You’ve Just Been Branded – Did You Have A Say?

You’re in a competition; are you the underdog? Are you the crowd favourite? Are you the one everyone thinks would seize the prize if the crowd favourite weren’t present?

Why have people formed these opinions about you? Is it based on past performance, stories they’ve heard, articles they’ve read?

You’ve just been branded. Someone has totalled all they’ve seen, heard, read, thought and felt about you over time and now you are defined in their minds. Practically anything can be branded – a person (Lil Rick), a place (Barbados), a product (Proper Pork!), an idea (Barbados becoming the No. 1 entrepreneurial hub in the world by 2020).

According to marketing guru Seth Godin, “A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.”

Your brand signifies a certain level of quality; it’s the promise you make to the consumer, the total benefits they are confident they will attain from choosing you over your competitors. As people are making their decisions, they are pooling the evidence that will help them determine if you are the underdog, the crowd favourite or simply second best.

With that said, how do you go about building a brand? First, it’s not simply done through advertising. You have to consider all the various ways a potential customer comes in contact with your brand – word-of-mouth, customer service hotlines, payment transactions, using the product/observation. All of these contact points help to create those memories, stories, expectations and relationships that Seth mentioned. The challenge therefore is ensuring that potential customers have the right experiences with your product/service.

To create the right experience, however requires identifying the right experience. This means you have to define your brand. This is not done in a vacuum focusing on elements you think would be cool for each contact point; it’s done by understanding the needs and wants of your market and crafting an image that caters to those needs and wants.

It goes back to differentiating yourself in the market, having some really strong competitive advantages. These can lie within your product/service attributes, your distribution channels, your human resources, your pricing, financing etc. Identify what makes you stand out and then begin teaching the market about the brand – what does your brand represent, what can the market expect from you (rational and emotional benefits offered), what is your vision, your mission, why should consumers even care your product/service exists? You have to help consumers understand there is a difference in what you offer, otherwise you are just a commodity. And you most certainly don’t want that. Any time you’re reduced to a commodity, your main advantage becomes price, which is all well and good if you have an entire production model and supply chain to justify low prices. If you’re just like the next guy, then a pricing war might not be too far away. And that tends to end badly.

It’s important to note that your brand resides in the hearts and minds of the consumer. As marketing academics Phillip Kotler and Kevin Keller state “It is a perceptual entity rooted in reality but reflecting the perceptions and idiosyncrasies of consumers.” This means that you can put the most amazing marketing programmes in place but there is still an element you cannot control. Despite that fact, you have to take control of your brand, with as much input as you can provide, or the market will do it for you. It’s better to have some say than no say at all.