What exactly is brand planning planning?

The term brand planning has now become a popular subject, but now basically anyone who does logo design, public relations activities, strategic consulting, or corporate culture says that they are doing branding.

As for brand planning, some people say that the core of brand planning is positioning, some people say that the content of brand planning is slogans and stories, and some people say that brand planning is brand culture...

Brand is first and foremost a business concept and a marketing term.

A brand is certainly a cultural phenomenon, but it is first and foremost a business concept. When it comes to culture, many people will go astray and start talking about brand culture and how it feels high-end.

First of all, let me throw out a word - brand marketing. A brand is first and foremost a marketing concept. Any discussion of a brand without considering marketing is just hooliganism. In this era, there are indeed too many people who are hooliganism. When building a brand, the priority is not marketing and selling goods, but the so-called cultural aesthetics. This is putting the cart before the horse. Of course, it does not mean that we do not want "beauty", but we must figure out what the "essence" is.

Some people say that branding is for selling goods, and it is sustainable selling, selling at a low cost and selling at a higher price... However, many problems in marketing do not necessarily have to be solved by branding. A fruit store near your home can still sell goods without a brand, and it may even sell very well.

Does that mean that brand is not important in an enterprise?

Of course not!

Because the brand has the "ability to sell goods" that cannot be achieved by other means and methods!

The role of the brand is to reduce the cost of merchants acquiring traffic

I use an Internet concept to illustrate the role of a brand - traffic. We all know that both online and offline traffic are very expensive now, and the purpose of branding is to reduce the cost of acquiring traffic.

For example, if you want to buy sneakers, you will search for "sneakers" on Taobao, and as a merchant you have to create a through train to make it easier for you to find them. But if you are NIKE, it will be different. You will search for NIKE directly, so the merchant’s traffic cost will be low, or even close to 0.

Similarly offline, if Haidilao opens a store, the requirements for the location in the shopping mall will not be so high, because Haidilao is a destination and customers will find it on their own.

So here we propose a term - "name" purchase, which means that customers search and purchase based on the brand name (including brand assets). This is the role of branding! Usually this can only be achieved through brands!

Another role of the brand is to increase the conversion rate of traffic

It is not possible to achieve consumers' designated purchases and reduce traffic costs to zero overnight. What purpose does the brand achieve? We assume that the traffic of Product A and Product B is 1,000 people each. If Product A is a well-known brand and Product B is a completely unknown brand, the possibility of choosing A in the end is definitely higher.

So this is another role of the brand – to increase the conversion rate of traffic. Because brands can reduce consumers' selection and decision-making costs, merchants' traffic conversion rates are improved.

Brand marketing planning is a planning around these two purposes.

Now when many customers come to us to make demands, there are usually two misunderstandings:

One is brand marketing planning, which is a complete marketing planning program, including how to combine the product structure, how to set the price, how to use the channel, whether it should be online or offline, whether it should be an agency or direct sales, how to plan the promotion, how to proceed with the first, second and third steps... They even want us to do the business model. I’m sorry, we really can’t do this. This is something that the companies should figure out on their own.

Another view is that brand planning is about planning brand culture and stories, and then throwing out a bunch of things like vision, values, stories, etc. Some even think that branding is about planning themes and making the brand fun and interesting... Of course, this is also part of brand planning, which I will talk about later, but it is not an important part.

So what are we planning?

In order to achieve consumers’ designated purchases, consumers must know the brand, so “well-known” is very important, which is what I have always said “well-knownness comes first”. So how do we achieve well-knownness? There is no other way but promotion and dissemination, whether it is advertising, public relations, shelf display, or online promotion...

Therefore, the first part of planning is to plan the communication content (posters, promotional materials, print ads, TVC, soft articles, etc.), and plan the communication plan (media, investment, and effect evaluation) according to the brand's budget and goals. Without dissemination, there will be no accumulation. Even if you design a great LOGO or think of a great slogan... I'm sorry, it will never become a great brand.

The second part is to improve the traffic conversion rate, so we need to find selling points, endorsement letters of trust, provide purchase basis, etc. In Ogilvy's words, it is to give consumers "commitments" and reduce consumers' decision-making costs. If the core keyword above is promotion and dissemination, then the keyword here is "communication". Of course, this part of the content will overlap with the previous part, and it is not a strict distinction.

The third part is the brand culture themes mentioned above. I classify them as brand experience planning. This part of the content is not necessary, but it is to better remember and recall the brand and verify the previous "promise" and selling points.

Use the thinking of "cost" and "investment" to do the top-level design of the brand.

The above three parts are common brand marketing planning contents, which can be done by many companies in the market. So what are our differentiated advantages? We use the cost and investment thinking to plan the above three aspects, because cost and investment thinking is the corporate thinking. We serve the enterprises and we must also use corporate thinking.

Let’s talk about “investment” first. As mentioned earlier, in order to achieve designated purchases, promotion and dissemination (advertising, public relations, personal sales, etc.) are necessary. This is investment. What is that investing in? The first thing is of course the name, popularity, popularity, the name is of course the first thing. Is it just a name? No, for example, the name of Nike may not be as valuable as its “hook”.

So we introduce a concept called "brand assets". What is brand assets? It is consumer brand awareness that can bring benefits. This concept is still relatively abstract and people still cannot understand it. Let’s take Tmall’s brand assets as an example:

Of course Tmall’s name comes first, but its cat head is no less important than its name. Slogans are also assets. It used to be called "Go to Tmall to buy", and now it is called "Go to Tmall to live an ideal life". Regardless of whether the slogan is good or not, with the financial resources of Tmall, it will certainly form brand assets. There is also Double Eleven, which is an important brand event for Tmall, and then there is the product business. The reason why Tmall can be separated from Taobao is its authenticity guarantee and higher quality. I collectively refer to this as "product and service experience." Some are a specific product, some are services, such as Haidilao, and some are experiences, such as Disney.

Let’s summarize what “beneficial consumer brand awareness” means. Summarized in two sentences:

Buy my stuff and spread my good name

Words, symbols, discourses, and stories for consumers to recognize, remember, and talk about.

Therefore, when we create communication content, we must first design brand assets well and make repeated investments to allow brand assets to continue to increase in value. If we cannot increase the value of brand assets, we will not invest. This is called brand top-level design.

So how do you design brand assets? This requires another way of thinking - cost. What is the relationship between cost and brand assets? Let's take an example. Investment costs money. If name A can be remembered by 8 out of 10 people after being broadcast once, but name B can only be remembered by 4 people after being broadcast once, then the effect is half as good. If you invest the same 1 million yuan, the effect will also be half as good. Therefore, cost thinking is really important in brand marketing!

Having cost thinking also means having firm judgment standards

In actual project operations, we often have to judge whether the asset design is good or not. So what are the criteria for judging whether it is good or not? For example, a name is also a brand name. What are the criteria for judging whether a name is good or bad? Sounds good? large and luxurious? Is there connotation? This is a very subjective judgment. If some people say it is good, some people may say it is not good. Are there any hard indicators?

That's the cost! As mentioned earlier, brand assets are words, symbols, discourses, and stories that consumers recognize, remember, and talk about. Therefore, consumers' recognition, memory, and talking (usage) costs are very critical. It is very important for a name to be quickly recognized and remembered. It would be even better if the cost of using (telling it to others) is low.

The same goes for LOGOs, symbols, and slogans! If you have a cost mindset, then you will no longer worry about whether it sounds good, looks good, has a good temperament, or has connotation... because the cost is the firm criterion for judgment.
I won’t expand on this content here, as a small section can provide a lot of information, so just having a basic understanding will be enough.

Finally, let’s summarize:

The goal of a brand is to achieve designated purchases by consumers, thereby reducing the cost of traffic acquisition, or even making the traffic cost approach zero;
Another purpose of the brand is to reduce consumers’ decision-making and increase traffic conversion rate;
Brand marketing planning is the planning of promotion, dissemination and communication around these two goals;
The first step of brand marketing planning is to design brand assets, which is also the top-level brand design;
Brand equity is the consumer brand recognition that can bring benefits. In layman's terms, it means buying my products and spreading my good name.
Brand assets should be created and designed around "cost reduction" to improve investment efficiency by reducing costs.

Author: Zheng Zhishuo

Source: Zhengzhishuo