What is your brand?

Every company has a brand whether they created it through

design or by accident.

Your brand is everything youoffer, say, and do.

Effective brands evoke strong emotions.

(Customer’s buy from emotion and back it up with their head.)

These are the top three ranked brands in 2013 which denote

the strongest emotive customer connection.

1 2 3

QUESTION

Why is Apple the #1 rated brand?

ANSWER

Apple has created a community based on imagination, design,

and innovation.

*Apple is like having a good friend. That's what's interesting about this brand. Somewhere they have created this really humanistic, beyond-business relationship with users and created a cult-like relationship with their brand. It's a big tribe, everyone is one of them. You're part of the brand.

Branding has become as powerful as religion. People's connections with brands transcend commerce. Nike sparked customers' ire when it was revealed the company's products were assembled in sweatshops.Customers were not pissed about the products. It's about the company's ethics. It's interesting how emotionally involved people are.

*Commentary from Marketer Marc Gobe, author of Emotional Branding

The company projects a humanistic corporate culture and a strong corporate ethic, characterized by volunteerism, support of good causes or involvement in the community.

Nike blundered here. Apple, on the other hand, comes across as profoundly humanist. Its founding ethos was power to the people through technology, and it remains committed to computers in education. It's always about people.

Emotional brands have three commonalities:

1

The company has a unique visual and verbal vocabulary, expressed in product design and advertising.

This is true of Apple. Its products and advertising are clearly recognizable. (So is Target's, or even Wal-Mart's).

2

Emotional brands have three commonalities:

The company has established a "heartfelt connection" with its customers. This can take several forms, from building trust to establishing a community around a product.

In Apple's case, its products are designed around people: Take the iPod, it brings an emotional, sensory experience to computing. Apple's design is people-driven.

3

Emotional brands have three commonalities:

Identifying Your Brand Level

Unbranded Goods• Little effort to brand goods, consumer perception of goods is utilitarian

Brand as a Reference• Competitive pressure leads to changes in physical product attributes

Brand as a Personality

Brand as an Icon • Brand is “owned by consumers.” Recognized globally, inherent to consumer.

Brand as a Company• Post Modern Marketing- Brand has complex identity – many points of contact

Brand as Policy

•As manufacturers make same product claim, brand personalities develop

•Few companies have achieved this status- Brand aligns with ethical, social, and political causes.

Your Brand Components

Your Point of View• Branding is a strategic point of view, not a select set of marketing activities

Your Customer Value• Branding is central to creating customer value

A Competitive Advantage

An Engineered Plan• Brand strategies must be “engineering” into the strategic planning process

A Living Essence• Brands get their identity from your company culture and standards

Logical and Emotional Elements

•Branding is a key tool for creating and sustaining competitive advantage

•Branding is part science, part art.

Your Brand Encompasses These Organizational

Elements:

(often mistaken for the brand itself)

•Your Trademark- these are legal properties

•Your Mission Statement- this is a reminder

•Your Logo or Slogan- these are your signatures

•Your Product or Service- these are your tangibles

•Your Advertising- they deliver your message

How to Design a Successful Brand

Know your customers better than yourselfUnderstand your competitive environmentDefine your Brand PersonalityMake a Brand Promise

Define your Brand StrategyIdentify your Branding Game PlanBe Consistent in Action

Know Your Customers Better Than You Know YourselfCustomers buy for their reasons, not yours. If you want to sell them your product, you must sell to their concerns, not your own. Every piece of marketing copy must focus upon them. If you don’t speak their language, you don’t get their money. With branding as with selling, if you don’t understand your customers, you won’t build a brand of which they want to be a part.

Understand your Competitive EnvironmentStart by asking your existing customers “If you weren’t with us, with whom would you be working?” Identify the companies to whom you most often lose business. Learn as much as you can about these competitors, including:

• how customers perceive them

•what makes them unique

•and why they win the business they do.

Define Your Brand PersonalityPeople choose brands based upon whether or not the characteristics of the product or company brand fit them. If you have defined your ideal customer well and understand your competitive environment, you can select a brand personality which will appeal to your audience.

Make a Brand PromiseFind out what is important to your customers about choosing a business like yours and what benefits they get from doing so. Make sure your brand promise is important and valuable to the customers you want most. Your brand promise should be stated clearly, in concise language so everyone in your organization and your customers understand it.

Define your Brand StrategyYou now understand your customer and your competitive environment. Your strategy comes out of that information. You need to develop a brand that is distinct from your competitors.

Where will you position yourself?

How are you going to approach your customers?

Identify Your Branding Game PlanMoving to action, you need to define the specific actions you will take to create your brand. They must be the tangible demonstration of your company’s values and beliefs. They come directly from your brand personality, brand promise, and brand strategy. The hardest part of your branding process will not be designing your tactics. The hardest part is being consistent in supporting your brand.

Be Consistent in ActionA brand builds over time. A brand becomes successful after years of consistent action. Keep that in mind as you move forward in building your brand

Your brand needs constant tweaking.

You have to start somewhere.

So, you launch your company and brand, see what works, and you keep adjusting.

What ultimately matters is what the customer thinks and feels.

Ways to check your brand ranking:

1. Google+ Reviews2. Yelp3. Search Engine4. rankingthebrands.com