Monday, 28 April 2014

Are you at a crossroads with your brand?  Can a model help you decide which road to take?
Before I look at that, what does developing a brand actually mean?

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as the "name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's goods or service as distinct from those of other sellers”.  In order to do effectively you’re going to have a clear idea of what needs to be done so perhaps there is a model that can help you.



 The above model is by De Pelsmacker et al (2004).  Essentially the model seeks to reflect the different elements you need to get right or address to build your brand in your market place. 

Most of us would agree that it’s a good reflection of the need to be different; innovate to stay ahead of the game; add value particularly where others don’t; be about quality offerings (look at John Lewis) and, once again, look to them for management and employee support and finally communication is vital if you are to get this across to your market.

However for the model to be really useful, it needs some evaluation in there, hence my addition of the traffic lights.  By evaluating each of the elements carefully and scoring your brand’s performance you could see where you need to stop and think (red), tread carefully and evaluate further (amber) and yes it’s ok for now (green).

Assessing your brand

Let’s take each factor in turn and you score them out of 10.

·         Innovation – perhaps you once lead the field and regularly innovated either the products, the processes, technology or all of those things.  Do you do that now?  How do you compare to the rest of the market?
·         Differentiation – this is difficult to do in a competitive market so how do you differ from the rest?  What do you do that’s new, different and better than the others?  Do you communicate it effectively?  Starbucks’ heritage is a key differentiator but how really different is the brand compared to Costa Coffee?
·         Communication – has your brand got a tightly blended communications strategy?  Does it have momentum and reaches key stakeholders in the community and not just your customers?  Is there consistency in your messages?
·         Quality – how high is the quality of the finished product?  If your brand is in for the long haul and strong growth is important, then it needs to be a high quality product.  Children’s toys manufacturers have to adhere to high quality standards to meet legislative requirements.  Hornby toys also has a strong heritage and enduring quality.  Will your brand be around in 50+ years?
·         Management and employee support – are you a John Lewis?  Probably not but what is the culture of your business?  How well your brand performs internally is as important.  How do you score?  Are there management silos or an open, creative environment?  Do you have brand ambassadors or are they saboteurs?
·         Added value – many brands score well on product extensions which makes them nice and stretchy.  However does it really offer customers something more?  Does it have a loyalty scheme?  Is the quality of the merchandising high?

Nearly finished the journey now and it’s time to score each out of 10. 

4 or less? It’s a red light – stop and think carefully about where to go next. 
5-7 points?  On your marks, it’s amber. 
8 or more? Green for go.


Not wanting to continue too far along the road analogy (but sorry I just did) but it doesn’t happen overnight and building the brand is a continuous process so like every model you use to do market analysis, you should refresh it regularly and watch for upcoming hazards on the way.

Ann Prayle

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