Brands And The Boundaries They Must Keep

Marketers face this dilemma every day. They must push some boundaries past the point of pain in order to get the jump and be competitive. At the same time, they must clearly stay within constraints such as ethics and regulatory requirements in order to retain integrity, reputation and a clean record.

5 Metrics For Measuring Brand Potential

While the measures for evaluating what a brand is worth are well established, those for quantifying a brand’s potential seem less so. In general, brands are valued on their residual equity (what they are associated with and the depth and competitiveness of that association), their competitive performance and how much they are assessed to be worth.

4 Ways Brands Should Support Sales Teams

While there has been plenty of discussion around how marketing and sales teams should play well together, the onus on brand owners to proactively support people in the field seems to have attracted less attention. Customers, of course, make no distinctions between which parts of the organization they are dealing with at any one time. In that sense, brand is sales: a brand is only as good as its ability to attract, convert and retain fickle buyers.

Linking Wellness And Brand

According to a new study conducted by Edelman Wellness 360 in partnership with Edelman Berland, attitudes to health and well-being are changing with some ironic twists. Modern wellness goes beyond doctor’s visits, clinics, and gym memberships. A growing sense of mindfulness is bringing the mind and mind-body aspects of health into the norm, versus looking at health in terms of muscle and organ “mechanics”. What it means is: Well-being is no longer a health measure; it’s a life measure. And that holds great potential for marketers.

Are You Managing A Deceptive Brand?

We all want to do best by the brands we work for. We want them to be competitive, to gain share, to win…But in the bid to make that happen, some brands push the boundaries too far. Here are 19 signs your brand has lost sight of the truth.

Brand Strength Is Found In Brand Meaning

Changes in what consumers value in the brand relationship are driven by a number of factors. The manner in which consumers (and we marketers) determine value is absolutely subjective and based on how we describe things to ourselves. A few key trends are evidence that when it comes to shared values, we see that like at Oahu’s famed Waikiki Beach, ‘many surfers ride a common wave.’

Brand Transparency Vs Brand Authenticity

Last week, brand leaders from many industries gathered for The Blake Project’s annual Un-Conference at the Versace Mansion in Miami Beach. During a segment led by Mark Di Somma on Evolving Customer Engagement, one participant smartly reminded the group that transparency and authenticity are each unique.

Power Lies In Changing The Brand Context

Recently at New Zealand Fashion Week, models walked the runway in lingerie and the crowd went wild. It was a world first. Not because the show was radical – but because the underwear was from a start-up brand named Confitex and it was specifically designed for people with incontinence.

Building The Optimal Marketing Budget

There are two ways to come up with a marketing budget. There is the foolish way and there is the strategic way.

Let me review both options for you. Those of you who do it strategically and work to a January-to-December planning year started the process back in June. If you set budgets the foolish way, you are way behind.

Growing A Brand Beyond Its Defining Characteristic

Twitter was built on 140 characters. Even though the limitation was serendipitous, it remains a defining characteristic of the brand in the minds of many. Concise thinking, hash-tagged to provide simple, global connection – there’s the Twitter value equation in a little under half the consigned quota. But the question Carl Miller asks is a good one. What happens when the idea that defined you starts to work to inhibit you?

How Brand Accessibility Builds Strong Brands

Accessibility is one of the five drivers of customer brand insistence in our proprietary BrandInsistence brand equity measurement system. How does accessibility contribute to customer brand insistence? First, accessible brands insure that brand preference is converted into brand purchase. Why wouldn’t I purchase my preferred brand if it were completely accessible to me? If it were inaccessible, I might purchase a substitute product or brand or perhaps nothing at all. But I am getting ahead of myself. First let’s define accessibility. Accessible brands are brands that are easy to find, purchase and use.

To Refresh Or Rebrand? A Marketer’s Guide

Every brand must change, but the extent of the change, and the size of the calls that accompany those shifts, are very different. So when should you refresh what you have to bring it up to date, and when should you “kill” the brand and start again?

6 Ways Of Putting Truth Back Into Your Brand

So you’ve looked long and hard at how your brand is managed, and it’s clear that the truth has been allowed to slip. If you no longer want to be managing a deceitful brand, how do you find a way back?

Brand Name

Brand name is one of the brand elements which helps the customers to identify and differentiate one product from another. It should be chosen very carefully as it captures the key theme of a product in an efficient and economical manner. It can easily be noticed and its meaning can be stored and triggered in the memory instantly. Choice of a brand name requires a lot of research. Brand names are not necessarily associated with the product. For instance, brand names can be based on places (Air India, British Airways), animals or birds (Dove soap, Puma), people (Louise Phillips, Allen Solly). In some instances, the company name is used for all products (General Electric, LG).

Features of a Good Brand Name

A good brand name should have following characteristics:

1. It should be unique / distinctive (for instance- Kodak, Mustang)
2. It should be extendable.
3. It should be easy to pronounce, identified and memorized. (For instance-Tide)
4. It should give an idea about product’s qualities and benefits (For instance- Swift, Quickfix, Lipguard).
5. It should be easily convertible into foreign languages.
6. It should be capable of legal protection and registration.
7. It should suggest product/service category (For instance Newsweek).
8. It should indicate concrete qualities (For instance Firebird).
9. It should not portray bad/wrong meanings in other categories. (For instance NOVA is a poor name for a car to be sold in Spanish country, because in Spanish it means “doesn’t go”).

Process of Selecting a renowned and successful Brand Name

1. Define the objectives of branding in terms of six criterions - descriptive, suggestive, compound, classical, arbitrary and fanciful. It Is essential to recognize the role of brand within the corporate branding strategy and the relation of brand to other brand and products. It is also essential to understand the role of brand within entire marketing program as well as a detailed description of niche market must be considered.
2. Generation of multiple names - Any potential source of names can be used; organization, management and employees, current or potential customers, agencies and professional consultants.
3. Screening of names on the basis of branding objectives and marketing considerations so as to have a more synchronized list - The brand names must not have connotations, should be easily pronounceable, should meet the legal requirements etc.
4. Gathering more extensive details on each of the finalized names - There should be extensive international legal search done. These searches are at times done on a sequential basis because of the expense involved.
5. Conducting consumer research - Consumer research is often conducted so as to confirm management expectations as to the remembrance and meaningfulness of the brand names. The features of the product, its price and promotion may be shown to the consumers so that they understand the purpose of the brand name and the manner in which it will be used. Consumers can be shown actual 3-D packages as well as animated advertising or boards. Several samples of consumers must be surveyed depending on the niche market involved.
6. On the basis of the above steps, management can finalize the brand name that maximizes the organization’s branding and marketing objectives and then formally register the brand name.