Storytelling for branding

Kalus Fog and two other authors have come with ain interesting framework to buld a brand. it's interesting because it collects some of the lessons learnes from UWB book. Every succesful story has 4 elements:message, plot conflict and characters This core story would become from the result of the thumstone exercise, screening of internal and external, distilling this data and testing the uniqueness of the outcome. From my understanding they suggest that thorugh a compelling story the company values become dynamic and easier to understand by stakeholders.

What is the value of an emotional association to your brand?

It should come as no surprise that humans are emotional creatures. Even a casual glimpse into the nation’s driveways, liquor cabinets, and cosmetics shelves reveals that consumers make buying decisions based in part on their feelings and emotions about particular brands. And marketers have long recognized the fact that emotions play a key role when consumers are talking about—or purchasing—products in categories as disparate as those represented by brands like Mercedes, Kodak, and Louis Vuitton.

I found this video, speaking about emotional branding. It highlights how important it is to make your brand alive in the minds of consumer. Because the factual truth is that, it is the consumer who owns the brand, not the corporation.

Sake Tasting

We have all tasted the Manotsuru sake variety yesterday. A million thanks to Obata-sama. Now we have a concrete experience about the product. Does it mean that we already know the brand? Can we figure out its competitive advantage by tasting the actual product? Are the questions thrown and the answers given by the owner herself enough to fill the gaps in the information for branding? Is the product the competitive advantage?

To the untrained palate like mine, the taste do not differ so much as to tell which one is better. The aroma is pleasant for some and yet less attractive for the other kinds. Obviously, the product is one of the brand elements that make-up the brand. But we still have to find that specific thing that may make its brand stand out and resonate with the target customers.

Happy hunting!

Snapple: Branding lessons for all

This article will help us to study the very history of modern consumer branding, with the case of Snapple.
First lessons from the first start was to "let founders be founders and not be too quick to apply the artificial laws of marketing to a brand that is still led by them". Later on, brand management with research, a clear positioning, and break the rules by being true to your brand. In 1994, after being acquired by Quaker Oats who succeeded in branding Gatorade and would like to apply that success to Snapple. However, it was a failure, which led to a lesson of "a strategy that works for one brand will never work for another".
In 1997, Snapple's brand was rebuilt by Triarc and it was successful with the root from the brand equity of Snapple. This lesson illustrated that "great brands can never be killed off by bad brand management"

Best Global Brand 2009

This is the list of best global brand in 2009 by Interbrand and also published in Business Week. In this report also mention about the future of the brand and some articles talks about branding. From the opportunities for advancement and reinvention until tomorrow's brand leaders are discussed here. What can we learn from the famous brand?

"My brand's bigger than your brand" - How would you really value your brand?

Brand valuation is regarded by many marketers as providing the definitive proof of the business value of marketing. The various brand rankings by value released each year attract plenty of attention. What does the differences in results and methodology of the rankings produced by different financial papers, conclude to marketers?, for example, Coca-Cola's 2008 valuation varied from $45bn to $67bn, what does this mean?

The truth is that, A brand is worth nothing if people aren't willing to pay for it. There's no revenue stream. So the key component in this brand-value equation must be the consumer. The real value of an existing customer varies according to that customer's level of engagement with the brand."Fully engaged" consumers are more likely to repurchase the brand and recommend it. They are also more willing to pay a price premium in spite of the price incentives offered by competing brands.

Hence, regardless of the methods used to put a price tag on a company's brand, company should pay more attention on the needs and feelings of the consumers, who are responsible for the rise and fall of those billion dollar brand valuations.Brand assets aren't owned by the company or by the firms that assign a dollar value to those assets. They're owned by the consumer. So your brand should Listen to them, and learn.
source: http//gmj.gallup.com/content/24922/managing-value-your-brand.aspx#2

What color is your brand?

This Video explains the colors that suits best to communicate varying brand attributes:

What Michael Jackson-'The Brand Icon' can teach you about Personal Branding?

I read this article, speaks about ten factors describing how Jackson's brand can be applied to someone's personal brand.
http://www.careerhubblog.com/main/2009/06/what-michael-jackson-the-brand-icon-can-teach-you-about-personal-branding.html
There has been some criticisms for this article, especially with regards to the final factor, i.e. "Die Young". But I believe the author's point in here is to highlight the fact that a brand should be awake and keep on improving their position and should be ready for a reinvention; it shouldn't be obsolete. I think the brand icon - 'Jackson' is an excellent example for personal branding. It is a memorable resonating brand that captured millions of hearts.

Creating an Online Identity

Online companies are successfully putting branding to work with a help from Mr. Dot Com. "The Internet helps promote companies' products in a very efficient manner and especially to all audiences in all parts of the world," says Dettore (http://www.va-interactive.com/inbusiness/editorial/sales/ibt/branding.html#9). "Typical advertising media hit only a segmented or regional strategy, so the Internet is one of the most cost effective ways to brand."

Experts say that the brand names of seven Internet companies are already recognized by more than 50 million adults, giving them' mega-brand' status. According to a survey from Intelliquest, 10,000 Internet users associated the following Net names with the following products:

• Books: Amazon.com - 56 percent
• Music: CDNOW - 24 percent
• Computer Software: Microsoft - 30 percent
• Computer Hardware: Dell - 20 percent
• Clothing: The Gap - 12 percent
• Travel: AOL, Yahoo!, Travelocity - 8 percent each
• Autos: Yahoo! - 6 percent

Maker's Mark: building an icon brand

In this paper, we can see the secret of Marketing techniques by Bill Samuels to make Maker's Mark from unknown brand to the nation's premium bourbon leader.

Samuels stated the icon brand as "awesome respect by those in the know.". And Jack Daniels in the 80's and Absolut Vodka in the 90's were considered as the most successful icon brands.
The way Samuels did for Maker's Mark was its personalization approach embodied by a "one customer at a time" philosophy, and using web technology to differentiate from competitors.

We will find out more deep insights and interesting viewpoints on his industry and his marketing techniques in this paper. Some Pearls of marketing wisdom at the end will be good for our resources as well.

Sites of most interest to foreigners in Japan

Obata-san would like to better understand the difficulties foreigners in Japan have with figuring out the best sake to drink, and also which websites are most important to foreigners living in Japan. I look forward to discussing this with all of you tomorrow!

---------------------
Dear Philip,

I have a favor.

Will you please ask your students the following ?
I would like to know where on the internet are they checking the information and news about sake or/and food ?
Japanese consumers use rakuten shop and yahoo shop so much.
For foreigners who live Japan….which sites are they checking when they want to buy or check something related to sake??

Personas for Branding

Personas are fictional examples of a customer segment presented in a context as a story. They have been mostly used for product development but lately they have found application for brand builders.

In this case the persona will not portrait a user but the buyer of a product. Nowadays demand is shifting from products or services in isolation to experiences, what could be called the experience economy "...a new economic era in which all businesses must orchestrate memorable events for their customers that engage each one of them in an inherently personal way..." (Joseph Pine & James Gilmore,2005). In order to provide experiences, products must appeal to emotions and customer knowledge has to go from segmentation profiles to a much deeper level and this level could be achieved by developing a branding persona. Mike Moser (United we brand) hightlights the importance of emotions to build strong brands, knowing "the peopleness of people" as he refers to it. Developing branding personas could be an effective way to get insights on where a brand fits in people's lives and what kind of core message could resonate with our customers.

Best Practice for Driving Employees Brand Advocacy

Brand personality reflected on the personality of the top one or two people in the company, for example Steve Jobs with his company Apple. To resonance with brand consumer not only look at the top/CEO but also the employee. How to deliver the brand message from top to all employees so that employee can help company to strengthen its brand. Forrester report give five best practice to drive employee from brand resisters up to the brand advocates: 1) share the brand message internally; 2) involves employee in brand planning; 3) personalize the brand promise; 4) enable employee of delivery of the brand promise; and 5) reinforce brand-aligned behaviors and attitutdes.

Secret of successful differentiation

In the paper of "what is strategy" by Michael Porter, he has mentioned that the essence of strategy is choosing to perform activities differently than rivals do. Many successful brands has been following this by creating their differentiation that won't be imitated. Like Starbucks with their thought of neighbor hangout coffee shops with easy chair and sofas, Volvo with their safety brand and did everything humanly possible, etc.

This paper will help you to find out the secret of successful differentiation by thinking beyond the core benefits of your product category. We will see the different thought of Naked News, Apple, Virgin Atlantic, etc. The differentiation that these companies created may become the core-benefits of their product category (Nokia...) but also may not which seems ridiculous to competitors (Virgin Atlantic, Swatch, ...).

Branding Evolution: Dove Story

"Dove Evolution Campaign" can be a very good example of brand evolution when the company use viral advertisment to clarify their brand message so that it is more understandable to your consumers and/or partners.

Since the brand was launched in 1957, the Dove advertising message has been a constant: It's not soap. It's a beauty bar. The picture of cream pouring into the bar was the iconic image Dove used in ads for nearly five decades. However, Unilever downsized from 1,600 brands to 400 in 2002 , nominating Dove to be one of its master brands. No longer just a beauty bar, Dove was to be a beauty brand, encompassing products such as body wash, deodorant, hair care and body lotion. Nothing in its heritage had prepared the brand to represent all of these functions. Dove now had to come up with a message that could speak for all its products. And the message is . "The Real Truth About Beauty" as you can see from video.

What if the Brand speaks to you?

‘Personality traits are what the brand will live and die for’ so Brand personality is a set of human characteristics associated with a brand.
For example:
IBM is ‘Older’ while Apple is ‘Younger’
Coke is ‘Confirming’ while Pepsi is ‘irreverent’

Personality of Levi’s Brand for me is:
Rebellion, sensuality, being cool - this gauge my perception & attitude towards Levis brand, differentiate the product when the brands are similar in product attributes, creates brand equity, a powerful relationship

This article describes more about brand personality, seeing a brand as a friend and how important it is to add a sense of humor or a symbol that can help to strengthen the brand relationship.

4 Elements of a Winning Brand

In this article, author Kim T. Gordon　suggested four guidelines to create a winning brand image.

1. Differentiate your brand

2. Promise value

3. Be a market leader.

4. Integrate your messages

For more details, please look at the article

Determining Your Brand Personality

Today we discussed about brand personality in class. I found a short video also discusses how to determine your brand personality and how knowing your brand personality affects your marketing efforts.

"Toyota Brand" - Lessons Learned?

They knew there was a severe incident on last August.
They then decided to recall 5.4mil. cars and stopped selling on January.
They finally apologized today, Feb.2.

Snow brand was gone, though they still alive with different brand...
Paroma, gas product company, was gone.
many many cases.

In "United We Brand", "ask whether the core value will hold up under stress."

Core value of Toyota was ...?

Let's see carefully how Toyota will recover its brand.

Excellent Posts plus SMART Objectives

First, for those of you who are posting here, your comments/insights are excellent. Second, I hadn't checked on the concept of SMART objectives recently, and per Ronaldo's point in class, others have extended/modified the original SMART elements. Here is an online resource that explains all of these. But I think that the spirit of "why" the idea of "SMART" was created is more important than sticking to any of these models. As we discussed in class, I have seen that "measurable" and "time bound" are the two areas in which students or junior executives typically have difficulties in creating Objectives.

Building your brand with flanker brands

After studying the case "Introducing New Coke", we have mentioned of "Flanker brand" as one way to compete.

So what is flanker brand? why is it important? and whether it will work for the brand or not? This paper will give you the answer of these questions. "Flanker brand is a new brand introduced into
the market by a company that already has an established brand in the same product category. The new brand is designed to compete in the category without damaging the existing item’s
market share by targeting a different group of consumers." Flanker brand has some advantages, such as: shelf space broaden; capture "brand switchers"; Reduce risks to the existing brands/company, etc. In sprite of its importance, flanker brand can not apply for every brand, every company. A flanker brand will work best if we implement it appropriately.

United We Brand: How to Create a Cohesive Brand That's Seen, Heard and Remembered

As we know, core brand values play a very important roles to communicate to anyone inside or outside the company. Here are some basic questions we should consider when we are looking at potential core values:

1- Which values are so inherent in your company that if they disappeared, your company would cease to exist as it is?
2- Which values does your company consistently adhere to in the face of all obstacles?
3- Does the word passionate come to mind when you look at a value and apply it to your company?
4- Which core values does this culture value?

For more details, please look at the title.

What is Strategy?