Change Implementation Techniques for Forming Transitional Team, Creating Alignment, Maximizing Connectedness and Creativity

Technique 8.3 Six Rs of Branding

Answer the following questions to determine if your brand fits under the 6 R's of branding.

i) Is your brand recognizable, ie stands out and is noticed? Yes No

ii) Does your brand have a good reputation, ie consistently delivers what you promise? Yes No

iii) Is your brand relevant, ie satisfies the customers' current and future needs? Yes No

iv) Do you have a good relationship with your customers, ie appeal to the customers' hearts and minds so that they get emotional buy-in? Yes No

v) Can your brand be rejuvenated, ie continue to innovate and reinvent with relevant new ideas? Yes No

vi) Can you recruit more customers to your brand, ie broaden the appeal of the brand; keep it "fresh" and evolving? Yes No

The more "yes" answers the better positioned your brand.

In other words

"...Branding demands commitment. Commitment to continual reinvention; striking chords with people to stir their emotions; and a commitment to imagination. It is easy to be cynical about such things, much harder to be successful..."

Richard Branson as quoted by Jim Gall, 2007

· · It is claimed that iconic brands are still basing their strategic responses on outdated myths and assumptions about private labels and are systematically underestimating the competitive threat.

"...the two main sources of competitive advantage that manufacturer brands have - universal availability and innovation - are now under fire..."

Nirmalya Kumar et al, 2007

· · Options for confronting store brands include

"...changing mindsets, partnering effectively, innovating brilliantly, fighting selectively, pricing competitively, improving quality and marketing creatively..."

Nirmalya Kumar et al, 2007

· · One of the challenges for brands involves being good social citizens. Brands will not survive being bad social citizens. Furthermore, brands need to build momentum and to be authentic. Customers are better educated and want to know where the product is manufactured: they want social responsibility.

· · Branding efforts that concentrate on the products/services/attributes being flexible enough to do many jobs can result in misdirected or undirected effort. It is best to define the circumstances which get the job done which can then be communicated with a 'purpose' brand. Therefore, when the customers think about themselves in those circumstances: they will think instinctively of the brand and know what to buy in order to get the job done, or achieve the outcomes that they seeking. Customers pay a significant premium for a brand which produces an outcome they desire. An example of purpose branding is the Marriott Hotel Chain where its hotels brand themselves differently depending on the market segments they are targeting: Courtyard Hotels are the hotels "designed by business travellers for business travellers"; the Fairfield Inns are a good holiday place for a family; Residents' Inns are a home-away-from-home.

· · Brands are at their peak when they are created at stages of the value-added chain where products/services are not-yet-good-enough. The aim of brands is to help create price premiums. On the other hand, when competitors' products/services are more than adequate, any price premium disappears. Yet shifts in the value chain can create opportunities for branding. For example, initially computer systems were complex and unreliable. IBM, with its superior service capabilities, could charge a price premium of 40 percent more than any competitors' comparable equipment.

· · Remember: the movement of branding power in a market that has many tiers is a process, not an event. Thus branding is aimed at customers who are still not satisfied with functionality and reliability. On the other hand, where speed, convenience and responsiveness drive competitive success, profitable brands are found at the levels of subsystem and distribution channels - away from the product/service.

· · Emotions play just as significant a role in decision-making as fact. Branding and emotions are correlated. The stronger the emotional response, the stronger the linkage to the product. For example, if there is a strong emotional link to a drink brand, the way the brain experiences pleasure is not just through taste buds but through ambience and memory.

· · Brand loyalty involves both cognitive and emotional elements; each of these is subdivided into motivational attitudes.

a) Cognitive

i) utilitarian (ease of use),

ii) knowledge (convenience)

b) emotional

iii) value-expression (ethical)

iv) ego-defence (all about me)

"...The lesson for marketing managers is to be fully aware of the attitudinal needs of customers, particularly their emotional loyalty. While customers are motivated by value and convenience, tapping into their ego and values is difficult..."

Charmine Hartel et al, 2011

· · Recent trends include collaborative branding; this involves the concepts of

· i) brand 'we' (based on relationships and participation with the shifting of brands away from products towards building collaborative communities which focuses connection and belonging and includes status, identity, shared interests and ownership plus expressing "who we are" and "what we like".

Some examples of successful "we" brands include Harley-Davidson, Virgin, Apple, Starbucks, Etsy, Skype, Tweet, LinkedIn, FaceBook, etc

· ii) peer-to-peer branding (people join because a friend, etc belongs and/or recommends)

· iii) community-driven branding (with 1,000s of touch points).

· - Remember:

· "...Only 14 % of people trust advertisers, yet 78 % of customers trust peer recommendations..."

· Erik Qualman as quoted by Rachel Botsman, 2010a

· - it takes a community, not a campaign, to create a collaborative brand

· - traditionally, branding has involved a monolithic message but now

· "...moving a brand from something you want to something you love, to something you can participate in......now entering the next generation of turbo-charged collaborative brands..."

· Rachel Botsman, 2010a

· such as Etsy, Skype, Netflix, GoGet, Lindedin, Twitter, FaceBook, U-Tube, etc

· - the focus is on the community they serve, rather than on product and/or services. Some examples

· i) Nike has reduced its spending on advertising campaigns and celebrity endorsement and increased its focus on social hubs such as Nike+ where runners compare notes, exchange stories, discuss topics of interest, etc

· ii) In 2009 Skype was responsible for 8% of global international calling minutes. Yet no money was spent on traditional advertising and promotion

· - The social networks using collaborative brands are created by an organisation or individual but are not controlled by them.

- An important part of e-marketing is the peer-to-peer reputation system. With instant feedback including ratings, reviews, opinions, etc; the "wisdom of the crowd" is influencing our consumer behaviour, ie

"...from the books that we read (Amazon), to the music we downloaded (iTunes), to the restaurants or shops we choose (CitySearch) to the tradespeople we hire (WhoCanDo) to the products we buy (Epinions), we are increasingly relying upon the opinions of peers..."

Rachel Botsman, 2010

- The Internet has removed the middleman, decreased the dominance of credit ratings and increased the importance of the peer-to-peer review

"...Nowadays, with every seller we rate on eBay, idea or moment we share on Twitter or Facebook, video we post on YouTube or photo on Flickr, we leave a reputation trail on how well we collaborate, and whether or not we can be trusted..."

Rachel Botsman, 2010

- There are 10 issues to consider when designing a peer-to-peer reputation system

i) unforgivable behaviour (identify the most important good behaviours that you need to encourage)

ii) decipher (understand the gap between people's expectations of what they actually care about and what they think they care about)

iii) competition (create healthy competition amongst peers)

iv) quality (reward users who provide quality feedback)

v) signal (identify the main behavioural signals you want feedback on, eg like/dislike, trust/distrust, reliable/unreliable, etc)

vi) sticky ratings (use of primary scoring systems likes stars, ticks, numerical ratings, etc)

vii) trust dimensions (trust can be built in many ways; best to use qualitative feedback systems based on open-ended questions)

viii) valued opinions (seek feedback from people whose opinions you respect)

ix) peer-police (despite using an open system, need to monitor for mis-use)

x) mirror reality (replicate the trust we form from face-to-face encounters)

. The threat of mobile Internet and social media have changed the business model for youth-targeted advertising (under 30 years) from desktop to mobile phone. The advertising yields are significantly less for the mobile phone which is fast becoming the dominant media platform.

The new principles are

- mobile first (bill for mobile, then develop a desktop version)

social at the core (headline writing has to be social media friendly, ie Facebook)

- attitude (content has to have a purpose; quality is the key)

- lean (freelancers allow us to scale up and scale down when required)

- open source (no customer code and everything based on the economics of media now)

This is the model is sometimes called native advertising, ie it is not about hard news but about entertainment, inspiration and excitement.

For the audience of 18 to 30 year olds, there are 3 fears that drive behaviour, ie

i) FOMO (fear of missing out)

ii) FONK (fear of not knowing)

iii) FOMU (fear of mucking up)

NB "...technology is an enabler of media, not a driver..."
Niel Ackland as quoted by Joanne Gray, 2015c

An alternative acronym that is persuasive, ie JOMO = joy of missing out!!!!!

There is much use of data analytical tools and real-time measurements, ie a mixture of art and science; to be able to derive revenue out of the audience in several different ways, we need to engage them first.

NB Need to realise that everybody has access to data and need to understand what ways people will create and filter

· · In summary,

- customers want to be entertained, informed, educated, inspired and treated honesty; they don't want to be bored, patronized or bombarded with attention-grabbing.

- people become affiliated with brands that are reflection of who they are or what they want to be

- brands embody culture, especially for those under 30 years of age, ie the consumption generation.

- branding needs to focus on the circumstances, ie the job-to-be-done

- owing to technology, everything operates at the speed of light.

 

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