Brands face new challenges as consumers demand simplification and risk reduction. Effective brand management is difficult due to savvy consumers, increased competition, and changing marketing tools. Marketers must have a deep understanding of customers and brands, and how the relationship between the two. The top 11 brand challenges include having a reactive approach, lack of accountability, inability to conclude initiatives, and unrealistic expectations. Strong brands provide clarity, consistency, and constancy - always communicating their unique value to customers.

1. Branding Challenges

2. New Branding Challenges
• Brands are important as ever
• Consumer need for simplification
• Consumer need for risk reduction
• Brand management is as difficult as ever
• Savvy consumers
• Increased competition
• Decreased effectiveness of traditional marketing tools
and emergence of new marketing tools
• Complex brand and product portfolios

3. The Customer/Brand Challenge
• In this difficult environment, marketers must have a keen
understanding of:
• customers
• brands
• the relationship between the two

4. Top 11 Brand Challenges

5. • Reactive Approach to Brand Development
• Branding Initiatives Lack Accountability (Return on Branding
Investment, ROBI)
• Can’t Bring Branding Initiatives to Conclusion
• “Who Are We Today” Syndrome

6. • Competition “Stole” the Business Away from Us
• “We’re in a Commodity Business.”
• “Branding Doesn’t Work in Our Industry”
• “Everybody Knows Us.”
• “Unrealistic Expectations.”
• “Nobody Knows Us.”
• “We Don’t Have the Budget.”

7. Why Does A Brand Matter?
MANUFACTURERS CONSUMERS
• ID to simplify handling or • ID Product Source
tracing
• Assignment of
• Legal protection of unique
responsibility to maker
features
• Signal of quality level to • Risk reducer
satisfied customers • Search cost reducer
• Means of endowing • Promise, bond, or pact
products w/unique w/make of product
associations • Symbolic Device
• Competitive Advantage
• Signal of Quality
• Financial Returns

8. The Benefits of a Strong Brand

9. • A strong brand influences the buying decision and shapes the ownership
experience.
• Branding creates trust and an emotional attachment to your product or
company.
• A strong brand can command a premium price and maximize the number
of units that can be sold at that premium.
• Branding helps make purchasing decisions easier.
• Branding will help you “fence off” your customers from the competition and
protect your market share.
• A brand is something that nobody can take away from you.
• Have you ever witnessed the obvious bond between people using the same
brand of product?
• A strong brand signals that you want to build customer loyalty, not just sell
product.
• Branding builds name recognition for your company or product
• A brand will help you articulate your company’s values and explain why you
are competing in your market.

10. The Three Cs of Branding

11. Clarity
• Strong brands are clear about what they are and what they
are not. They understand their unique promise of value. And
this promise of value sets them apart from their competitors.
It differentiates them and allows them to attract and build
loyalty among a desirable set of consumers. Volvo, for
example, is clear about their commitment to safety and
security. They are not about speedy sports cars, or about
small economy car or about luxury cars

12. Consistency
• In addition to being clear about who they are, strong
brands are also consistent. They are always what they
say they are. For Volvo, they are always about safety.
They don’t change their focus from model to model.
When new editions come out each year, they are safe
too. And Volvo consistently communicates that. Or look
at Madonna. Madonna is the chameleon brand of
entertainment. She reinvents herself with each CD that
she produces. She didn’t change for her first five CDs and
then stay the same for the next two. She consistently
changes. And the one thing we can be sure of with
regard to her upcoming CD is that it will be nothing like
any of the others she has done before. Madonna’s ability
to change consistently throughout her career separates
her from other entertainers, thereby strengthening her
brand.

13. Constancy
It is not enough to be clear and consistent if you are not
always visible to your target audience. Strong brands are
constant; they are always there for their customers and
prospects. They don’t go into hiding.
For Coke, the world is the target market. That is why you
can’t make it through a day without being exposed to their
bright red color or familiar script logo. Vending machines,
people carrying a coke as they walk down the street,
restaurant menus, product placement in TV shows and
movies, billboards and print and TV advertisements all scream
COKE. Coke is a constant in our lives. And Coke is the world’s
strongest brand.

14. Thank You