Brand is a powerful word, and should often be used carefully. Wikipedia defines it as a “collection of images and ideas representing the economic producer”. The turn of the 21st century saw, something extra-ordinary, something that took marketing to another level. That phenomenon was branding. Sure, brands existed but they were not powerful enough to uplift companies altogether. Every now and then we see images, logos, slogans etc. in many and almost all walks of life as they leave an impression. This defines their success as branding is nothing but leaving an impact on the customer’s heart and mind. Everyone remembers the slogan “Just do it” , so when you see it next time, you know it’s Nike. The infamous white colored tick-mark sort of logo can be called one of the most successful brand logos of all times.
Read the following to know the secrets behind some of the super brands of this era:-
Belief – You and The Target
For any brand to be successful, it should give it’s customers a good enough reason to believe in it. For that, you must believe in your product’s substance too. For eg- Skoda came up with a tagline for one of their luxury segment cars “Vacation in your car”. Now the customers must see something in the car that delivers what the company says, lest it fails. Now Skoda by way of reaching directly to it’s dealers, salesmen, ads, etc. made sure that the prospective customers are aware of it’s luxurious and unique features.
Identifying Customer Touchpoints
Most of your business processes contain a number of touchpoints that the customers come across when they see your brand. The final goal of it is to reinforce the touchpoint in the market. Keep an eye on your commercial processes and note how the customers are using the products and how they are being sold, if you are providing enough after sales support etc. You will be shocked to know how some of the big corporate giants are using customer experiences to their advantage. Lets take the example of one of the biggest brands till date: Coca-Cola. Whenever the soft drink giant launches a new product in the market, they adapt their strategies in a way that the customers are all aware that it is available in the market. By doing this coke generates enough revenues to recover it’s costs and by the time this happens they can take a closer look at the touchpoints which will be effective for their customers and their own brand image.
Selecting The Most Important Touchpoints
Every brand has a strong point which stands out from the crowd. A lot of companies in fact just bank on a single yet effective feature of theirs. So naturally, some touchpoints play a bigger role than others and it is important for you that you find yours. For eg:- A company like Mc Donalds banks on taste and it should be the priority for them rather than the packaging. Now both are equally effective, but one is more important and influential as it will define your customer’s experience. There are various methods out there which are available for quantitative research which can help determine the touchpoints that will affect the customer’s overall experiences. The rest would depend upon the commercial processes, product’s complexity and even the targeted audience.
Finalizing the experience
After successfully completing the above 3 steps, the next step is to design the optimal experience. This means converting the reasons-to-believe into an actual experience at each key touchpoint. Dell, again one of the finest in computers knows how to do this well. They live up to their reasons to believe and in the end give a good experience to the people.
Alignment of The Organization to Consistently Deliver The Experience
The final and the most important secret is living it up to the expectations of the customers by way of being consistent in delivering the experience to the customers. You must constantly be on the lookout for new ways to improve the experience. Look beyond employees that have direct contact with your customers. IBM, was and still is one of the greatest in IT sector. They have been able to do so because they have been aligning the organization to constantly deliver the experience which people know it for.
Keep in mind these secrets and who knows your company might just launch the next super-brand! Every product or service yields a customer experience. You just have to live it up in the marketplace. By identifying the customer experience, you can design even your own unique and optimized experience. Please feel free to suggest your views regarding the same!
Branding has indeed become critical for products and services to succeed. With over 30,000 SKUs introduced each year there is greater pressure for brands to perform, which is causing a shift in how brands are managed. It is important for businesses to understand what the critical touchpoints are for reaching an audience and facilitate a better communication strategy. However, the brand experience should remain consistent and compelling regardless of touchpoint. In order for a brand to resonate with consumers, it needs to deliver a compelling and consistent brand experience across all touchpoints – in the store, on the shelf, in a magazine on a billboard, digitally, etc …
Schawk has found that packaging is an increasingly critical factor in delivering a successful brand — with more than 70% of purchase decisions made today occur while shopping. The visual experience allows a brand to resonate with a consumer often driving a purchase decision, making design an increasingly critical branding component. It is interesting that you mention Coke, because Schawk worked with Coke on their packaging for the Olympics. Brand point management helped to deliver a consistent and compelling brand experience around the world for Coke. That means regardless of a person’s location around the world, in the US or in China for example, the consumer has the same brand experience.
When a company integrates strategic, creative and operational excellence to deliver consistent and compelling brand experiences across mediums and geographic locations — that’s integrated brand point management. Brand point management helps companies deliver brands that are compelling enough to turn shoppers into buyers. The category of brand point management touches all phases of a product’s life – from ideation to design to market implementation – ensuring that whenever a consumer interacts with a brand, the experience remains consistent throughout. To learn more, here is some information about brand point management: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/854644/Brand-Point-Management.
I’d love to know if people have any thoughts or questions about brand point management.