When we can't figure out a problem, the best way is to go back to the starting point and find the purpose .

What is the purpose of our brand planning ?

We can see that there are countless businesses around us that are not in the brand business, but are still doing well. For example, the vegetable stores and supermarkets near homes (excluding brand chain supermarkets, here we are referring to small shops run by couples), and the stalls selling various small items in the morning market, these are almost all not brands, but it does not affect their business, and some even have extremely hot sales.

I often meet some customers who have been running their businesses for several years or even more than ten years. Their business was very good before, but they have no brand awareness. Business has been declining in recent years and competition has been fierce, so I want to build a brand to boost my business. Do brand planning or brand promotion.

The purpose of brand planning or branding is actually very simple. For an enterprise, all purposes revolve around making money, that is, how to sell things, how to sell more, and how to sell them at a higher price.

In other words, brand planning is not an end but a means to increase sales and achieve growth (sales growth, profit growth or market share growth).

What problems can brand planning solve? We summarize that brands can solve two major problems.

1. Reduce costs

2. Accumulate brand assets

Reduce costs

The essence of branding, promotion and advertising is to communicate with target customers and to transfer and express information.

If you are an excellent salesman and have found 100 accurate customers, and you are given a month to communicate in depth with 3-4 customers every day, I believe that in the end about 80% of them will become your customers and buy your products.

The problem is that in reality, there are not 100 customers queuing up waiting for you to communicate one-on-one. So we must communicate with potential customers through brand slogans.

Another problem is that there is so much information now. How can a brand make its voice heard? How can others know you and understand you? This is the topic of brand planning.

Brand planning is to let customers quickly understand us, recognize us, quickly give customers a reason to buy, and use our brand image to influence customers' perception of the brand. Reduce communication costs, selection costs, and transaction costs.

Build brand equity

Everyone knows the Melatonin advertisement: “I won’t accept any gifts this Chinese New Year, the only gift I’ll accept is Melatonin.” Everyone also knows the slogan for Wanglaoji: “If you’re afraid of getting a sore throat, drink Wanglaoji.”

Conventional brand planning companies often hand over a thick brand planning PPT to their clients, but most of the information in it is useless and even the employees may not remember it, let alone the customers.

The most important thing in brand planning is to plan a symbol to communicate with customers from two aspects: text and vision.

Text: brand name, brand slogan, product name .

Visual: logo, cartoon mascot, packaging features .

Even for a very well-known company, it would be very impressive if it can make customers remember the above points. Therefore, that thick stack of PPTs is difficult to convert into customer perception.

LG is a world-renowned company. Do you know what the two words LG mean?

The official definition is: Lucky Goldstars. If you are not good at English, you may not know what the last word means. For many years, I thought it meant let's go, which means let's go in plain language.

So, if people don’t even know what a world-renowned brand like LG means, how can we expect our ordinary brands to be remembered by customers?

What is good brand planning?

Whether it is a name, a slogan, or a brand story, try to summarize it in one sentence.

For example, Haier’s brand story is Zhang Ruimin smashing refrigerators. That’s enough. It doesn’t matter when, where, or how many refrigerators were smashed. What people want is this spiritual feeling.

For example, Chu Shijian, the founder of Chu Orange, started growing oranges at the age of 85. It is enough for people to know this story. As for where to plant and how much to plant, in fact, ordinary consumers don’t care much except for peers or the media.

But there has to be a point, a distinctive point that sums up the story . It should be newsworthy, popular and unique.

If customers are familiar with a brand 's appearance , brand name , slogan and brand story , then the brand is considered to be quite successful.

The appearance of a product is its feature, such as Apple's predominantly white design, Coca-Cola's curved bottle, Red Bull's chunky golden can, and Scream's twisted bottle feature.

These are all about creating differentiation.

For example, mineral water bottles are very common. Due to cost constraints, everyone has a general design. However, the red bottle cap used by Nongfu Spring makes it distinctive. Evergrande Ice Spring uses small-capacity bottles.

Back to brand planning itself, brand planning is to help brands solve the above problems, how to use better symbols, better slogans, and better brand names to form brand assets and occupy the minds of customers.

However, customers have extremely limited mental space and are too lazy to think. Some people can't even remember their girlfriend's cell phone number, so how can they remember an unfamiliar product brand?

This requires the use of association and the planning of simple colloquial communication.

Drink Red Bull when you are sleepy and tired. This is not only a usage scenario, but also a popular saying. When we give a can of Red Bull to a friend, we can also say, "You must be sleepy. Have a can of Red Bull to refresh yourself." Instead of saying, you must be sleepy, have a can of Red Bull, your energy is beyond your imagination.

Colloquial slogans that rhyme and are catchy are easier to spread and remember, although they may not look very high-sounding.

For example, "A graceful life with everything you need at a glance" and "A classic mansion with a colorful life" are things that cannot be passed on by word of mouth. If you recommend a property to a friend, you definitely won't say, "Go buy Property A. Its property is a classic luxury property with a colorful life." Your friend will definitely think you are mentally ill.

Don't try to cram hundreds or even thousands of words into the customer's mind. Not many people can recite a few of Li Bai's famous poems in full. So it must be simplified. Planning is about simplifying complex things.

Simplify it into a nice and memorable brand name , a catchy and uniquely meaningful slogan , and a brand story that can make others feel it in just one or two sentences .

Now think back, isn’t it a luxury to let others remember all kinds of information about your brand?

Taking product naming as an example, the naming of Mercedes-Benz and BMW car series is relatively good. For example, for BMW, the sedan is the 1-7 series, and the SUV is the x1-7 series. It is easy to understand. No matter you know about cars or not, when you see cars running on the road, you can obviously feel that bigger numbers are better than smaller numbers. Distinguish the grades. Even if you don't know exactly how much they sell each one for.

Letting others know that their car is valuable is also one of the customer's needs.

On the contrary, domestic companies such as Geely are good at using Chinese names, such as Emgrand, Binyue and Yuanjing. The names are all good, but if you don’t understand cars or haven’t studied them, you won’t know which one is more upscale and can’t distinguish between mid-range, high-end and low-end, which will cause the car owner to lack a certain sense of honor. In addition, the name alone is not very easy to remember.

Based on the above principle analysis, all brand planning always serves the ultimate goal of reducing communication, selection and transaction costs and enhancing brand asset accumulation. The more brand information your customers remember (name, product name, product line, slogan, brand story, brand proposition, etc.), the more space you occupy in their minds. The next time a customer makes a purchase, they will be more likely to choose you.

Tesla's accident has been a hot topic in the past month, and Tesla's latest sales data also shows a decline. In fact, the outbreak of this kind of negative news affects the minds of customers and associates it with negative information. I originally wanted to buy a Tesla, but I couldn’t stand the daily bombardment of negative information. I was afraid that I would be affected, so I was hesitant and might buy another brand.

Negative information is also a form of advertising in a certain sense, except that it conveys negative information. Influence on purchases.

On the contrary, let's assume that the news this month is that Tesla's sales have hit a new high, production capacity is tight, and customer orders have to be placed two months later. Then I think the orders will become higher and higher. One reason is people's herd mentality, and the other is that they think if everyone else buys it, it must be good, and if they don't buy it, they will be left behind.

But the car is still the same car, it has not changed. When you receive different information, you will make different decisions and have different mental influences.

The purpose of brand planning is to occupy a favorable position in the minds of customers and provide positive guidance through planning. Anything that cannot generate positive meaning and accumulate brand assets is a waste of effort and should not be done.

It is better to repeat the old and effective actions rather than try useless so-called innovations and creativity. This will only distract customers from their brand awareness.

The essence of advertising is repetition , and the essence of repetition is constancy .

Author: Laowu said operation

Source: Laowu said operation