Key principles of branding

1. Brands are like people. People make friends with people when theyhave things in common, want to spend time together, and find something specialin the relationship. Brands make friends with people in exactly the same way.Brand management is about finding a group of people you can identify with,spending time together, & becoming committed to each other. The more timeyou spend with your customers the better. This is sometimes referred to asshare of mind.

2. Branding is about the totality of a customer's experience.Your brand is about everything you do which impinges on the consciousness ofthe customer and, more importantly, it is about everything s/he thinks you do.Some experiences carry greater weight than others. Some experiences have beenforgotten entirely consciously by your customer, but are nevertheless ofparamount importance in the way s/he views you. Customers build brandspiecemeal. They build a story about you based upon their experience. They seeyour products in certain shops. They heard one of your people on the radio.Somebody told them about an experience they had with you - actually, they gotthe name wrong. Your brand logo reminds them of daffodils. Your customer ownsyour brand - you do not. Your job is to behave as consistently as possible.

3. There are plenty of branding opportunities in any mass marketplace, so long as you do not try to copy the market leader. Brand marketing isabout niche marketing. Different messages will appeal most to different groupsof people. Be different.

4. Brands are best communicated implicitly. Let the customermake the connection. You must try to facilitate that experience.

5. The group of people on whom the brand is focused - the customersof the brand - need not necessarily pay you any money directly.

6. Brands last forever, if managed correctly. The most excitingbrands to have are icon brands that represent a certain moment in history. Iconbrands grow rapidly, become outdated and decline, and can then bounce back onthe next cycle of history. More traditional brands may have less ups and downs,but there will usually be fluctuations in their fortunes. Nevertheless, brandswill tend to endure if invested in consistently. Consistency is one of the keyunderlying themes of branding.

7. Brands win when they create a powerful experience that istotally compelling to the customer, and deliver it better than anyone else. Thefewer the people you target with your brand, the more compelling is likely tobe your claim in a highly competitive market. The more people you try tocapture with your brand, the weaker may be your claim on any given customer,with one exception. In an environment where your customers do not have arelationship with any brands in particular, they will probably be drawn tothose they recognise the best. Brands are therefore a bit like light beams. Themore concentrated the beam, the more cutting power it will have (as in a laserbeam); however, even a diffuse beam, like sunlight, will shed more light andheat than will darkness.

8. As brands are people, they can be analysed like people. Thereare two psychological theories that are especially relevant to the analysis ofbrands:

Personal Construct Theory - this theory argues that individualsdevelop theories (constructs) about how the world works, what values are to beespoused, and how personal success is achieved. These constructs are specificto the individual and bi-polar - they exist along a scale between two points definedby the individual. While one person may contrast hard vs. soft, another maycontrast hard vs. squelchy, or hard vs. weak. For some, a construct may beclose to the centre of how they assess other people, for others it may beperipheral, or even irrelevant. People generally prefer to discuss peripheralconstructs with strangers & acquaintances as they are easily abandoned oradapted. The core constructs, which they hold closest to their hearts, arerarely mentioned. However, by the application of a technique called laddering,a good interviewer can begin to discover individuals' core constructs bystarting with their peripheral ones.

Attribution theory - this theory argues that people ascribecharacters to the people they meet based on a very few clues around which theyspin elaborate stories. So from a gesture, or a turn of phrase, or anintonation of voice, they quickly come to a conclusion as to the sort of personthey are dealing with (often within 20 seconds of meeting the person, in fact).These judgements are made not only of people, but also of animals(anthropomorphism), and even of inanimate objects (what human characteristicsdo you ascribe to your computer when it crashes?). Brands, which function asfictional people, are also ascribed human characteristics.

9. Brands can therefore be analysed along two key dimensions:

• The level of intimacy they have with their customers
• Their level of stature in the world

Elements that will drive these dimensions are:

• The central organising thought of the brand
• The personality of the brand
• The values the brand espouses
• The tastes/dress of the brand, including how it speaks
• The emotional benefits the brand satisfies
• The hard benefits the brand delivers to the customer

There is evidence that measures of stature in particular (suchas Total Research's Relative Perceived Quality) have strong correlations withsales, the ability to charge a premium for your products and services, and evenstock price.