From Remarkably Bland to Remarkable Brand

 As we have seen before, a brand is stored in the mind for the prospect and customer by way of impressions. Not as chunks of information or facts. A brand is an emotional experience that is predicated on, and driven by a promise made to a customer.

That makes branding the process of building a positive collection of perceptions in your customer's mind.

 

* * *

But to have a prominent and preferred position in the customer's mind, a brand needs to stand out. For the most part, this is done by establishing a unique selling proposition (USP). In advertising, this is the characteristic of a product or service that differentiates it from its competitors.

For Marketing Monday this week, we share with you a very insightful presentation from Neutron LLC titled 'The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance between Business Strategy and Design.'

The immediate take-aways from this lengthy presentation is that:

1. A brand is not a logo

2. A brand is not an identity

3. A brand is not a product.

It is a person's gut feeling about a product, service or organization.

So how do you build your brand from bland to remarkable? This is achieved by making your brand charismatic. This means a product, service or organization for which people believe there's no substitute.

To achieve this, there are five disciplines of brand building that one needs to master:

1. Differentiate

2. Collaborate

3. Innovate

4. Validate

5. Cultivate

There is much more insights not highlighted here. And there is also a Kindle edition of 'The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance between Business Strategy and Creativity.'

* * * 

From The Brand Gap, we learn that the main purpose of branding is to get more people to buy more stuff for more years and at a higher price. 

Once you get the branding essentials right, we bet you'll be all smiles on your brand new computer and a bright future in sales...

* * *

Marketing: Planning and Strategy

In this week's #MarketingMonday, we tell you about a very nice book.
Written by Subhash C. Jain, 'Marketing: Planning and Strategy' is a goldmine of marketing gems for any marketing student, pundit or practitioner.

We ain't gonna say much, but just a casual look at the Contents will give you a sneak peek into what awaits you in this book.
The fourth chapter deals with understanding competition. From a business viewpoint:

"competition refers to rivalry among firms operating in a market to fill the same customer need. The businessperson’s major interest is to keep the market to himself or herself by adopting appropriate strategies."

Chapter five is all about focusing on the customer, which interestingly opens with this famous quote by Adam Smith:

"Consumption is the sole end and purpose of production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the customer."

There is a chapter about measuring strengths and weaknesses, another on developing marketing objectives and goals and about organizational structure.

On strategy, the author has outdone himself with detailed chapters on strategic marketing tools viz: product strategies, pricing strategies, distribution strategies, promotion strategies... even global market strategies.


Chapters 19 through 47 are case studies of actual businesses with respect to their maketing strategies.

We highly recommend this book. But more than that, this is where yu can actually get the book and start reading in just a few minutes. Get your copy of 'Marketing: Planning and Strategy' now!

* * *

According to Albert Emery, we can look at marketing as merely a civilized form of warfare in which most battles are won with words, ideas, and disciplined thinking. The end goal is customer acquisition and retention. And this calls for a new attitude in how mediated persuasion is conducted. And new strategies if need be.

 * * *