A Brand Does Not a Logo Make

Creating, maintaining and enhancing your company's brand identity is becoming increasingly necessary in today's competitive marketplace. The good news is that a well-developed brand can build an impenetrable bond between you and consumers. The bad news is that a well-developed brand means more than a quality product/service and recognizable logo slapped onto everything.

No one, or at least practically no one, disputes the power of a well-positioned and well-executed brand. Developed properly, a powerful brand can 1) result in reduced marketing costs as a result of a higher level of consumer brand awareness and loyalty; 2) allow for higher prices since the brand will have a higher perceived quality; 3) protect against competition; 4) influence purchase behavior; and 5) provide your consumers with a short-cut to their purchase decision.

The problem, however, is that many companies are unaware of what constitutes a well-developed brand. It's more than just a logo or packaging or a slick corporate identity. With today's technology coupled with the importance of relationship marketing, your brand must extend from your receptionist to your sales team to your website to your company's internal bulletin board. Your entire company should be considered your Branding Department. And in order for that to happen, you must set the groundrules for your brand: the words, actions, symbols, sounds, taglines, colors, textures, shapes, names, etc. that represent the tangible and intangible characteristics that contribute to making your offer unique.

Three core exercises that must take place before a brand is properly communicated are: 1) Determine Your Brand Identity: Your brand identity is the set of brand associations that currently reside within the minds of your target consumers. These associations represent what your brand currently stands for and implies the current promise to customers from the organization members. If your Brand Identity does not match what you are currently delivering to your consumers or does not match what your consumers expect from you, then it needs refinement.

2) Conduct a Branding Components Audit: If your company is established, assess your brand's current value versus the expectations of your consumers. It should include a thorough analysis of anything that represents your company's brand identity including corporate stationery, signage, packaging, greetings, fleet, uniforms, etc. Using secret shoppers can help you to see things you otherwise would overlook.

3) Determine your Brand Positioning: Your Brand Positioning is the "market space", within the mind of a consumer, that your brand occupies relative to the competition and along a set of consumer need/perception dimensions. It also represents the part of your brand identity that is to be actively communicated in a way that relevantly sets it apart from your competition.

There is certainly more to developing and maintaining a powerful brand. The key is to avoid taking short cuts simply to have visibility in the marketplace. Hastily subjecting an ill-developed brand to your consumers will prove to be a costly mistake.

According to kilmer2.com