Support pack: TOP Brand Definition

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Question - how do I know when I have a "real" brand?

Answer - when the affection of your customers has been transferred from your products and services to your brand as an artificial person

Key points

To avoid commoditisation, and ultimately a price war, you must transfer the affections of your customers from your products to your brand as an artificial person. As they say, "people buy from people". As they also say, "people buy from themselves - sell the customer to the customer". You do not want to have your customers comparing your products feature-for-feature against the competition. The development of the technical advantage of a product follows the law of diminishing returns - sooner or later all competitors will have incorporated the same key features into their products, and all that will be left on a product level will be to develop differentiated features that the customer doesn't care too much whether s/he has or not.

It is wise for brand owners to have done the key brand definition groundwork first before approaching a creative agency, otherwise they lose control of the process and have no means of judging the agency's work. Creative agencies benefit from a tight brief (although they will usually declare that it could do with some tightening anyway).

This is the second set of tools within our overall brand development process, which runs:

1. Business Standout / CA$H - assessing the overall strength of your brand and the competitive "brandscape" - key question: "Is my proposition strong?"

2. TOP Brand Definition (this process) - defining your brand ultimately as an articifical person with a fresh, compelling and differentiated proposition

3. Communications Development - developing the creative elements of the brand and the communications plan

• Purpose of this toolset
• What is branding?
• Case study - Apple
• Creation/development/maintenance
• Mutually valuable relationship
• Strategically selected group of customers
• Fresh and compelling proposition
• Elaborated proposition
• Delivered consistently over time
• By an artificial personality
• 5 key stages
• Define your brand
• Bring your brand alive
• Plan & execute your brand campaign
• Review your performance
• Brand definition
• The tools

• Business Standout
• Unique Market Definition
• Brand Ownership Workshop
• Customer Laddering
• Scenario Development
• Market Segmentation
• Attacking the Market Leader
• Brand Definition Workshop
• Brand Definition
• Brand Overlap Detector
• Outright Brand Ownership
• Star Signs Definition Enricher

You can also order 1.5 hours of one-on-one telephone support for £37.95 (currently $US 75 approx.).

To order this (or any other) support package, please click here.

© 2008, Mud Valley ™ brand marketing community.

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