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Session Six :
Developing a Brand Strategy (Part Two)
Idris Mootee CEO Idea Couture Inc.
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Oct 10 2007

Step Six
Develop Brand Positioning, Identity
and Images
This step is to look at what does your
brand means, how is your brand being
perceived in the consumer minds
relative to the competition and the
perceptual difference between different
customers segments or product
categories. Once a full understanding of
what’s in your customers minds is
developed, it is easy to examine what
has worked in the past and how to
differentiate your brand and position it to
target your most desired customer
segments.
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Brand Identity and Image
Two of the key drivers to building brand strength are
creating a distinct brand identity and developing a
unique brand personality. Unfortunately, semantics
quite often gets in the way of understanding how these
two factors can influence brand strategy. Brand
identity, for example, is often used in a limited,
graphic-centric manner or used interchangeably with
brand image. All too often, identity is seen as just the
graphics, logos, colors, and symbols that generally
make up corporate identity. Those elements are the
appearance but not the substance of a brand.
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Brand Identity and Image
Any obsession with image tends to attach greater
importance to appearance than to inner reality. But
brand identity is a richer, more substantial concept to
embrace. The two concepts are quite different.
There’s also a simple way to sum up and understand
the essence of the two terms: image is how the
marketplace perceives you; identity is who you are.
Brand image is not to be diminished at all. It is, after
all is said and done, how a company is perceived.
But don’t make the mistake of thinking your brand
image is your identity.
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Brand Positioning, Identity and Image
Brand Identity
How brand strategists want the
brand to be perceived or needed
to be perceived as part of the
business strategy.
Brand Positioning
Brand Image
The part of the brand identity and
How the brand is currently being value proposition to be actively
perceived in the market place as communicated to selected target
confirmed by market research. segments.
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Target’s brand vision includes an
appreciation of design and beauty, and for
daring to dream big. People who appreciate
creativity, design and whimsy admire
everything that Target brand and what it
stands for, from their creative and well
executed advertising to their careful
selection of designers. Target is actively
energizing its brand and keeping it
contemporary.
Brand Image and Identity Example
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Brand Identity Example
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Virgin stands for irreverence, individual,
freedom-loving and anti-establishment.
Consequently the company seeks out at all
markets in which these values are
important: as a global brand, Virgin possess
a strong brand identity which cannot easily
be copied. Virgin targets markets which are
controlled cartels of which operate under
pseudo-competitive environment of a
duopoly. They see potential profits to be
made in these market by a new player who
do not play by the rules.
Brand Identity Example
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Brand Identity Example
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Brand Positioning Example
Consistent
Important
5 Basic
Positioning Unique
Principles
Enduring
Believable
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Step Seven
Translate Brand Promise Into Customer
Experience Vision for Brand Delivery
Companies invest considerable time,
money and energy into developing a
brand promise that will differentiate
them from the competition. But what
good can come of this if employees
can’t translate the results into their
customer interactions or experiences?
How can companies expect their
frontline employees to be brand
ambassadors, if the vast majority of
them do not understand what the
promise is and the expectations of them
to deliver that promise.
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Step Seven
Translate Brand Promise Into Customer
Experience Strategy for Brand Delivery
Do not make the mistake of developing
a grandiose brand promise that you
cannot keep. Although you must
combine vision with realism, you should
not take weakness in any particular
dimension as an excuse to do nothing.
No company gets it right all the time.
Once a brand experience strategy is
developed, it will be up to the
departments to come up with their own
ideas to how to deliver the brand
promise.
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The customer experience strategy is used to align the
brand promise to customer expectations. It describes
the service characteristics objectively. It is important
to depict these service characteristics so that
employees, customers and managers alike know
what the service is, can see their role in its delivery.
Services are delivered through integrated systems
consisting of three basic elements. First are the steps,
tasks and activities necessary to render the service;
in other words, the service process. Second are the
means by which the tasks are executed, typically
some combination of people, technologies and
products. Third is the evidence of the experience and
how customer relates to the experiences.
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All service systems can be visualized by
understanding these elements and their
interrelationships. This is where things break
down. The people who create the brand are not
the people who develop the brand. The people
who design services and operation standards are
not connected to those who develop the brand.
The people who design the interfaces are not
connected to those who create the ads.
And worse, everyone is operating under the mode
of 97% tactical and 3% strategic.
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Questions:
1/ . How do we provide a
snapshot of what it is like a
day in the life of a
customer?
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Questions:
2/ . With that, how do we
identify opportunities to
create customer
engagement?
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Questions:
3/ . How do we map these
customer engagement
opportunities against the
brand vision?
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Questions:
4/ . What are the economic
implications of these
ideas?
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Questions:
5/ . How do we measure
progress and success?
What are the key metrics?
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Session six of eight.
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