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The essentials of branding from The Big Book of Marketing McGraw-Hill, 2010 This PDF is designed to be printed double-sided to help you conserve paper. contents Introduction 1 The difference between a brand and branding 2 Starting a branding project 4 Start with the right reason 4 Start with the right commitment 4 Start with the right business strategy 5 Start with the right focus: Customers 5 Analyze the brand’s equity 6 Uncover insights and identify opportunities 7 The brand strategy 8 Defining the brand idea 8 Defining the brand architecture 9 Defining the brand personality 10 Producing the creative brief 12 Creating the brand experience 13 Crafting the verbal identity 13 Designing the visual and sensory identities 15 Testing verbal and visual identities 22 Delivering the brand experience 23 Managing a brand 24 Measuring the performance of a brand 26 Tracking brand strength 26 Measuring brand value 27 Case study: BP 30 Delivering the brand promise © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Landor Associates is one of the world’s leading strategic brand consulting and design firms. Landor is part of WPP, one of the largest global communications services companies. Visit Landor at landor.com. The essentials of branding Introduction is the preferred choice in the minds of your key This article was first published as Chapter 4 It is incredibly rare for a product or organization audiences (whether customers, consumers, in The Big Book of Marketing: Lessons and to be without a brand. There are museum brands employees, prospective employees, fans, donors, Best Practices from the World’s Greatest (Guggenheim, Smithsonian), people brands (Martha or voters). The way in which the brand affects Companies, edited by Anthony G. Bennett Stewart, David Beckham), political brands (Obama business performance is illustrated in figure 1. (McGraw-Hill, 2010). versus McCain, Labour versus Conservatives), destination brands (Australia, Hong Kong), sport Business performance is based on the behavior Sarah Wealleans is a consultant brands (Manchester United, New York Yankees, of customers, whether they choose to buy and former senior client director with Super Bowl), nonprofit brands (Red Cross, Oxfam, a particular product or service. And that behavior Landor Associates. Additional input from RED), branded associations (YMCA, PGA, Association is based a great deal on the perception customers Trevor Wade, Hayes Roth, Susan Nelson, of Zoos and Aquariums), along with the product, have of the brand: how relevant it is to them and Mich Bergesen, and Charlie Wrench. service, and corporate brands with which we are how differentiated it is from the other brands in the all familiar. Many old marketing textbooks talk about same category. In turn, customers derive their brands versus commodities (no-name products), perceptions of a brand from the interactions they but in today’s world very few true commodities have with it. Finally, that customer experience, are left. Even basic foodstuffs have some sort of ideally, is informed by a brand idea—what the identifier on them, whether it is a private-label brand stands for: the promise it is willing to make store brand such as Walmart’s Great Value salt and keep in the marketplace. If the first part of this or a major brand such as Morton Salt. chain of cause and effect is indistinct or irrelevant to customers, there is little chance the rest of the Brands help people make a choice, a choice among chain will work, and the brand will not affect the salts, financial institutions, political parties, and so business’ bottom line. Yet, despite the proliferation on, and the choices are increasing. The number of of brands and their inextricable link to business brands on grocery store shelves, for example, tripled performance, it is not easy to define what a brand in the 1990s from 15,000 to 45,000.1 The purpose of is, along with how to create, manage, and value it. branding is to ensure that your product or service 1 McKinsey & Company, “Strike Up the Brands” (2003). Landor Associates 1 Figure 1: Brand Affects Business Performance Brand Customer Brand Customer Business idea experience perception behavior performance The difference between a brand and branding Coke has worked incredibly hard at implanting Most experts define what a brand is in one of two some of these brand associations in our minds: ways. The first set of definitions focuses on some The idea and delivery of refreshment (and the supply of the elements that make up a brand: management and distribution that are behind this), • “The intangible sum of a product’s attributes: product placement, the color red, the association its name, packaging, and price, its history, its with a popular TV program, and the advertising all reputation, and the way it’s advertised.”2 make us feel good about the brand. Coke has not • “A name, sign, or symbol used to identify items controlled the buildup of these associations, but it or services of the seller(s) and to differentiate has tried, at every stage of our experience with the them from goods of competitors.”3 brand, to positively influence them. The second set of definitions describes the Accepting the second set of definitions poses more associations that come to mind when people of a challenge. The first definition suggests that the think about a brand: brand is the purview of the marketing department— • “Products are made in the factory, but brands just get the name, logo, design, and advertising right are created in the mind.”4 and you have your brand. The second shows how • “A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, the brand is inextricably linked to the business. The service, or company.… It’s a person’s gut feeling, creation of the brand may begin in the marketing because in the end the brand is defined by department, but the experience of the brand has individuals, not by companies, markets, or the to be driven through all parts of the organization. so-called general public. Each person creates Every interaction, or touchpoint, in a customer’s his or her own version of it.5 experience of a brand makes a difference. What do we mean by “created in the mind”? When If you consider Apple, the quintessential brand we think of Coke, we may think of the time we went success story, the most powerful parts of the to Disney World years ago. It was an incredibly hot customers’ experience of the brand are not confined day, and we drank an ice-cold Coke from the iconic to traditional brand elements, such as the logo, the glass Coke bottle and there was nothing more name, or the advertising. It is the environment of refreshing. When we think about the can, we might the Apple stores that encourages you to stay and 2 David Ogilvy, primary.co.uk/viewpoints (accessed think red. Today perhaps we think of American Idol explore (and upgrade) and interact with its products 12 May 2009). (and wonder whether they are really drinking Coke and its genius bar. It is iTunes as much as the iPod, 3 Dictionary of Business and Management (Oxford in those plastic cups). We think of how that the applications as much as the iPhone. It is Apple’s University Press, 2006). Christmas polar bear ad made us smile. Those of customer service and tone of voice that are us who are old enough may remember the “I’d like seamless, from the instruction manuals to the 4 Walter Landor, founder of Landor Associates. to teach the world to sing” commercial. These real-time chat in the support section of the online 5 Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the personal Coke brand associations are neither store. The brand is driven throughout this whole Distance between Business Strategy and Design (AIGA New Riders, 2006). positive nor negative, they just come to mind. experience, throughout every interaction. 2 Essentials of branding But if a brand exists in an individual’s mind, and if it is delivered by the business, what is the role of branding? Branding cannot control what people think of a brand, it can only influence. A brand can put some of the elements in place that will help people understand why they should choose or prefer a particular good, service, organization, or idea over another. Branding and related marketing disciplines can help influence and explain how many of these associations in our minds have been built, and whether they were built through advertising, PR, employee behavior, supply chain management, and so on. Branding is about signals—the signals people use to determine what you stand for as a brand. Signals create associations. —Allen Adamson, BrandSimple6 The bulk of this chapter will explain the process that determines the foundational signals of a brand: what a brand stands for (the brand idea); the attitude it projects (the brand personality); its name and how it talks (the verbal identity); what it looks like (the visual identity); and what it feels and sounds like (the sensory identity). Creating these foundational signals is the core business of a branding agency. Before foundational signals are created, however, a certain amount of groundwork needs to be done to ensure that the best conditions for success are in place. The first two sections explain this essential preparation. The third describes the creation of the foundational signals. The final sections focus on what to do next with these foundational signals once they have been created, looking at delivery 6 Allen Adamson, BrandSimple: How the Best Brands Keep of the brand experience, managing the brand, and It Simple and Succeed (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

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