Successful Branding: 5 Key Elements and 1 Mantra!

1) Successful branding begins with a well-defined brand that is RELEVANT to your market. You
might think that since you have a logo, tagline, and business card, you've completed your branding.
But, unless you've carefully considered and defined ALL five of the key brand elementsposition,
promise, personality traits, story, and associationsyou still have work to do.
And, until you've infiltrated your brand into every level of your organization and built the discipline
of CONSISTENCY into every behavior, action, or communicationboth internally and externally
you are not yet on the path to a successful brand strategy.
Five Key Brand Elements:

Brand Position
The Brand Position is the part of the brand that describes what your organization does and
for whom, what your unique value is and how a customer benefits from working with you or
your product/service, and what key differentiation you have from your competition. Once
you've defined your brand position, make it available in 25, 50, and 100 word versions.

Brand Promise
The Brand Promise is the single most important thing that the organization promises to
deliver to its customersEVERY time. To come up with your brand promise, consider what
customers, employees, and partners should expect from every interaction with you. Every
business decision should be weighed against this promise to be sure that a) it fully reflects
the promise, or b) at the very least it does not contradict the promise.

Brand Personality
Brand Traits illustrate what the organization wants its brand to be known for. Think about
specific personality traits you want prospects, clients, employees, and partners to use to
describe your organization. You should have 4-6 traits (5 is ideal), each being a single term
(usually an adjective).

Brand Story
The Brand Story illustrates the organization's history, along with how the history adds value
and credibility to the brand. It also usually includes a summary of your products or services.

Brand Associations
Brand Associations are the specific physical artifacts that make up the brand. This is your
name, logo, colors, taglines, fonts, imagery, etc. Your brand associations must reflect your
brand promise, ALL of your brand traits, and support your brand positioning statement.

One Mantra:
Once you've developed and defined a relevant brand, you must begin building the brand with
employees, customers, prospects, partners, etc. through CONSISTENT execution. Repetition is key
to the success of the branding process.
It's easy to falter "just this one time," because you're busy, or because you think your effort will
only be used or viewed internally. Faltering, however, will make the fact that you have a good brand
completely irrelevant. No one, including your employees, will ever really know or remember what
your brand is, unless it is the same every time they are exposed to it. Without consistency, brand
awareness becomes impossible to achieve, no matter how much money you spend on marketing.
And your good brand identitythat you spent so much time definingbegins to look more
schizophrenic with every falter.
To help ensure you build the habit of consistent brand execution company-wide, we recommend you
document your Brand Elements in a Brand Book and provide this guideline to every employee for
their own use in their daily activity. Then become your company's brand ambassador and begin the
diplomatic process of self-enforcing its use!

OR
Personality.
The truth is many companies fail to recognize the importance of creating brand
experiences through brand personality. They bog down their online persona with boring
corporate speak and industry jargon. Or, they blow it by not keeping the experience
consistent, ultimately confusing customers or making them feel as if something is amiss

with the company.

Think about it when it comes to our own go-to brands, we choose the ones that often
stand out with because of the feeling we get from them.
Which brands are most memorable to you? Apple. Nike. Virgin. Mailchimp.
Bookmark the list of brands that inspire you and be sure to check out your competitors to
get a sense of their personality traits and brand strategy. Then, put it aside. This article
isn't about them.
It's about your company.
It's about your brand experience.
It's about creating something that your customers enthusiastically fall in love and share
with their communities.
Because the bottom line is this:
If your company is active online, it needs its own style.
Today, I'm going to talk about the 5 elements that make up your brand's genuine
personality.
Let's get to it

1. Vision
Laying the foundation of your brand's overall goals gives you a starting point for shaping
its character. Is there a current perception of your company that needs to be changed? Is
there a role in the world that the company wants to act upon? After reviewing your
company's vision and mission statements, make a list of traits your company will pull from
to achieve its goals.

2. Values
Values give the company a directional reference for the way it socially behaves when
answering such burning questions as: Do we react gravely about news or perky? Do we

react at all? Are we polite or irreverent? Create a list 5 company values and
corresponding spirit in which your company will exhibit when upholding them.

3. Archetype
If your company was playing a role in a story, which character would it be? Which one is
most likely to resonate with your customer? Selecting an overall theme for your company
doesn't just help shape its personality traits; it creates a connection your audience can
rally behind. Check out The Pearson Archetype System and choose 3-5 traits based on
the persona that best represents your company's personality.

4. Essence
Simply put, what is your brand all about? Capture the spirit of your brand in a singular
word or succinct phrase. Is your brand essence consistent throughout your online
marketing efforts?

5. Tone
The tone of voice is how your brand speaks to its audience. While the company's
personality always remains consistent, the tone alters depending on the medium. For
instance, you would probably take on a more serious tone when communicating to stake
holders as opposed to using a light-hearted, upbeat tone when conversing with an online
fan.
Personality isn't just the copy that you put on your website, the words you use in your
social status updates, or the pictures you use to support your marketing materials. It's the
feeling you get from the entire encounter you have with a brand and when done correctly
it increases a customer's loyalty and repeat business.

Concepts[edit]
Effective branding can result in higher sales of not only one product, but of other products
associated with that brand.[citation needed] For example, if a customer loves Pillsbury biscuits and trusts
the brand, he or she is more likely to try other products offered by the company - such as

chocolate-chip cookies, for example. Brand is the personality that identifies a product, service or
company (name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or combination of them) and how it relates to key
constituencies: customers, staff, partners, investors etc.[citation needed]
Some people[who?] distinguish the psychological aspect (brand associations like thoughts, feelings,
perceptions, images, experiences, beliefs, attitudes, and so on that become linked to the brand) of
a brand from the experiential aspect. The experiential aspect consists of the sum of all points of
contact with the brand and is known[by whom?] as the brand experience. The brand experience is a
brand's action perceived by a person.[citation needed] The psychological aspect, sometimes referred to as
the brand image, is a symbolic construct created within the minds of people, consisting of all the
information and expectations associated with a product, service or the company(ies) providing
them.[citation needed]
People engaged in branding seek to develop or align the expectations behind the brand
experience, creating the impression that a brand associated with a product or service has certain
qualities or characteristics that make it special or unique. A brand can therefore become one of
the most valuable elements in an advertising theme, as it demonstrates what the brand owner is
able to offer in the marketplace. The art of creating and maintaining a brand is called brand
management. Orientation of an entire organization towards its brand is called brand orientation.
Brand orientation develops in response to market intelligence. [citation needed]
Careful brand management seeks to make the product or services relevant to the target audience.
Brands should be seen as more than the difference between the actual cost of a product and its
selling price they represent the sum of all valuable qualities of a product to the consumer.
A widely known brand is said to have "brand recognition". When brand recognition builds up to a
point where a brand enjoys a critical mass of positive sentiment in the marketplace, it is said to
have achieved brand franchise. Brand recognition is most successful when people can state a
brand without being explicitly exposed to the company's name, but rather through visual signifiers
like logos, slogans, and colors.[11] For example, Disney successfully branded its particular script
font (originally created for Walt Disney's "signature" logo), which it used in the logo for go.com.
Consumers may look on branding as an aspect of products or services, as it often serves to
denote a certain attractive quality or characteristic (see also brand promise). From the perspective
of brand owners, branded products or services can command higher prices. Where two products
resemble each other, but one of the products has no associated branding (such as a generic,
store-branded product), people may often select the more expensive branded product on the

basis of the perceived quality of the brand or on the basis of the reputation of the brand owner.

Brand awareness[edit]
Brand awareness refers to customers' ability to recall and recognize the brand under different
conditions and to link to the brand name, logo, jingles and so on to certain associations in
memory. It consists of both brand recognition and brand recall. It helps the customers to
understand to which product or service category the particular brand belongs and what products
and services sell under the brand name. It also ensures that customers know which of their needs
are satisfied by the brand through its products (Keller) [need quotation to verify]. Brand awareness is of critical
importance in competitive situations, since customers will not consider a brand if they are not
aware of it.[12]
Various levels of brand awareness require different levels and combinations of brand recognition
and recall:

Most companies aim for "Top-of-Mind". Top-of-mind awareness occurs when a brand
pops into a consumer's mind when asked to name brands in a product category. For example,
when someone is asked to name a type of facial tissue, the common answer is "Kleenex",
represents a top-of-mind brand.

Aided awareness occurs when consumers see or read a list of brands, and express
familiarity with a particular brand only after they hear or see it as a type of memory aide.

Strategic awareness occurs when a brand is not only top-of-mind to consumers, but also
has distinctive qualities which consumers perceive as making it better than other brands in
the particular market. The distinction(s) that set a product apart from the competition is/are
also known as the Unique Selling Point or USP.

Marketing-mix modeling can help marketing leaders optimize how they spend marketing budgets
to maximize the impact on brand awareness or on sales. Managing brands forvalue creation will
often involve applying marketing-mix modeling techniques in conjunction with brand valuation.

Brand elements[edit]
Brands typically comprise various elements, such as:[13]

name: the word or words used to identify a company, product, service, or concept

logo: the visual trademark that identifies a brand

tagline or catchphrase: "The Quicker Picker Upper" is associated with Bounty paper
towels

graphics: the "dynamic ribbon" is a trademarked part of Coca-Cola's brand

shapes: the distinctive shapes of the Coca-Cola bottle and of the Volkswagen Beetle are
trademarked elements of those brands

colors: Owens-Corning is the only brand of fiberglass insulation that can be pink.

sounds: a unique tune or set of notes can denote a brand. NBC's chimes provide a
famous example.

scents: the rose-jasmine-musk scent of Chanel No. 5 is trademarked

tastes: Kentucky Fried Chicken has trademarked its special recipe of eleven herbs and
spices for fried chicken

movements: Lamborghini has trademarked the upward motion of its car doors

customer-relationship management

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Q. 2)

Positioning techniques/Methods:

Companies apply various positioning techniques in market so that they are always ahead
in competition. Some of the techniques used for positioning are:
Perceptual Mapping: When we define Perceptual mapping we say that it is basically a
technique to represent what people think about products or services, people or ideas.
Technically they are all objects. It is a spatial representation of the perceptions about the
brands on the parts of different individuals. If you perceive the brands to be similar then
you are getting them closer in the perceptual space, and if you perceive them to be
dissimilar then you are putting them apart. In short, I can say that it represents both
brands and people.
As everyone knows that the environment is turbulent so it changes fast and calls for
frequent changes in positioning. At times a company can lose its position due to change
in technology, consumer attitudes, competitive activity both in the economy and
amongst creative executives. That is the reason why a company should be in touch with
the market place, and reposition itself before it suffers in terms of products, image and
revenue.
Positioning a product to specific segments: Positioning a product to specific
segments is the next logical step. Thus positioning involves sacrifice we have to
sacrifice a few segments of the market. We cannot afford to give all things to all people.
When we are discussing about positioning, we have to decide as to who all are our
competitors. Then there is a need to develop a core strategy that runs as a common
thread through all pieces of planning. Core strategy basically tells us why customers buy
our product and how we shall compete with others. Different segments need different
core strategies. Core strategy is broader than USP because it considers both external and
internal factors.
Communication Process: When we are discussing about planning activity, we
consider the offer, which consists of product, services, price and the way it is
represented to the customer through a communication message. Communication helps
the marketer to builds up image of the product. Image build up is influenced more by
the effectiveness of the communication than by the communication budget.Most of the
organization creates value through this offer.
When we are discussing about the total marketing budget it is spent on advertising,
sales promotion, sales management and distribution acts basically to enhance the value

created by the offer, and accordingly they delivers the same value to the customer. These
are infact marketing support activities. By this they are trying to market the offer in an
attractive
manner
to
their
marketing
intermedi-aries
and
customer.
All of us know that a product has attributes and features. But these must be related to
perceived benefits preferences and selection.
Positioning Map:Now lets us see the discussion on Products or services, which are
mapped together on a positioning map. This allows them to be compared and
contrasted in relation to each other. This is the main strength of this tool. Marketers
decide upon a competitive position, which enables them to distinguish their own
products from the offerings of their competition. The marketer would draw out the map
and decide upon a label for each axis. They could be price (variable one) and quality
(variable two), or Comfort (variable one) and price (variable two). The individual
products are then mapped out next to each other Any gaps could be regarded as possible
areas for new products.