Brand marketing planning basics

Think about two questions first.

1. What is a brand?

2. Why do we need a brand?

I believe that, more or less, you will have the answers to the two questions in your mind, but you will also have the feeling that you seem to know what is going on but cannot explain it clearly.

This is not important. In fact, there are no standard answers to the two questions. There are many definitions of brands in the brand marketing industry.

Brand symbol theory: A brand is a distinguishing mark used for distinction. At the same time, brands are shorthand symbols and codes for more effective communication.

——Marketing scholar Michael Williams

Brand image theory: A brand is a unique, visual, emotional, intellectual and cultural image given to a company or product.

——Philip Kotler, marketing guru

Brand relationship theory: Brand is a special relationship between products and consumers, and a value transfer mechanism.

--Ogilvy

A brand refers to a product that provides customers with functional benefits and added value that they consider worth purchasing. Added value is the most important part of the brand definition.

— John Phillip Jones

A brand is the connection and communication between products, symbols, people, companies and consumers.

--Brand expert David Aaker

Multi-factor comprehensive theory: A brand is a collection of things characterized by certain unique quality attributes.

--Duna E. Knepper

After reading the above master-level definitions, do you find that what they said all make sense? Although they are different, they have one thing in common: they are useless.

Because after reading this definition, you have no idea how to build a brand.

So how do we understand brands? In fact, we don’t need to look at the definition of masters, but we should return to common sense and return to our most real thinking process and decision-making as human beings.

1. As one of the most important consumer products for a family, think about how you made the decision to buy your first car and how you chose your current car among many brands.

2. Suppose you don’t know much about computers and can’t tell the difference between CPU, memory, graphics card, etc., and then you have to buy a computer yourself. What is your decision-making and selection process? Sort out this process.

3. You bought a new house and want to renovate it, but you have never known about pipes, paints, and furniture. This is your first time decorating a house. How do you finally decide which brand to choose from so many categories and brands?

4. After a rigorous analysis, you buy a product, but when you actually use it, you find various problems. You feel very regretful and blame yourself for buying such a thing.

After you sort out the above four questions, you will find that there is a commonality among them.

Before buying, you will be full of expectations for this product, and there will be two results after buying it

One is that it meets expectations, is used satisfactorily, and is even recommended to people around you.

The second is that the product does not meet expectations, and you feel a little regretful, but you won’t tell others (for fear that others will say you are stupid, or that you are not smart enough), but you will secretly swear in your heart that you will never buy this product again, or even products of this brand.

As a consumer, you hope that your money is worth spending, that you make the right purchasing choice, and that the product or service you purchase meets your expectations.

These are all hopes, and hope is something that is about to happen but has not happened yet.

How can a brand satisfy the expectations of its customers? The answer is commitment.

When two people get married, they hope to grow old together, hope to be together forever no matter in health or sickness, poor or rich. Hope is the future, which no one can predict. But we must make a commitment to hope. Once we make the commitment, our anxious hearts will be settled.

The same goes for brands. A brand is a promise to consumers. As the saying goes, you can’t buy at a loss, nor can you buy to be cheated, this is the brand promise.

When the promise is delivered, the brand works. When promises are not delivered, the brand fails.

Since a brand is a promise, our work in branding is to spread and fulfill this promise.

Nongfu Spring: We don’t produce water, we are just nature’s carrier.

This is a promise to tell you that the water I provide you is natural and clean.

How to fulfill my promise? I have several core water areas that provide high-quality bottled water through modern engineering and scientific management.

If Nongfu Spring secretly bottles tap water, the Nongfu Spring brand will become invalid. Because his promises were not fulfilled, customers no longer believed him.

A clear commitment means fixed expectations, and people won’t feel anxious.

Behind the brand are products and services. Without products and services, there is no brand.

Products provide functional value, such as a screwdriver that removes a screw.

Brands provide added value or emotional value . For example, LV bags and Rolex watches are not just bags and watches, but also a symbol of identity.

At the Talent Development Forum of Leading Chinese Enterprises, Wang Mei, Vice President of Qinghe University of Xiaomi Group, said that Xiaomi believes that in the future, whoever wins over the losers will win the world, and whoever wins over the young people will win the world. She said that young people are the core consumer power, and we will make products for these young people that meet their consumption propositions.

This incident quickly fermented and caused great dissatisfaction among netizens, especially users of Xiaomi phones. This is a serious public relations crisis for Xiaomi.

In this incident, Xiaomi's products did not change, but Xiaomi's emotional value was damaged.

Xiaomi users thought they were "enthusiasts", "Mi fans", and "people who spend money beautifully", but they were labeled as "losers" by the brand. It is not very harmful, but it is extremely insulting.

The incident was eventually temporarily resolved with the person involved resigning. But this incident sounded a wake-up call for us who are in the branding business.

In the process of brand building, we must grasp both functional value and emotional value, and both must be strong. We cannot do anything that harms consumers from any angle .

Generally speaking, ordinary consumer goods focus more on functional value. Consumers will choose the mop that is easier to use and more affordable. On the contrary, luxury goods or gifts focus more on emotional value and are better able to express personality and convey emotions.

Above we have basically explained what a brand is and its two major values.

Next, we will talk about the most important methodology in brand building, brand assets.

Brand equity is the set of assets and liabilities associated with a brand, brand name, and logo that can increase or decrease the value of the products or services sold by a company. It mainly includes five aspects, namely brand loyalty, brand awareness, brand popularity, brand association, and other proprietary assets (such as trademarks, patents, channel relationships, etc.). These assets provide value to consumers and enterprises in various ways.

It can be said that all the branding work we do is to build brand assets .

When measuring the quality of a brand’s marketing or brand activities, whether it has consolidated the brand’s assets is also an important measurement target.

In simple terms, everything you can think of about a brand is brand equity.

For example

Wanglaoji: Wanglaoji (brand name), drink Wanglaoji if you don’t want to get angry (advertising slogan), herbal tea (category), red can (brand visual hammer)

McDonald’s: M symbol (brand logo), hamburger (category representative), yellow (brand visual hammer)

Alibaba: Jack Ma (character IP), Alibaba and the Forty Thieves (cultural story), e-commerce (category representative)

Melatonin: Shi Yuzhu (character IP), gift (product category), I will not accept any gifts this year, I will only accept Melatonin (advertising slogan), gold and blue (brand visual)

For example, China is a vast country with different places having different specialties. Many products and place names have formed very deep associations. That is, we have many regional brands.

Such as Ningxia wolfberry, Guilin rice noodles, Xinjiang Hami melon, Chongqing noodles, Sichuan hot pot, Tianjin fried dough twist, Beijing roast duck, Northeast ginseng, Shandong donkey-hide gelatin and so on.

These different regions have different brand assets.

Why is it said that the essence of advertising is repetition? Repetition is actually building brand assets and establishing brand associations.

If your advertisements are not repeated and your appeal changes every day, consumers will not be able to truly remember you, and naturally will not be able to associate you with the product category.

When we talk about China's time-honored brands, and abroad we talk about century-old brands, they are all the result of the accumulation of brand assets.

All products have a life cycle, but brands are eternal.

The cars Ford produced 100 years ago are completely different from the cars Ford produces today.

Companies that build brands can last forever, while companies that make products will slowly die out with the times.

We mentioned earlier that a brand is a promise, so who will supervise this promise? It is not the market and industrial and commercial bureau, but the consumers.

When a brand makes a promise, consumers begin to monitor that promise.

We have seen that Three Squirrels has been frequently on the hot searches recently, due to the squinty eyes and red scarf incidents. To be honest, only big brands like Three Squirrels are eligible for this kind of hot search. Other small brands are not qualified even if they want to be on it, because the brands are too small and no one pays attention to them or supervises them.

It is precisely because of consumer supervision that brands have to be more cautious and careful in everything they do and avoid making mistakes. Gradually, I began to feel that big brands are trustworthy.

Brand is a double-edged sword. It reduces the cost of communication because everyone is paying attention to you, but it also increases the risk of crisis because a small mistake on your part will be infinitely magnified. It can be said that if you want to wear the crown, you must bear its weight.

Making promises and fulfilling them greatly reduces the cost of choice for consumers.

When consumers buy products, they not only pay the purchase cost of the product, but also the time cost of choice, the cost of failed choice, and the psychological burden cost of consumption (for example, the consumer's usual shampoo is 30 yuan, and he sees that your brand is very good, but it is 10 yuan more expensive. The consumer will convince himself to try to buy your product. This process also has a psychological cost).

To sum up

The definition of a brand can be understood as a commitment to consumers. If the promise is fulfilled, the brand is effective; if the promise is not fulfilled, the brand is ineffective.

The two major values ​​of a brand cannot be ignored, namely the functional value of the product and the added value (emotional value) of the brand.

Building a brand means accumulating brand assets and establishing brand associations, so that consumers can quickly associate brand assets with relevant interest points or values ​​that are conducive to the sales of our products.

Excellent brands can bring more attention, but also more risks. Consumers can reduce the cost of selection by choosing brands. At the same time, consumers will also participate in brand supervision to urge brands to fulfill their promises.

Author: Content Strategy

Source: Content Strategy