lifestyle, a memory, a want, a need, a dream, a promise, a product.

Major brands are abundantly clear about who they are and invest significant amounts of money to ensure they preciously guard 'their brand' across all of their customer touch-points.

Hypothetically speaking - if things like cost and convenience were equal, what makes you choose Nike over Adidas, Ferrari over Porsche, Starbucks over Costa Coffee, San Pellegrino sparkling water over Perrier sparkling water, Shangri la over the Intercontinental hotel? Or maybe you chose Adidas, Porsche, Costa Coffee, Perrier and the Intercontinetal Hotel instead.....why?

Sure, you may just prefer one product over another because of the material merits of that product alone, but often - like it or not; know it or not - our perception of a product is hugely influenced by the brand itself, that is our psychological perception of what that brand represents over another.

You don't need to spend millions of dollars to create and retain a brand, but you need to understand basic brand philosophy to be effective at it.

Who is this post for?

New business owners that need to create a brand, a name and an identity
An individual wanting to work on their personal brand
Existing brand guardians that may want to recap, refresh or rethink their brand identity

Brand vs Branding

Whilst close relatives, brand and branding are not the same thing - to think they are would be a potentially big mistake. This post is part one of a two-part series helping you understand what a brand is, and the simple steps to create one. Part two will focus on branding, and all the essential elements and considerations required.

What is a brand?

Branding can be (and often is) either overcomplicated or massively under considered, yet it is fundamentally-fundamental to the make or break of your company. Branding is identifying what the brand is and ensuring consumers see the same picture.

A brand is:

A single promise that exists in the customers mind
What your company stands for and why people either buy or don't buy from you
A companies identity - Logo, advertising, customer experience

Every interaction a customer or prospective customer has with your brand either reinforces or dilutes the initial brand promise in the audiences mind.

If 'brand' were a house, it would be the foundations holding the house firmly on the ground, the exterior welcoming people in, the interior reflecting the welcoming promise of the exterior, the clean windows offering a clear and transparent view inside and out, and the equal hospitality of each resident that ties all of the above together leaving the guest with a warm and hopefully unique lasting feeling of the experience.

Put another way:

“A brand is a singular idea or concept that you own inside the mind of a prospect.”

"You now have to decide what 'image' you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities, and they can make or break them in the market place.” - David Ogilvy

6 Steps to consider when creating a brand

Below are six steps in considering and creating a brand, whether that be for a business or personal brand, the steps below still very much apply.

Step 1: Define your overall aspirations for your brand

Benjamin Franklin once said "by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail" - this can not be more true when it comes to creating a brand.

Before you begin creating your brands identity, it is essential that you clearly define your business/personal goals, objectives, and aspirations. Be specific. Your goals and objectives will have an inherent influence on your chosen identity and positioning, so this step is paramount. Here is a previous post on Goal Setting.

Step 2: Develop Identity

At this point, I would normally say research competition but for reasons I will reveal below, that will be Step 3. Whilst creating a brand does require analysing the marketplace - you should also allow yourself to think outside of the box, to be creative, and not be swayed or influenced by what you initially see with your competitors. Don't misunderstand me, you will still do your research but that will come after this step. Think outside the box but don't forget about the box is perhaps a simpler way of putting it.

Have a clear picture of yourself or business: A good way to do this is by writing down words-adjectives that you think represent your brand.

Once you have a list, try to identify a common link between those words/terms and then answer 'Why' after word. E.g 'Innovative' - Why? '

Audience / Position - Define who your target market is / what niche of market do you want to be known

Like the picture to the left, we all have unique hand prints and lines on our skin. You could say that it is our unique genetic identity, but unlike palm readers who may or may not be able to read them, for some the lines are in our hand are just that; lines without any meaning at all. Unlike our hand prints and palm lines, a brand cannot be cryptic - it needs to be easily understood; by all.

Step 3: Research / The Situation

Competition: Look at how the competition brands and positions themselves. Note what they are doing - good or bad - and identify any opportunities you see from this.

Audience perception: How do the audience, your target market, perceive you / your business. If you are starting out, then the audience doesn't even know your brand exists. If you are focused on personal branding then think about the gap between how people perceive you and how you want people to perceive you. What can you do to narrow that gap?

Step 4. Branding

This element will make up the second part of this article series, which is coming soon. Essentially branding is the tangible and intangible elements that make up and collectively represent your brand. The logo, strap-line, graphical identity, tone of voice, customer service, etc. If done properly, branding will be harmonious across all customer touch-points, that is, your brand will be accurately represented and understood no matter where it is seen, heard or experienced.

Stay tuned for the article on this coming shortly.

5. Communication

For your audience to a) know about your brand and b) form an opinion of the brand, on-going communication with the audience is critical.

The most successful brands are experts at communicating with their audiences. Almost like story telling, these brands take the consumer through a myriad of different feelings and emotions, thus continually reinforcing a brand identity in the consumers mind. This story telling, coupled with a succinct experience across all of their touchpoints is the key to the consumers perception of the brand being true to the intentions of the brand.

Have a Game Plan - For the above to be successful, you need a game plan. Consider all touch-points, educate all staff, and ensure everything and anything that goes out to the public represents the brand in the correct way throughout all phases of the customer sales cycle. You can spend all the marketing money on Earth on branding but still fantastically fail.

Remember a brand is:

A single promise that exists in the customers mind
What your company stands for and why people either buy or don't buy from you

Step 6. Monitor, Improve & Change

'Kaizen'
Comes from the Japanese. It literally means "good change" (Kai - "change", zen = "good") and is the highest form of reproductive thinking in that it focuses on continually monitoring and incrementally refining processes, products, and procedures. Reproductive thinking is a way to refine what is already known. Kaizen is a methodology that is a renowned in industries where the consequences of failure are high and efficiency is key - think manufacturing production lines.

Many brands go wrong because they create a great brand strategy and then never develop or improve on it. Remain true to your core values but be pragmatic and have the balls to change if needs be.

Productive thinking

It is also been said that "incrementalism is innovation's worst enemy", and that is where productive thinking comes into play - that is, sometimes a brand not only needs to monitor the market but be creative, think outside of the box, step away from the Kaizen mentality for a short time, and completely re-define who they are.

There are many successful case studies of brands that reinvented themselves through this way of thinking, and yet even more case studies of brands going out of business because they didn't.

A few successful ones that come to mind:

McDonalds
Coke Cola
Old Spice
Lego
Budweiser
Blackberry (in South Africa)

Here is a great post '7 brands that brilliantly reinvented themselves' detailing these brands various stories of reinvention.

Recap

Define your aspirations
Define and create Identity
Research the marketplace
Create Branding (2nd part of this post coming soon)
Communicate in the same way across all touchpoints
Monitor, Improve & Change

Whether it be for your personal brand or a company brand, I hope you found this article helpful.

About the author
Si Muddell is a Digital Strategist who has worked extensively both agency and client side. Si is fascinated about marketing, psychology & what motivates people, and loves guitar, surfing and travelling.

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