Branding -

useful shorthand or fraudulent fetish?

Why bother with brands?

“What all branding is about is fetishizing really very basic consumer goods and putting them up on a pedestal and making them stand for things that they just don’t stand for. They don’t deliver.”  Naomi Klein, author of the book “No Logo”.

In “No Logo” Naomi Klein makes an important point - if huge amounts of money are spent on advertising certain goods that are horribly overpriced and have no social value then branding really is just about harmful festishes.  It is about push not pull - foisting things on people that they only want in order to follow the pack. Things that they definitely don’t need.

There are a few examples that fit Naomi’s rule. But branding goes well beyond that.  It is not all about creating false expectations. Good brands are solid and powerful, not fake. We all have brands of our own and brands we rely on - whether or not we like to admit it.  At Public Aspect we believe that brands make a difference to our overall effectiveness as communicators and as such they are a crucial part of making an impact.

What is a brand?

There are many definitions of brand. This is one we like:

• … a combination of attributes
• … communicated through a name, or a symbol
• … that influences a thought-process
• … in the mind of an audience
• … and creates value

(Definition based on: the Fundamentals of Branding, Vincent Grimaldi, 2003)

Does that apply to me?

How could that apply to you?  Well, let’s look at some situations where you almost certainly relate to a “brand image”. You use it as a kind of shorthand in making choices about information or goods. It is an image made up of attributes you link with a certain name and which leads you to believe you’ll find value. Perhaps the best way to illustrate this is through example:

• Most of us find Google pretty useful. The reason we usually turn to that search engine is probably because we have experienced it as the quickest route to finding what we want on the internet and the added advantage of a name you don’t forget. That’s why it has the bulk of the internet search market. It saves us time, finds us what we want and we can recall the name.
• If you run a household, you almost certainly have favourite places to buy your veg and fruit. If you buy fruit in a certain outlet because you believe it is more likely to be ripe, then you are buying into a promise of quality made by that brand and that is perhaps associated with encouraging yourself or others to eat your “5 a day” i.e. brand “healthy”.
• If you buy your clothes from fair-trade companies there’s also a brand at work. The notion of fairly traded clothes has influenced your thought processes and replaced price or style as your primary motivator when you buy. When you see the fair trade logo on an item of clothing you are automatically drawn to it - that logo represents the shorthand for a decision.
• Alternatively, if you are a teenager and tend to buy clothes at Topman or Topshop, or in your 40s and tend to buy clothes at Hobbs or Next, you most likely go there because you know there will be a range of clothes which are in fashion and designed with people like you in mind. It shortens the time it will take you to find the clothes you want.
• And individuals have brands too. You may have a person at work whom you trust to give you good advice - you have them classified as “reliable” - that’s their brand. This knowledge influences you to seek them out in the knowledge that you will come away with good advice- more valuable to you than spending time talking and ending up no further forwards..

These things aren’t being forced on you - but you are using the shorthand of the attributes you associate with a certain name and logo and how that makes you feel in the choices you make. You believe you will get more of what you are after (”value”) if you use a particular service or outlet or talk to a particular individual - in other words you are responding to a “brand”.

I don’t deal with the public…

Even if your customers are not consumers but businesses or other charities or public organisations, brand still plays a role.  If you are over 40, you have probably heard the phrase, “No one ever got sacked for buying IBM”. That is an example of a business brand at work - IBM were so strongly associated with reliability that they were the safe choice for a nervous IT manager.  Most businesses are trying to be seen as reliable, providing consistent quality and often also good at innovation.  The smart ones understand what their customers value and adapt their offer to meet the needs for those customers.

Why build a brand?

It takes time and effort to build a brand and usually costs money, so why would you bother?  From the perspective of the brand’s owner, the value of the brand often lies in the security of higher “future earnings” - as we have seen above, you are more likely to go back to a shop or a service which communicates powerfully that it has the characteristics you want.  You going back means its future earnings are more secure because it gets repeat business.  “Future earnings” can mean a lot of different things: donations to a charity, security against hostile takeover for a firm, votes for a politician, a career for an executive, investments in a business or even a country.

Making it happen

So how do you build your brand? 

That depends on what you do, for whom, and what you want to achieve. But a good place to begin is by understanding your target audience and what they want.  For example, a common complaint we hear from stakeholders in the third sector and public sector is that many organisations offer a great service which meets part of what their customers need but not all of it.  That means there are gaps in delivery which your customers have to fill elsewhere. By leaving those gaps, you have lost the opportunity to become the brand that stands for solutions and answers to problems, even if helping people with problems is what you do!  That isn’t to say you have to be all things to all people - you need to have focus - but you do have to be clear what your stakeholders need and to build your brand around that.

If you want to discuss any aspect of branding and to understand how strengthening your brand can make you more effective and create value for you, please call Marian for a “no strings” discussion on +44 161 610 0249, or write to me at marian@publicaspect.com.

About Public Aspect

Public Aspect is a strategic research and communications consultancy, with special expertise in public consultation, impact assessment, branding and innovation. We draw on extensive international and UK experience and apply our business acumen to deliver a rapid, thorough service that offers the highest quality and value for money. We tailor what we do to what you need. 

Our brand is about well founded, professionally researched advice and support that allows you to be more successful at what you do.

We offer:

• Consultancy to help you define your research and communications needs
• Research to give you the insights you need
• Clear, accessible reports and presentations for specialist audiences and the public
• External and internal communications programmes
• Consultation, training, coaching and mentoring with staff

We provide these elements as an integrated service, or stand-alone.

We specialise in:

• hard to reach audiences including opinion formers and marginalised groups
• research in environmentally and politically sensitive regions and issues
• communicating complex, technical issues and information in an accessible way

We work for industry, governmental organisations and NGOs including charities.

Recent projects include:

• Evaluating and comparing a charity’s services and advising how to improve them;
• Researching attitudes and managing communications for a proposed oil development;
• Working with a manufacturer to develop and position a new product;
• Consulting the government of a developing country to evaluate its investment and training needs.

Marian Sudbury, the author of this blog, was trained in Brand Management by Procter & Gamble and in branding research by Wirthlin Worldwide (Richard Wirthlin was Ronald Reagan’s pollster).  She delivered the 2006 Market Research Society Summer School module on Brands and Branding and has spoken internationally on a number of topics including innovation, using the internet to research business audiences and measuring return on investment in communications.

We also offer training programmes to our clients to transfer knowledge and build capacity in their organisations so they can carry on where we leave off; and follow-up work to see how things have changed, both internally and externally, as a result of the assessment.

For more information please call us on 0208 746 1438, e-mail info@publicaspect.com or visit our website www.publicaspect.com

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