Thinking about the whole process of brand planning

A brand is a trust in a company and its products that is rooted in the hearts of consumers. In recent years, all sectors of society have been talking about brands. Companies hope to build and improve their own brands. The country has also provided a lot of support in terms of policies, and the media are also spreading various brand concepts.

1. Thinking

Why do companies need to build brands? From the perspective of companies, the current market is an era that values ​​appearance and pursues individuality. Especially today when products and services are homogenized and the cost of consumer choice has increased, how can consumers choose their products at first sight among many similar products?

Brand planning, to put it simply, is packaging, finding market segments, and creating differentiated competitive advantages. Packaging is appearance, which is easy to understand. Market segmentation requires strong business insight. Differentiated competitive advantage is to let consumers discover the difference and then choose you.

Brand planning often exists in existing products and services. They are the lucky ones left after the test of time. This shows that this market exists, but the market is limited and human desires are unlimited, especially in today's era. What you think of, others can definitely think of.

If you think you are smart and regard your products and services as exclusive, I think this market does not exist.

Now, getting back to the topic, what exactly does brand planning do?

My understanding is: discover and create unique project advantages in the existing market. Building such advantages is a complete set of processes, not a single point. The general steps can be divided into: appeal → research → creation → execution.

2. Appeals

This kind of demand arises in the communication between two parties. So what is the demand? It is what do I really need?

Party A may not be very clear about this kind of thing. At this time, we need to use various communication skills to leverage the other party's thinking and tap into the deeper understanding of their demands.

There are prerequisites for digging out the real demands. Early communication is particularly important. The project leaders of both parties must communicate face to face rather than online. The ideas of the leaders may be different from those of the employees below. The leaders are more from a strategic perspective, while the employees are more from the execution and performance level.

Brand planning itself has strategic significance, and this demand must be closely related to the leadership. If it is a non-core leader, it is necessary to pay attention to whether he represents the highest intention of his superiors. Don't communicate for a long time and end up going in the wrong direction. This kind of thing is not uncommon.

The first communication between Party A and Party B is particularly important. Before the communication, Party A must clarify the situation of its own project, the difficulties encountered, the problems it really wants to solve, etc. Party B needs to have a general understanding and control of Party A's projects and related industries, and become an "insider" in a short period of time.

Under such circumstances, communication can be of the highest quality and smoothest. Only through sufficient communication can the two parties find the true common ground and generate sparks of creativity.

During the communication process, the planners of Party B should learn the correct questioning skills (refer to the McKinsey method), and try their best to dig out the other party's ideas and unspoken things, but try to avoid involving the other party's core confidential matters. You can ask tentative questions to avoid embarrassment and unhappiness.

It is worth noting that not all brand planning companies have the ability to provide full brand services. Some companies started out as designers and then hired a copywriter to provide "so-called brand" services, such as logo design, cartoon character design, etc.

This kind of service falls under the category of brand planning, but it is only a single, independent outsourced service. This kind of company lacks strategic thinking on projects and brands and cannot provide strategic guidance.

As for brand full-case planning, this service has certain requirements on the planner's ability. From the perspective of service objects, it can be divided into the following two types: one is a brand-new project that needs branding packaging; the other is a project that already has a certain amount of brand accumulation but needs to be renovated and transformed.

3. Research

Some people say that good research is the beginning of everything. Knowing yourself and your enemy will ensure victory in every battle. When conducting research, you must put yourself in the role of the client and observe the dynamics of the industry from their perspective.

For example, what is the market environment like? What is the policy orientation? How are the competitors? What is the consumer portrait? How about offline service? How is the product experience, etc. If you want to delve deeper, there can be no less than hundreds of research points.

A comprehensive analysis, hypothesis, and argumentation will eventually lead to the correct conclusion. These conclusions will provide important reference and theoretical basis for the subsequent: brand positioning, channel positioning, product planning, marketing activities, publicity and promotion, etc.

This process is the core of brand planning and also reflects the strength of a professional brand planner's ability. In fact, research is what brand planning companies are most reluctant to do. Not only is it expensive, but it is also unlikely to gain the client's approval. Therefore, many brand planning companies like to look for data online and then talk about it on paper.

It's okay for a company to fool guinea pigs in this way, but anyone with a bit of common sense will see the flaw sooner or later. Conventional research is divided into two types: online and offline. Online research is also the most cost-effective, such as: targeting industry websites, public opinion analysis, and consulting surveys of relevant personnel.

Offline research is relatively expensive, but it is more valuable and persuasive. It includes field visits and actual experience of projects/services/products. If it is a store project, a seven-day research period is required.

Brand planning is all about change and preservation.

What to change? Change the model, positioning, product, channel, image, price, marketing; what should be kept? Products or businesses that others are doing very well cannot be touched casually, because the premise for ensuring the smooth operation of the business is that there must be something in all business chains that can make money no matter how it is done.

You need to know financial knowledge such as cost, profit, unit price, and gross profit. You need to distinguish which ones are: image products (those that enhance your status but do not make money from them), profitable products (those with large profit margins and good sales), regular-selling products (those with good profits and good sales), and promotional products (products used for warfare). There will be an explanation of product planning later.

Simple brand planning is about changing your appearance, while complex brand planning is about finding "business opportunities".

As mentioned above, a la carte service is like changing into a beautiful dress, but running a business is doing business. The market already exists. In order to grab more market share, we must find that anchor point, shoot accurately, and clearly differentiate ourselves from our peers, rather than just pestering and trying to gain a advantage.

Especially for small businesses, because many fields are already occupied by the top players, they must overtake others, must take the enemy by surprise, must overcome their weaknesses and make up for their strengths, and give full play to their own advantages, which may be in positioning, products, technology, service providers, marketing, etc.

It is good to have core and awesome technology, but there are probably few companies in the Chinese market who dare to say that. Only companies like Huawei have such strength. The competition for market share among many companies is like fighting a war, so they must attack from other angles, which are the factors mentioned above.

Brand planning is to help companies find "new" business opportunities, make better money, and make more money, but it cannot be separated from the company's own genes, because some companies' models and internal things are already fixed.

This cannot be changed. Just like Zong Qinghou of Wahaha, he is a "conservative" himself. But his daughter is different. He has made a complete change in the product packaging, taste and spokesperson. So genes refer to inherent thinking, which cannot be changed.

This solidified gene may be the biggest obstacle to the development of the enterprise, but solidification is solidification, and you cannot change it. Therefore, our brand planning service is to help the enterprise as much as possible, rather than to kill or bury it.

I believe that no company likes to hear such words, but this is the fact. There are many factors that affect the success or failure of a company (time, place and people).

For example, our products, quality, services, internal management, brand operations, marketing strategies, after-sales guarantees, etc., an enterprise is a complete ecological chain, and you cannot guarantee whether it is the brand planning problems that lead to the ultimate failure of the enterprise.

Maybe the company’s own quality is not good enough, and the support of the brand cannot play much of a role in resuscitation. It can even be said that the above are all prerequisites. Brand planning can only play the desired effect based on the fact that the products and services are well done.

Enterprises sincerely hope that planning agencies can share the same interests with them, but the reality is that this is impossible. Planning agencies must take on more work if they want to survive, and enterprises must be precise and ruthless if they want to develop their brands, taking care of every aspect and operating a brand in the long term.

It doesn’t mean that there is no tacit understanding or intersection between the two. Brand planning is more like icing on the cake, not timely help, because no service company can provide full-process services.

4. Create

Communication and research are both preparations for building a new brand. So the question is, how will the new brand be built? What parts are included?

Brand building can be roughly divided into the following tasks:

1. Brand Name

Normally, brand names are not allowed to be changed casually. This depends on how the company establishes the brand name.

If you want to create a new brand name, you can take this step. If it is an old brand, you don't need to change it. When you want a brand name, you need to check the registration status online in advance, focusing on: 30, 44, 21, 43, 08, 16, 32, 29 categories.

If you register, then the name will be in vain, and a lot of subsequent work may also be in vain. If you have long-term brand ideas, it is recommended to register the above categories to prevent subsequent brand business from being hindered.

2. Logo design

The logo is designed to match the name, and at the same time, it must have a certain design interpretation, such as which elements are used as references, why this element is used, as well as the color, structure, and concept. A clear explanation is needed to tell Party A that our design has a scientific basis.

3. Brand positioning

Including market positioning, crowd positioning, channel positioning, and all directional content. This content provides Party A with a directional reference, but it cannot provide practical help. After all, channels and market distribution are the work of Party A, not something that a small Party B can do.

4. Brand slogan

It is also called slogan, which is particularly important in future brand promotion. To be precise, it is the soul of brand communication. Just like the popular slogans we have heard, such as "Drink Wanglaoji when you are tired and sleepy" and "Looking for a job, go to BOSS Direct Recruitment", they all have one thing in common: concise and to the point, directly hitting the pain points.

To put it simply, it can be summed up in two sentences: the first part talks about symptoms, and the second part talks about brand. For this pain point, you have to understand why your consumers buy your products. It is because of needs, demands, and problems that they choose your products. This is the fundamental principle of brand slogans.

5. VI Service

Standard VI service is a customized demand list, not a one-size-fits-all service. If Party A is a fast food brand, you have to see what products and services the other party has, what online promotion channels and offline promotion venues they have. All materials and designs that can be seen with the naked eye fall within the scope of VI services.

6. BI, MI

In short, the creation of corporate culture may seem high-sounding, but to put it bluntly, it is the boss's culture. The culture is determined by who the boss is. To put it bluntly, it is a bit difficult for a brand planning company to do this. As a startup or a growing company, corporate culture is the last thing you should create. Corporate culture is for your own people to see, and consumers will not read these empty things of yours.

However, if the company develops to a certain level and has a certain team and management model, then the corporate culture should be established and improved, including the company's management system, reward and punishment system, promotion system, etc., which are all very core elements of corporate culture.

7. Store decoration

This is a full set of decoration design services provided for brands with offline stores and franchise models, including storefront design, decoration style, personnel flow diagram, single-room store, double-room store, center island store, side hall store, closet store design, etc.

8. Product Adjustments

Which products need to be discarded, which products need to be upgraded, how to create a flagship product, the selling points of the product, the standardized design of various product parameters, if necessary, you need to understand the "production" process of the product, and conduct research and consultation with the product master on cost, process, price, taste, parameter settings, and category.

These cannot be adjusted casually because they involve the overall strategy of the company. Therefore, the design of the product structure must have a scientific basis. You must make yourself an industry expert (not a real expert) in a short period of time, which requires strong learning ability.

5. Landing

The implementation of a brand is mainly divided into two aspects: one is brand marketing activities, the other is brand publicity and promotion. Both are indispensable in the operation of the brand. Their foundations are all based on brand positioning. Brand building is not a one-day job, but a long-term process that gradually reflects on the hearts of consumers.

Just like two people, it takes time for them to get to know each other, become familiar with each other, and then fall in love with each other. The above two points are what we need to do. How can we become close friends with our consumers?

The first thing we need to ask ourselves is, where are our consumers? It is very important to tell them how good our brand is in a way that they can accept.

Brand marketing activities should be a long-term, year-round plan, but many brand planning companies do not have this ability because their services are more focused on thinking, concepts and brand building. As for subsequent brand operations and tracking services, they are lacking. After all, few companies have the scale and strength to drive such a large business chain.

Whether it is OSES or H&H, they both carry out some brand marketing activities for enterprises in a single-point manner, with publicity as the main and sales as the auxiliary. After all, the sales problem still has to be done by the company's own people. If others can help you sell things, why do they still need to do brand planning?

The words may be rough but the truth is there, but brand planners also have their responsibilities. Playing a supporting role means playing a supporting role. After all, we can't do the job of stealing kills, and even if we do, it doesn't mean you can do it well.

In addition to offline activities, online communication is also very necessary. Which media channels do our consumers visit and which media channels will reach them? Of course, media promotion services are subject to the resource limitations of the brand planning company.

Do you have enough resources and can you make effective use of the media you think of? This is a very realistic issue. What theme activities should online media carry out? The positioning of each channel is different and should be carried out according to local conditions. At the same time, are online media and offline activities interrelated or relatively independent?

A normal company will have a marketing department and a planning department. Their job is actually to formulate a full-year marketing work plan. This part of the work does not need to be the responsibility of Party B.

Of course, there are many companies that do not have such capabilities, so Party B becomes an agency department to help the company complete a certain stage of brand marketing and promotion tasks.

VI. Conclusion

Brand planning is only a necessary link in the operation and development of an enterprise. It can be done early or late. It all depends on the awareness of the business owner. In the early stage of business operation, the main purpose is to make money and the value of the brand is not important. However, from the perspective of long-term operation, the brand should be established as early as possible.

After all, there are many benefits to occupying a place in the minds of consumers in advance. The brand must be established to be unique, so that consumers will think of you and then choose you when they have specific needs. A good brand is one that can do this.

Just like you use Ele.me and Meituan to order takeout, and eat Snickers to quickly replenish energy, you will encounter various scenarios and problems in your life, and each problem is a pitfall. This is called occupying the minds of consumers.

What it all comes down to is brand differentiation, and differentiation must be built from the bottom up, from product - shape - price - parameters - combination - service - values ​​- slogan - culture - target group - channel selection - business model - marketing activities - publicity and promotion, etc.

It’s better if the product is awesome, but it’s okay if the product is not awesome, but our channels are awesome. It’s okay if the channels don’t have advantages, but my advertising is very popular. The essence of business is buying and selling and struggle. When you fight with others, you must have weapons to show off, and brand planning is one of them.

The above is just a brief introduction to the idea of ​​brand planning. Brand planning is a vast concept that requires mastering many aspects of knowledge. If there are any deficiencies, please feel free to give me your advice.

Author: Mr. Xiao

Source: Mr. Xiao