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Personal Branding
An individual’s brand can be just as important as a corporate one. Most corporations start with an idea of what they want their brand to be and build off of that. The issue is that goals and reality rarely coincide in the market. We end up instead with out-of-touch executives and ineffective corporate hierarchies. My 9-5 job is helping companies understand what the brand is they have ended up with. By recognizing your strengths and public image, you can build on past success and create an even stronger brand. What you end up working with will always be different from…
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Brand Equity – Part 2
The fact of the matter is that there is no consistent standard with which to measure brand equity. By brand equity, I mean the power of a brand, not it’s market value. If my terms have been confusing to anyone, I apologize. Brand equity, as Rodger’s article put it so well, is like a mysterious pond from which managers draw their ability to build customer relationships, sell products, and develop their business. The pond may be deeper at times, or shallower, but we assume it will always be there in some form. Measuring the pond’s volume is the hard part.…
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Brand Happens
The question is whether your brand is a clearly structured asset to the company, or a confusing jumble of antiquated internal corporate practices. In many cases, a company’s brand develops over time by pure accident and can, over time, become more of a liability than an asset. Compare this with a clearly defined and managed brand. The enterprise’s entire decision-making process is more streamlined and on-track. Customers remain loyal to a company is seen a partner in their everyday lives. Competitors look at an ever-rising bar for performance and become less competitive as they mimic your success. A more organically-grown…
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Luxury Branding
Most brands start out distinguishing themselves based on products and unique service offerings. As the market develops, there are fewer ways to differentiate product lines. Features become ubiquitous across brands and most are forced down the dark road of competing on price alone. This, however, is just one possible fate for developing markets. The other fate is to develop into a luxury market. By branding the shopping experience, rather than the product. A good example is jewelry. This is an obvious extravagance, but think about how jewelry stores distinguish themselves from one another. The products are identical, prices are very…
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Why Guerrilla Marketing?
Guerrilla marketing is the wave of the future. I have given you information about what it is and even showed you a video about how effective it can be. I do know, however, that you are waiting for my explanation of why guerrilla marketing is so important. Customers seek out your advertisements Think about that for a minute. The old (and still existing) paradigm is that marketers must study their target segments and work tirelessly to find their customers. With guerrilla marketing, the customers are coming to you – the quarry searches for the hunter. How effective is your advertising…
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Guerrilla Marketing
The easiest way to think about guerrilla marketing is to compare it to guerrilla warfare. It’s a small-scale endeavor focused on gaining ground against the enemy in small steps. The advantage is that you are leveraging your knowledge of the region (which the enemy does not share) to attack their weak points. For marketing purposes, change “enemy” to “competition” and “ground” to “market share.” Now we are engaged in a small-scale endeavor focused on gaining market share against the competition in small steps. The advantage is that we are leveraging our knowledge of the regions (which the competition does not…
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Discounts
Every store advertises sales and discounts in today’s market. But how much value does a discount or clearance rack actually have? I currently work in a store that sells luxury goods. Our clearance items are 40-60% off and, for the next few days, we give an additional 20% off. The big numbers and “Save Now” advertisements drive a lot of traffic to the store and we are liquidating a lot of old merchandise … and still making a profit from it. In a competitive market, prices need to match market demand. While it may only cost $2,000 to build a…
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Preview
A little while ago, I mentioned a new perspective I had on product categorization and marketing as it applies to retail. This is a brief summary of the new ideas I have to build anticipation for a soon-to-come series on the same topic. Divide products into two categories: luxury goods and necessities. I define necessities as everyday home goods needed to meet a minimum standard of living. Examples would be clothing, toiletries, and basic cookware. Luxury goods are defined as anything that provides the user/owner with a temporary escape from their everyday life (a temporary sense of being above that…
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House of Brands
Sometimes there just isn’t anyone you can acquire to extend your coverage of the market. Either your competition is entirely incompatible with your organization or it would just be cheaper to start from scratch than incorporate another entity. In this case, it is easiest to establish an entirely new brand for the new segment of the market or category of product. Many companies make the mistake of extending their own brand to cover new products. This can be dangerous because it can lead to consumer confusion, decreased brand equity, and a lower level of customer loyalty in the market. Take…