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Session Five :
Developing a Brand Strategy (Part One)
Idris Mootee CEO Idea Couture Inc.
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Oct 1, 2007

All brand names mentioned and logos included in this presentation are registered trademarks of their respective owners
and are legally protected. Their inclusion in this presentation is only for the purpose of illustration, criticism and
analysis.
Disclosure: Starbucks, Nike, Kitchen Aid, Jordan, Virgin, BMW, Nintendo, Crate & Barrel are clients of Blast Radius
Inc. which I was formerly employed as Senior VP and Chief Strategist. The mentioning of these names is solely for
academic purposes and should not be considered as case studies. The material here was prepared solely with public
information supported by the author’s analysis during the writing of book 60-Minite Brand Strategist which was
published in four languages. Other brand names including Levis, Apple, Mercedes Benz, Sony, Coca Cola, Macys,
Target, Daimler Chrysler mentioned here were at some point were clients of firms which I was formerly employed or co-
founded. No confidential or proprietary information were used or disclosed here
.
This series of presentation is designed to provide relevant and up-to-date information for brand and marketing
practitioners and it should not be used in marketing or rendering of professional services. Some rights reserved. Idris
Mootee 2001-2007. Presentation can be freely embedded in any website or blog under creative commons license with
prohibition of any commercial use.
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Branding is a Business Process
Branding is a business process—one that is
planned, strategically-focused and integrated
throughout the organization. Branding
establishes the direction, leadership, clarity of
purpose, inspiration and energy for a company's
most important asset—its brand. Even the most
potentially powerful strategy will fail if not
executed effectively and consistently.
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Everyone in the company must live up to
the brand promise —the concept is pretty
simple, but it's all-encompassing—it's about
turning every company member, product,
service, piece of communications or
interfaces into a walking, talking, touchable
reflections of the brand itself.
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A brand strategy is not the
consequences of planning, but
the opposite: it’s the starting
point. Here are the three basic
requirements:
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Requirement One:
A clearly articulated business
strategy / business plan with a
view of the scale and scope of
the business and how you want
to compete.
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Requirement Two:
Deep customer insights and
understanding of evolving
business economics. This
requires you to look at evolving
nature of different target
segments and their existing and
potential profitability.
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Requirement Three:
Determine the role of branding
as perceived by your corporation
which will help shape many
strategic brand decisions during
the development process.
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The 7 Step Brand Strategy Development Process
STEP 5
STEP 7
STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3 STEP 4
STEP 6
Develop a Brand Develop Brand
Develop a
Develop
Conduct
Extract Explicit
Promise that Promise
Brand Vision
Customer
Stakeholder
Short and Long
Translates the Delivery Model
that is linked
Needs Driven
Analysis To
Term Business
Vision into by Using
to the
Segmentation
Capture
Goals as
Tangible Experience
Corporate or
with
Implicit Brand
Drivers of
Customer Value Mapping
Business Unit
Perspectives
Requirements
Brand Vision
Business
on
from Key
Strategy
Competition
Decision Develop Brand
and Segment
Makers Positioning, Identity
Economics and Associated
Images
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Brand Strategy Development
Internal External
Brand Promise
Brand Vision
Fixed
What is our
What do we
commitment
want our brand
to customers?
to become?
Band Delivery Brand Positioning
Variable
How do we intend How do we want to be
to fulfill our perceived and what’s our
commitment and competitive advantages?
what actions will we take?
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Step One
Extract Explicit Short and Long
Tem Business Goals as Drivers of
Brand Vision
The most common pitfall is many companies have no
long term business strategy, at the very least, they
should have an articulated description of the business
such as how it creates value and how do they
compete in their chosen industries. An effective
strategy should act as a bridge between the past and
the future. It involves judgments and decisions about
when to commit and be willing to bet, when to delay
making a commitment, when to kill something that
won’t work and when to change the rules of the game.
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Strategy is a complex system of acting and talking,
a system that occasionally manifests itself in
rational designs. Many brand strategy development
efforts are unintentionally turned into corporate
strategy discussions and as a result these efforts
are blamed for not delivering any value.
REMEMBER You cannot develop a meaningful
brand strategy with the absence of a business
strategy. Although you can still create a name, a
logo, tag lines and a set of graphic elements for
brand identification purposes to deal with short
term marketing needs.
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Step Two
Perform Key Stakeholder
Analysis To Capture Implicit
Brand Requirements
Stakeholder management is an important discipline that successful
managers use to win support from others. A branding project is no
different. Stakeholder analysis is the technique used to identify the key
people who have to be won over. The first step is to identify who your
key stakeholders are. It can include the CEO, CFO, VP Brand, VP
Marketing to VP Operations. The next step is to work out their power,
influence, interest and intent. The final step is to develop a good
understanding of the most important stakeholders so that you know their
requirements, and so that you can work out how to win their support—
you can record this analysis on a stakeholder map.
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The benefits of using a stakeholder-based
approach is that you can use the opinions of the
most powerful stakeholders to shape your branding
projects at an early stage. Not only does this make
it more likely that they will support you, their input
can also improve the quality of your project and
well help you to gain the resource needed. By
communicating with them early and frequently can
ensure that they fully understand what you are
doing and understand the benefits of your project .
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Step Three
Perform Customer Needs-Driven
Segmentation with Perspectives on
Competition and Evolving Segment
Economics
Most companies have developed customer segments either by
needs, usage or affordability at one stage or another. Often the
results are not particularly useful because they are not
economically viable or actionable.
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Segmentation must be based on the existing or
potential profitability of the targeted segments.
Companies must combine customer segmentation
with the in-depth perspectives of the future
economics of their industry. This may include
segment growth, behavior, price and service
requirements. Anytime a company tries to look at
the future economics, there will be uncertainty
about assumptions. A scenario based planning
approach is likely to give useful direction to where
the company can take its brand in the future.
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Step Four
Develop and Craft a Brand Vision
Crafting a brand vision forces you to think through where you want
the brand to be over the longer term to support the corporate
strategy. It helps the management team achieve consensus on the
longer term goals and the level of branding support that is required
to achieve those goals. It also provides guidelines to determine what
kind of research to put in place to monitor brand building progress
and return-on-investment. Most of all it gives you a starting point and
a mandate to start developing other elements to support the delivery
of the brand promise.
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A brand vision statement has no fixed length or
style of composition. It should be relevant, and
therefore specific to the business and the world
within it operates. A brand vision statement is by
definition long-term and transcends particular
products, markets or even current executive
leadership. A brand vision statement should be
complimentary to the company’s vision statement
and sometimes can be combined. Ultimately, it is
the interconnection between aspirations, values and
the brand that is important, not what the statement
is called.
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The vision of the LEGO Company is to become
the world's strongest brand among families with
children by the year 2005.
Children are our role models. They are curious,
creative and imaginative. They embrace
discovery and wonder. They are natural learners.
These are precious qualities that should be
nurtured and stimulated throughout our lives. At
the LEGO Company we are firm believers that
children learn best when they are having fun.
Brand Vision Example
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In the future, LEGO Company will
continue to break down existing norms,
and convert them into creativity and
imagination on a child's own terms. That's
why I picture the LEGO brand as the
world's strongest brand among families
with children. Maybe not the biggest, but
the best. I imagine the LEGO name
known by all as a brand experience
offering an integrated universe of play
designed to stimulate children's creativity,
imagination and learning.
Brand Vision Example
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At IBM, we strive to lead in the creation,
development, and manufacturing of the
industry’s most advanced information
technologies, including computer systems,
software, networking systems, storage
devices, and microelectronics. We translate
these advanced technologies into value for
our customers through professional solutions
and services businesses through the world.
Brand Vision Example
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We Help Dreamers Dream. Sony is a
company devoted to the CELEBRATION of
life. We create things for every kind of
IMAGINATION. Products that stimulate the
SENSES and refresh the spirit. Ideas that
always surprise and never disappoint.
INNOVATIONS that are easy to love, and
EFFORTLESS to use, things that are not
essential, yet hard to live without
Brand Vision Example
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Step Five
Develop a Band Promise
A brand is a promise. The basis of any brand is
its core promise, the essential idea around
which the other components of the brand are
built.A promise to achieve certain results, deliver
a certain experience, or act in a certain way. But
notice something: the word \"promise\" is a lot
more powerful than the word \"strategy\" or
\"performance.\" That's because strategy and
performance are about corporations. Promises
are about people.
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A promise that is conveyed by everything people
see, hear, touch, taste or smell about your
business. Industries and competition evolve, but a
brand lives on. Your greatest legacy can be your
brand. A brand promise is vital to articulate a higher
calling, a crystal-clear positioning, to build a
magnetic personality and an aspirational brand
affiliation. These are the rational and emotional
components of a powerful brand promise. It
humanizes the mission statement and makes it
easy for everyone throughout the organization to
understand.
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The Yahoo! Brand Promise
In any industry, there are only a handful of brands that
consumers can easily recall. These are usually the brands
which help define the category. Yahoo!'s commitment to
their users and advertisers is to:
Be the only place anyone in the world needs to go to find
anything, and get connected to anybody. Yahoo! Defines the
Internet. Yahoo! is in all the right places, reaching all the
right people, at just the right time. People use Yahoo! for
many things and value the ability to go to one place for their
needs. We are the leader in reach. We are the leader in
consumer loyalty and involvement. We are the leader in
brand strength. We are the only place a marketer needs to
advertise to reach anyone.
Brand Promise Example
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The HP Promise
We make technology accessible for everyone. HP has a 63-year history
of contributing to a wide number of endeavors, across a wide number of
fields-but virtually all of our efforts have been about extending the benefit
of technology to wider audiences.
The new HP stands for the power of invention. Invent. It's a simple word,
but it carries rich significance. That's why \"invent\" appears under every
HP logo. We are a company whose own inventive spirit-in research, in
technology, in products, in services, in business models, in the way we
work-fuels the inventive capabilities of our customers. Our brand is about
celebrating the inventive spirit-and the idea that the right technology can
help people achieve remarkable things.
Brand Promise Example
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The HP Promise (cont’d)
A company known for our character as well as our great
technology. When we put an HP logo on a product, it
represents the foundation of our brand-optimism about what is
possible, trustworthiness, a reverence for quality engineering,
a new-found dynamism and a belief in never settling for status
quo, and an inclusive approach that involves our customers
and partners as well as our fellow HP colleagues. We believe
only one thing speaks louder than our products in that regard,
and that's our people. Our brand promise is as much about
our people as anything else-we intend to live up to those
brand traits in every interaction we have with our customers.
Brand Promise Example
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The Coca-Cola Promise
The Coca-Cola Company exists to benefit and
refresh everyone who is touched by our
business.
The basic proposition of our business is simple,
solid and timeless. When we bring refreshment,
value, joy and fun to our stakeholders, then we
successfully nurture and protect our brands,
particularly Coca-Cola. That is the key to fulfilling
our ultimate obligation to provide consistently
attractive returns to the owners of our business.
Brand Promise Example
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The Nokia Promise
Nokia, the trusted brand, creates personalized
communication technology that enables people to shape their
own mobile world. We also see mobile technology as an
enabler to help create a more environmentally sound world.
The rise of mobile communications, combined with better
product design, tighter control of production processes and
greater reuse of materials and recycling are all helping to
reduce the use of scarce natural resources.
Many activities which currently use large amounts of energy
and raw materials, could be moved into the digital space to
greatly reduce their environmental impact. Such new
opportunities, however, come hand in hand with
responsibility.
Brand Promise Example
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The GE Promise
The core promise of the GE brand is \"better living.\" Through its
global, human, technical, and financial resources, GE applies
the power of the mind and its creative capabilities to provide
products and solutions that make life better.
GE has consistently made this promise to its customers for
nearly a century. Throughout history, GE's marketing
communications in both the consumer and commercial arenas
have emphasized how GE's products make life better. In each
case, the point is not the products but the core promise of
better living.
GE communications are: Not about aircraft engines, but about
the way that they bring together people of all nationalities and
walks of life. Not about imaging equipment, but about how this
equipment improves people's well being. Not about appliances,
but about the convenience they provide and make life more
enjoyable.
Brand Promise Example
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Session five of eight.
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