Keys to Effective Brand Building

By Jeff Hilton, Integrated Marketing Group, 2003

In today's volatile economy and competitive marketplace, building a strong brand personality and compelling product positioning has never been more important or at the same time more difficult to accomplish.

Branding 101
Branding is much more than simply coordinated marketing activity. Branding is the consistent and creative use of all available corporate communications vehicles to create a focused product position and key selling message in the mind of the customer or consumer. It involves the advertising, public relations and sales promotion disciplines, along with customer service, sales and Internet marketing. Your customer's perception of your product or service is constantly in flux, changing and evolving with every competitive move and shifting trend. A strong branding effort must be focused and persuasive, but most of all consistent.

Why Branding Matters
Stop thinking of yourself as a manufacturer or supplier--put on your consumer hat for a moment. Each day you are exposed to approximately 4,500 marketing messages or impressions, each one struggling for your attention. Which do you respond to? Which do you recall? Most likely, you will remember those that reach you with a singular and focused message that is communicated frequently. For example, Travelocity.com owns the radio airwaves with one message: save money on travel. Altoids has spent million of dollars in print magazines convincing us that it offers a curiously strong mint.

Over time, these messages and others like them become part of our culture and inevitably impact our purchasing habits. We all know that brand loyalty is at an all-time low, and price sensitivity abounds. When the consumer approaches the retail shelf and surveys multiple similar products all priced within reason, she will make a purchase decision based upon which brand has carved out a distinct niche in her mind. That's why branding matters.

What Results Can I Expect?
Consistent, effective branding accomplishes several important objectives:

1. It will generate increased sales over time. The key words here are "over time." Manufacturers and suppliers get tired of their marketing messages much sooner than the consumer. That's an important but dangerous insight, because it causes marketers to change their approach every time they get bored or the competitive wind shifts. And usually they are not asking the consumer how they feel about changing the message. The best advice is to stay the course and listen to the consumer.

2. It helps to improve and focus the creative product. If your message is single-minded, the packaging and advertising and brochures you create will naturally be more powerful and compelling to your customers.

3. It helps build internal team morale, communication and output. Basically, effective branding puts everyone in the company on the same page and helps to build unity and support.

4. It clarifies and reinforces consumer awareness and attitudes.

5. It builds long term brand awareness, preference and loyalty for your products.

6. It adds "value" to your product positioning. This becomes particularly important for above-parity priced products where the consumer requires additional incentive to pay a little more for a superior brand.

In the Nico-Rx® smoking cessation campaign shown here, we created a unique advertising identity for the brand which then carried over to displays and other point of purchase materials. This helps to reinforce key selling points and design elements with the consumer at various points in the purchase cycle.

What Makes Branding Tough?

Lack of money. Branding takes a lot of it. It also requires an "investment mentality" that allows you to forgo immediate profits to generate a greater return in the long haul. You can drop coupons and run promotions and get a quick "bump" in sales every month, but that creates an expectation on the part of the retailer and consumer that you will always be on deal. Unless you are educating them about what your brand stands for, consumers and retailers will eventually pass you by for the next hot discounted competitor. Short-term sales spikes can be deceiving. What are you doing to build your long-term business?

Lack of patience. Branding takes time. If you don't plan to be in business in five years, then save your money and stop reading.

Lack of vision. If you don't have it, hire it.

Too much competition. It's out there in abundance in every category and it's getting worse. Successful natural products companies learn to compete harder and smarter.

Consumers are older and better educated. As a result, they are more discerning and sophisticated, and they have increased options and places available to buy.

Start Today To Build A Stronger Brand

It's not too late to begin building a stronger brand identity. Here are some things you can do immediately:

Know your customers. Research their needs and preferences. Talk to them in focus groups. Include a short survey packaged with the product and offer a $2 rebate for those who send it in. Post a survey on your web site and offer a coupon to those who complete it.

Define "marketing" in your organization. Many companies have a narrow view of marketing. Every form of outreach to your vendors, your trade customers and your retailers is part of your marketing effort. Each must be considered when determining how to talk about your brand.

Centralize your marketing efforts. Consolidate your marketing activity with fewer partners, or bring those partners together on a regular basis to share the vision. Internally, someone must champion the cause of coordinating marketing messages for consistency and focus. Identify that person.

Put enough gas in the car. Unless you can spend 10 to15 percent of net sales on brand building (and even more in the early stages), you might be better off investing your money elsewhere until you can.

Utilize the Internet. As household penetration increases over the next few years, more and more consumers (and retailers) will be purchasing products online. Do you have an Internet strategy? With more than 200 million users currently online, can you afford not to? The Internet is changing the way people shop. There are basically two types of people on the Internet: those who are spending money and those who are making money. Which will you be?

Sharpen your creative message. Find examples of all your ads and brochures and press releases and packaging and merchandising materials. Now look at them as one unit. Do they speak with one voice? Granted, they may promote different products and services within your line. But do they look like they came from the same company? Do they communicate the same core message about what your brand name stands for? If so, congratulations. If not, you've got some work to do. Don't be too proud to look for outside help.

Nothing is more important yet more difficult than building brand identity for your products and services. Resolve to start now. Invest the time and money—and don't look back.