Page |1

Page |2

Dedication
This book is dedicated to all the wonderful people out there whose notes, research, dissertations and advice made this compilation possible.

Compiled and edited by: Russell J

I have tried to give credit to all the authors for the information, thoughts and ideas in this compilation. Any omission is unintentional.

Page |3

The Brand
A brand is not just a logo, ad campaign, spokesperson or slogan. Rather a brand is a product of the millions of experiences a company creates with employees, vendors, reporters, communities, and customersand the emotional feelings these groups develop as a result of their experiences.

When asked, What are you competing for? most managers will answer with competitive advantage or market share.

But neither of these things translates into concrete, actionable measuresthings a company can do to improve its performance. The right answer to the question is customer choice. The opportunities for consumers to make choices between different brands are multiplying rapidly. Yet there are only a finite number of consumers who choose any one brand. These customers thus represent a scarce resource. In such an environment, formulating strategy is complex. To get it right, managers must set strategy in the context of competing for consumer and stakeholder choice. Brands play a vital role as the focal point for all these choices. When evaluating their business performance, managers must choose their market metrics with great care. Brand awareness is not a reliable guide to business performance. Instead, brand choice is what drives market share. Convictiona customers certain future choice of a brandis the key brand parameter.

The essence of strategy is choice, so choice must be at the core of strategy development. Business strategy is about making the right choices on how and where to compete for which choice with the aim of achieving profitability and long-term value creation.

Page |4

Become One of the All-Too-Few Brands that Matter

by Ted Mininni Ted Mininni is president of Design Force, Inc., the leading brand design consultancy to consumer product companies with Enjoyment Brands. Design Force helps their clients market brands that deliver positive, gratifying experiences to consumers. Their expertise lies in emotionally connecting consumers to brands by creating compelling visual brand experiences, which motivate purchase decisions.

In their book The Brand Bubble, Young & Rubicams John Gerzema and Ed Lebar demonstrate that consumers have decided most brands dont matter anymore!

As a design firm principal involved in package design for two decades, I can clearly see that in todays evolving marketplace, the same old marketing approaches arent working, and they wont in future, either. Its disquieting when companies seek new or revitalized package design solutions for their products when they arent taking a serious look at their overall branding efforts. Packaging, when properly developed, refers back to the brand. But if that brand has lost its relevance or has never established clear differentiation -- if it needs to reconnect with consumers or has become a commodity -- simply refreshing packaging will not lead to desired results. For brands to be truly resonant, new thinking must permeate the entire company from top to bottom. Todays successful brands must: Be disruptive and creative. OXO has redesigned the most mundane of objects like the measuring cup and vegetable peeler in a whole new way to make it easier for everyone, especially aging and handicapped people, to easily execute household chores, creating strong brand adherents. Generate excitement. The master at this, Apple, has built buzz about the imminent launch of its new, long-awaited multimedia tablet device ambitiously stating the company is going to carve out a new product categoryyet again!

Page |5

Entertain. Unilevers Axe brand of grooming products ingeniously aims at a young mens market by focusing on building a brand that ensures positive experiences between them and young females in a modern version of the Dating Game.

Engage. Crayola continues to engage even todays high tech kids. By moving away from its former branding as an art supply company to a provider of childhood creativity, the brand remains vibrant and relevant.

Add convenience to consumers lives. Staples Easy button infers home offices and businesses will easily find the products they need; enjoy expert service, advice and substantive help like computer repair service. Simple, direct, effective branding.

Page |6

Brands that do not meet the expectations of todays consumer are being summarily dismissed. Brands must be fluid and dynamic. Since the consumer is rapidly changing, as well as consumer culture, the research suggests that marketers need to stay on top of their brands, constantly adapting in a proactive manner, rather than reacting when their brands start losing relevance.

Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen coined the phrase disruptive technology. Disrupters think of a better way to offer simpler, better performing or problemsolving products -- and product packaging -- for consumers. They create excitement in the process. Excitement leads to buzz. Buzz leads to customer engagement. People are attracted to the brands that deliver creativity, excitement, or entertainment value; an invitation to engage or a promise to help simplify their complicated lives. Thats why some brands -- but fewer and fewer these days -- command so much attention in the marketplace. But heres an important point: brands cant simply launch one exciting concept and then sit back. They have to continue to create excitement. If that sounds toughnot every company

Page |7

can be like Apple right?it may not be as hard as it sounds. Creativity and innovation feeds on itself and brands can borrow a page from companies that are far smaller than Apple or Google. Think of smaller companies that have strong brand adherents. Theyve consistently delivered due to the ongoing energy they create: Method cleaning products. Strong point of view: A Cleaner Clean. Unconventional, seethrough packaging; very unlike the rest of the cleaning category. The inferred message: we have nothing to hide. The Method brand is about: efficacy, safety, environment, design, fragrance. Result: consumers are turning to Method in increasing numbers.

Stonyfield Farm yogurt. Cause branding a commodity like yogurt took it from limited natural store distribution to a mainstream player. The message: Health for you. Health for the planet. The brand represents unflagging commitment, passion and vision to ideals consumers can trust and believe in. And how about the packaging? The iconic cow and Stonyfield Farm banner with the word Organic beneath it are highly recognizable to its many brand loyalists.

Page |8

Green Mountain Roasters coffees. This company gets more Internet searches than the largest purveyors of coffee. Surprised? High quality, good corporate citizenship and Fair Trade practices have created consistent energy for this brand. The packagings dark green cartouche and the Green Mountain Coffee logo within it, with its signature coffee bean in the O in Mountain, is distinctive. Artwork depicting a steaming cup of coffee against a backdrop of mountains reminds us about the simple enjoyment of good coffee.

Bottom line: new vision and approaches can add significantly more value to brands over their competitors. The brands Ive cited could easily have become commodities but they didnt fall into the ho-hum, business-as-usual brand management trap. They chose to brand with more creativity and energy than the norm. They stuck to their vision, while changing with their customers to remain relevant, continuing to generate positive energy. Theyve been richly rewarded by consumers, as a result. My advice: if your brand is less than exciting, reposition, re-brand and then repackage. Deliver positive energy and relevance to consumers and theyll not only become loyal, theyll engage their communities to become loyal, too. Become one of the all-too-few brands that matter. As a design firm principal involved in package design for two decades, I can clearly see that in todays evolving marketplace, the same old marketing approaches arent working, and they wont in future, either.

Page |9

The CEO drives the brand

Martin Roll - Business & brand strategist
Martin Roll is a world-renowned thought-leader on value creation through brand equity. He facilitates business leaders and organizations to think bold for future strategies. By focusing on building and managing successful businesses through iconic brands, Martin Roll helps boardrooms to enhance shareholder value and create sustainable competitive advantage.

In the next five years, we will see a rapid changing landscape across the globe, where the opportunities for businesses to benefit from corporate and product branding efforts will be larger than ever before.

The growing emphasis on branding will move up the boardroom agenda and VentureRepublic strongly believes that branding will become one of the most prominent drivers of value across the globe in the next two decades. Businesses with a sustainable business model and with a visionary and passionate CEO with branding talent will benefit from the rising opportunities for competing in the modern market place and potentially taking on the global scene.

It needs to be no less than the CEO who embodies the branding efforts and serves as the company's and thereby the brand's primary advocate and nurturer. The approach is particularly well suited to companies whose top executives have a passion and talent for brand strategy, but in tomorrow's tough environment all top-executives must be able to represent and lead the brand. World-class companies like Sony, Virgin, Starbucks, Microsoft, Nokia, Giorgio Armani, Singapore Airlines, LVMH, L'Oreal and Nestle all meet that description. Their top executives are directly involved in leading the branding vision, strategy and implementation, and spend a significant amount of their work hours to drive their brands forward and to achieve even better results.

Tomorrow's CEO must be a brand champion who leads corporate and product branding

P a g e | 10

strategies, all strategic brand-portfolio decisions and constantly monitors the implementation of the brand locally, regionally and globally. A strong CEO has credibility and respect not only because of business talent and organizational power but also because of the depth of experience, knowledge, and insight. A suggestion from a visionary CEO with branding talent and managerial experience in branding and marketing is the key driver of the branding efforts and results in any successful organisation - internally and externally.

But having the branding know-how and sophisticated marketing technology is no longer adequate. The modern business leader needs to be a complete player, who covers a broad range of managerial capabilities and experiences, and have the vision to constantly monitor and improve. Being a marketing wizard is no longer enough. One also has to be an excellent business leader and a passionate brand marketer with a truly international edge.

P a g e | 11

The seven highly effective habits of brand champions

Issued by: Idea Engineers
The market is saturated. Competition is cut throat. Churn is the sword hanging over every business - most particularly in the cellular and banking industries. High value customers are the key to long term success; if yours are switching brands, you're in trouble... Idea Engineers' Janice Spark elaborates on exactly what it takes to win the hearts and minds of customers through 'on-brand' internal performance.

The ability to operate effectively within the 'Experience Economy' is one of the key differentiators distinguishing winning brands from the rest of the pack. Think Outsurance, Virgin, Apple, Starbucks, Kulula, Discovery... heavy hitting brands secure the loyalty of high value customers through the consistent delivery of an 'on-brand' experience, across all points of interaction, at all times. Simply put, increasing competition in a shrinking global market demands that brands differentiate their offerings through the brand experience.

'It sounds simple enough, the 'on-brand' experience. But the reality is inevitably more complex than the marketing jargon,' says Janice Spark, Founder and Director of brand strategy and reputation management consultancy, Idea Engineers.

'Ensuring an 'on-brand' experience for all your customers, regardless of where or how they interact with your company, means ensuring that the company itself - its people, its systems, its products - is always 'on-brand'. And therein lies the challenge...'

While many companies are launching internally focused brand alignment programmes, getting the right results is no fait accompli. Indeed, it is the exception rather than the rule when a company manages to radiate its brand intent, internally and externally, across all touch points.

'Two of the most common failure points for internal brand programmes are a lack of top level commitment to the process, and an almost inevitable 'rah rah' paradigm, where the brand programme becomes an enforced self congratulatory session, and not a meaningful intervention that marries marketing and HR practices to drive change,' says Spark.

For companies seeking to lower customer churn, rise above the competition and deliver the

P a g e | 12

elusive 'on-brand' experience that is the foundation of a loyal customer base, it is helpful to isolate the habits of those who are already enjoying the results a truly brand-centric business.

'Before you leap into the world of employee motivation sessions and brand workshops, you should look at the footprints of those who have been successful,' says Spark. 'Champion brands, both locally and globally, have developed good habits when it comes to mobilising the company around the brand. Others can learn a lot from the way these champions have designed their internal brand processes.'

Habit 1: Know Thyself

Before you can look at getting the company working, living and interacting 'on-brand', it is critical that the brand itself is clearly articulated. It seems simple enough (after all, how can you mobilise staff around the brand if the brand itself isn't clearly defined?), but many companies try to develop an internal dynamic around a brand that doesn't yet have a clear identity.

'A strong, robust brand system is necessary to begin the journey,' says Spark. 'If the brand identity is not clearly articulated and defined, the journey could take you anywhere - but it won't take you where you need to go.'

Habit 2: Top Level Evangelists

Try and imagine Virgin without Richard Branson at the helm, or Discovery operating without the drive of Adrian Gore and Barry Schwarztburg. No luck? Of course not. Successful brands are defined by passionate CEO's who are committed to the brand and its resonance across the company. They are also characterised by a top level management team that understands the brand and its relevance to staff behaviour and the customer experience.

P a g e | 13

'Without top level evangelists that clearly articulate the importance of 'Living the Brand', internal brand mobilisation will diffuse - quickly,' says Spark. 'The one thing all highly successful brands have in common is passionate CEO's who understand the importance of the brand experience, internally and externally. Also, high impact leaders realise that 'Living the Brand' is a long journey and not a silver bullet campaign - and they are committed to the journey.'

Habit 3: The Brand Council

Vertically structured internal brand initiatives repeat the power structure of the organisation never letting the brand itself take centre stage. If the company is going to orientated itself around an 'on-brand' ideology, cross functional teams are essential. These teams, consisting of staff members from across the internal hierarchy, are the only method through which to place the brand itself at the heart of the business.

'Our experience has shown that the creation of a company brand council, consisting of staff members from all levels, is critical,' says Spark. 'This council can cut through internal dynamics and power plays inherent in any organisation and focus on the health, relevance and role of the brand itself within the company.'

P a g e | 14

Habit 4: The Marriage of Marketing and HR

'Roles, responsibilities and rewards within the company must be brand-led to create a vehicle for long term sustainability and delivery of the brand experience,' Spark continues. 'Brand infusion, education and alignment has to be underpinned by brand-led HR practices and change management interventions. If this does not happen, the brand remains an abstract, largely theoretical concept, and not a fundamental element of the business.'

In other words, the brand promise must be tied to performance management in order to create brand champions across the organisation. Marketing and HR may seem like strange bedfellows, but then again, think of Outsurance and its highly successful marriage of the two - internally and in media campaigns. The result? A brand that radiates, no matter where you are or how you experience it.

Habit 5: The Touch Point Analysis

Although internally focused, internal brand programmes must nevertheless be designed around an understanding of where, how and when customers are coming into contact with the organisation. Understanding each point of interface means that you can impact on the customer at each point, consistently.

'The touch point analysis is so obvious, it's amazing that many companies still don't get it right. If you don't know where and how you are interacting with your customers, you may as well forget the whole programme,' says Spark.'

Habit 6: The Segmented Organisation

Your staff are also your customers - they need to understand, buy-into and act according to the brand identity and experience.

'Just as you would segment your customer audience (tailoring messages and mediums of interaction according to each segment), segment your internal audience, and tailor your messaging and communication for each distinct internal audience to bring about real change in behaviour,' says Spark. 'Different people respond to and absorb information in different ways - these differences have to be catered with all internal communications.'

P a g e | 15

Habit 7: Measure and Manage

'Live The Brand' programme should be a dynamic intervention. As such, the brand needs to clearly define its position before the programme starts, and set clear (and realistic) goals for delivery.

'Unseen issues will arise, limitations will be exposed and delivery will not be constant,' says Spark. 'The key is to continually measure and manage the programme to deal with the reality of daily life.'

Great Brands Don't Grow By Accident

'It is not only possible, but imperative to create 'Live The Brand' programmes that differentiate the business for bottom line growth and sustainable business advantage,' Spark concludes. 'Just look at the success of brands like Virgin, Dell, Wal-Mart, Seers, Outsurance, Kulua, FedEx, Discovery and others have had through focusing on the internal brand. All these businesses are very successful, and they have the happy customers to prove it. The most obvious example of all is Coca Cola - a company that has focused on the internal brand for over 100 years. There is no doubt that this sort of focus delivers bottom line results.'

However, merely initiating an internal branding process without paying attention to the details is a fatal mistake - one often repeated locally.

'Unfortunately, it happens often,' says Spark. 'Decision makers accept the imperative, but do not pay enough attention to the details of how others achieved their successes. The result of poorly designed internal brand programmes is confusion, and a brand that is unable to differentiate itself in the market. In a highly competitive environment, the results can be devastating.'

P a g e | 16

Zappos Employees as Brand Champions

Zappos.com is an online shopping site that sells clothes, shoes, gift items and more. Its a site and company that has quickly gained a reputation for being a great place to shop online. According to an article in Advertising Age this week, Zappos.com executives attribute the vast majority of that success to word-of-mouth marketing and leveraging employees as brand champions. The company even publishes a 300-page Zappos Culture Book each year that is jam-packed with stories from employees about how much they enjoy working at Zappos and what the Zappos culture means to them. And these arent just the canned responses you usually read in annual reports. These stories are heartfelt. Ive written about the importance of getting employee buy-in on your brand message and promise on Corporate Eye before as well as allowing them to be positive faces of your brand, but Zappos has truly taken the theory to the next level and demonstrated that it really works (although they call it people planning as opposed to branding from within as I do)! During a time when more and more corporations are jumping on the social media bandwagon and starting employee blogs, Zappos.com has 13 blogs, including the Inside Zappos blog and the Zappos CEO and COO blog. Zappos.com also uses online video showcased in the ZappoTV blog. Each of these social media outlets helps to spread the word, but its the employees belief in the Zappos brand that makes the big difference between the Zappos blog and the Wal-Mart employees blog, CheckOut, for example. If employee brand champions can work for Zappos.com, why cant it work for your organization? Take a cue from Zappos and start building your brand from within. Create the ultimate brand guardians and brand champions from your employees, use the marketing tools and social media tools available to you to help spread the word to online and brand

P a g e | 17

influencers, then back up your brand messages and your brand promise by truly delivering on them. What do you think? Can you do it?

P a g e | 18

Are You An Effective CEO?

Weve all witnessed the CEO who tries to do too much, and conversely most of us have also observed the chief executive in stealth mode who accomplishes very little. Weve gladly followed the bright, affable and charismatic CEOs and rebelled against the arrogant and self indulgent executives who love to do little more than pontificate about their legendary prowess. So what makes a great CEO? In todays post Ill share my perspective on what constitutes a CEO worthy of the title

No single position within the corporate hierarchy receives the unrelenting and often terse scrutiny (public and private) that a CEO must deal with. The pressure is intense, the risks are high and the rewards can be tremendous for those who possess the requisite leadership skills and character to hold the title of chief executive. Many CEOs initially rise to their position based upon leveraging a particular skill set, however a single area of strength will rarely be enough to keep a CEO in the corner office for long. Those CEOs who remain in the position long-term do so based upon the ability to broaden and deepen their skill sets and competencies while understanding the priorities of the job.

Believe it or not, the biggest challenge a CEO faces is gaining a true understanding of their jobWhile the job of a CEO is really a very simple one, it is also happens to be far from easy. The fact of the matter is that a CEO is responsible for everythingyes I mean everything. Because the CEO is ultimately held accountable for the success or failure of the company, he/she must assume responsibility for operations, finance, sales, marketing, PR, technology, HR strategy, vision, culture, etc. as the proverbial buck stops with the CEO. Therein lies the problem and the greatest challenge for most CEOsHow can they possibly do it all? The reality is that they cant, but youd be surprised at how many try

They key to becoming a great CEO is understanding the difference between duties and responsibilities. The CEOs duties are the activities he/or she actually performs, or in other words, the responsibilities that dont get delegated to others. While the CEO clearly cannot endeavor to be all things to all people while attempting to do everything on his/her own, the CEO must take on certain mission critical duties. Not everything can or should be delegated In the text that follows Ill put forth the areas which the CEO must view as his/her duties to perform and master:

P a g e | 19

Becoming a true leader: While respect can in certain instances be commanded, it is at its best and strongest when earned. It is not only through success that confidence is instilled, but also in doing things properly regardless of the outcome. Management and staff will work through failures alongside leaders that possess integrity and character and will resent and mock the success of ill-gotten gains. In addition to being productive and effective great leaders understand the value in remaining approachable and human. Communication and conflict resolution skills need to be developed to their maximum. Setting the tone: A CEOs primary function is to set the vision, mission and strategy for the company. Executives, management and staff will be responsible for setting the goals, determining the tactics, implementing toolsets and managing the processes. It is the clarity of the CEOs vision that instills purpose, which in turn creates the passion that will drive focus and productivity. These traits will create a positive culture which is crucial for long-term success. Each and every action or inaction on the part of the CEO makes a cultural statement. Because the work of the corporation is performed by people and people are profoundly impacted by culture the CEO must insure a healthy, safe and positive culture.

Focus on Team Building: A CEO that abdicates control of player personnel is taking on huge amounts of risk. The CEO must take responsibility for recruiting, deploying, mentoring and retaining the executive team. They, in turn will lead the balance of the organization. An alignment of vision, mission and strategy between the CEO and the executive team is crucial for creating a healthy and sustainable enterprise. If the executive is not functioning smoothly this is a reflection of poor leadership and team building skills on the part of the CEO.

Understand Resource Allocation: Great CEOs insure that the best talent is applied toward the best opportunities. Moreover the CEO needs to insure that the proper financial and nonfinancial resources are applied appropriately across the enterprise. While not all CEOs possess strong finance backgrounds they are still ultimately responsible for the financial decisions that can determine the companys fate.

Become the brand champion: A good CEO is the public face of the company. CEOs need to champion the brand internally and evangelize the corporate brand externally. CEOs that dont work the media, key partners, and capital sources are not doing their job. If the CEO is not intimately familiar with what it takes to increase brand equity then it is only a matter of time until the company will see a brand in decline.

P a g e | 20

As I mentioned above, a CEOs job is rather simple but not easyYou dont have to do all things, rather just focus on the right priorities with the proper talent and resources and your enterprise will prosper.

Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach and author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual". He is also the Managing Director and Chief Strategy Officer at N2growth where he also authors the N2growth Blog. As one of America's top CEO Coaches, Mr. Myatt is a sought after professional advisor known for his refreshing and straight forward approach to business and his tireless efforts in serving his clients. As an executive Mike Myatt has held numerous C-suite positions, as an entrepreneur he has been a principal in 4 successful ventures and as a professional advisor he has worked with clients ranging from successful professionals to Fortune 100 companies.

If you believe that branding only belongs in the advertising or marketing department - think again. It's the job of the entire organization to not only represent your brand, but to also make it come alive!. Rich McLafferty, Brand Guru Boost Mobile

P a g e | 21

Brand Leadership and the CEO

A brand is more than a marketing lever. Its a leadership tool. That means establishing brand leadership for your company doesnt start with the marketing department. It doesnt start in research or product development. It starts in the executive suite.

It starts with a clear-eyed and powerful vision for what you can and will be the best in the world at doing, making or delivering. This is why visionary company leaders make great brand leaders. Steve Jobs at Apple comes to mind.

Without a strong brand championa firm hand on the tillerall brands get diffused and dissipated. Remember what happened to Apple Computer after Richard Sculley (former head of Pepsi brought in to run the company) kicked founder Steve Jobs out? Apple drifted downwardproducing mediocre product evolutions and licensing its operating system to second-rate cloners. After Jobs was recruited back to rescue the gasping company, Apple produced the iMac, the iPod, iTunes and the iPhonea string of one revolutionary categoryrocking product after another.

It put naysayers to shame by executing a successful retail strategy. Its stock caught fire again. All because one brilliant guy in a black turtleneck has a crystal clear idea of what Apple isa company that exists only to deliver the simplest, most elegant, easily used consumer electronics in the world. (The fewer buttons the better, and especially on my shirts, thank you.)

Howard Schultz at Starbucks comes to mind. Schultz was about elevating the U.S. coffee consumer to an idealized experience he had enjoyed while touring Italy and sampling its neighborhood espresso bars. The Inspector General of The Geek Squad comes to mind. Robert Stephens knew a spoonful of humor would make the virus medicine go down and launched a business on the philosophy that even the boring businesses could be made interestingeven entertaining.

Each of these CEOs had a unique and powerful vision for what their companies were in the world to do. They operate from a North Star that guides and informs every decision. For

P a g e | 22

Jobs, it was creating simple, elegant, aesthetically pleasing technologies. Getting the computer to compute was simply the cost of entry. If it couldnt be done with lan, dont do it. None of these CEOs started out with, Im going to build an iconic brand. They said, Im going to create the best damn [fill in the blank] the world has ever seen. And its this paradox exactly that makes the CEO the most important and influential brand steward any organization can have. Next post: whats required of the CEO to steward the brand?

"The secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want. And really, if you think about it from your point of view as a customer, you want everything: a wide assortment of goodquality merchandise; the lowest possible prices; guaranteed satisfaction with what you buy; friendly, knowledgeable service; convenient hours; free parking; a pleasant shopping experience." - Sam Walton (1918-1992)

P a g e | 23

Branding from the Top Down

By Bob Wolper

"We are seeing the resurgence of marketing's role and recognition that someone at the Csuite needs to be actively involved," says Eric Almquist, senior partner at Lippincott Mercer. "Someone has to manage the brand on a daily basis and more and more, that's the CEO." Chief Executive Magazine (November 2004).

"A brand-aware CEO recognizes that a brand which stands apart has the potential to drive a company's sales, improve its margins, grow its profitability, and increase its market cap. With a strong brand, you can even raise prices without much in the way of negative consequences. If your CEO understands this, he or she can be your best weapon for turning your brand into a breakaway brand." Barry Silverstein, MarketingProfs.com (January 24, 2006).

For the past two years, Chief Executive Magazine has published a list of The Top 25 Brand Leaders. The magazine, in conjunction with New York-based branding consultancy Lippincott Mercer, conducts an annual survey among 450 CEOs and chief marketing officers, in which it asks them to evaluate CEOs on nine branding criteria: customer experience, foresight and innovation, brand investment, brand value, brand image management, measurement and monitoring, marketplace vitality, design, and organizational stature.

The names of the CEOs who rank in the top 25 are among those you'd expect to see in such a list: Apple's Steve Jobs, Dell Computer's Michael Dell and Kevin Rollins, Starbucks' Orrin Smith, Nike's Phil Knight, Southwest Airlines' Gary Kelly, UPS' Mike Eskew and...well, you get the picture.

According to the magazine, common among these CEOs is the belief that successful brand building "...takes more than marketing and advertising alone...it requires coming up with innovative products that go way beyond the ordinary, offering unparalleled customer service and developing consistent marketing messages that break through the clutter."

The Top 25 CEOs will tell you that the brand is their company's strongest asset. As the article points out, the CEOs embrace the notion that "stewardship of the brand is their

P a g e | 24

responsibility." They live, eat and breathe the brand every day. In addition, they expect the same of their C-suitemates.

Interestingly, chief executives ranked customer experience and chief marketing officers as the most important characteristic in defining the Top 25 CEO brand leaders. It seems simple enough: who better than the CEO or their counterpart to champion the brand, its values and promise through the organization, out the door and into the hearts and minds of its customers; to remind everyone at every level-from senior management to customer service and all points between-that their attitudes and behaviours play a crucial role in shaping the customer experience with the brand; that they define the brand at every touch point with customers and other stakeholders; that, in fact, they are the brand.

Barry Silverstein, a senior vice-president at Arnold Worldwide and co-author of The Breakaway Brand, in an online article on MarketingProfs.com in January 2006, suggests that companies whose CEOs successfully instil that kind passion and respect for the brand into their organization's collective mindset and daily routine are more likely to project a strong brand image in the marketplace and capture greater market share than those that don't.

Perhaps that is because those companies are better able than their competitors to leverage positive interactions with their customers, prospects, investors and other interested parties to their advantage and turn those stakeholders into loyal brand advocates.

"Ultimately, a brand's true hero-its "secret weapon"-is the CEO, who helps turn an ordinary brand into a "breakaway" brand. The CEO shapes the company's brand vision and demands that breakaway branding behaviour take place," Silverstein said.

CEO Gary Kelly is Southwest Airlines' brand champion and role model for brand behaviour. Kelly sits in on top-level marketing committee meetings and in all-day customer feedback sessions to keep his finger on the pulse of the brand, to see how well the company lives up to its promise, and to make the necessary adjustments when it is not. His brand behaviour helps ensure that brand values translate into positive customer experiences every day.

For proof of concept, simply look at Southwest's ever increasing market share, delighted customers who rave about the brand in unsolicited testimonials and, most recently, at the company's re-entrance into the Denver market. In an era of fierce competition, layoffs and bankruptcies, when was the last time you saw so much positive coverage about an airline?

P a g e | 25

Talk about turning stakeholders-in this case, the media-into brand advocates! I wish I had kept track of the column inches and airtime devoted to it.

Bigger Isn't Necessarily Better

Commitment to brand leadership at the C-level is not just the domain of large companies. In fact, small businesses-because of their size, structure and flexibility-are often in an even better position to integrate the brand promise into the organization from the top down. They have fewer employees to communicate with and to supervise, and fewer layers of management to filter the message. Small businesses have a more direct route to and a closer relationship with their supply chain, distributors, franchisees and, most important, their customers.

A good example of that is Bark Busters USA, a home dog training franchising company headquartered here in Denver. Like most franchisors, Bark Busters is in business to sell franchises and they invest heavily in building brand value to help them accomplish that.

"As the pioneers of franchising the home dog training industry, we need to be focused on brand identity and brand consistency," said Andrew Brooke, Bark Busters USA's CEO. It's not only a major focus of our business strategy and key to our marketing strategy, it's the number one responsibility that falls on my shoulders."

However, while brand value may help drive franchise sales, consistency of execution and delivering on the brand promise at the customer level is what determines the brand's success.

In the world of franchising, or just about any industry that comes to mind, the customer ultimately decides who the winners and losers are. That is why companies like Bark Busters devote so much of their time and resources training franchisees how to deliver on the brand promise to their customers - and to do so consistently, over time. "its part of our code of honour," Brooke said. Everyone has to respect the brand and they are trained accordingly.

Placing so much value on the brand and customer experience seems to be paying off for Bark Busters: Entrepreneur magazine ranks them 27 in the top 101 home-based franchises and 46 in the top 100 fastest-growing franchises in America, and the Denver Business Journal ranks the company the number 8 fastest-growing small business in Colorado.

P a g e | 26

Another example of small business CEO commitment to stewarding the brand can be found at BioCare Systems, Inc., a Denver-based medical device company that develops and markets deep-tissue, infrared-light therapy devices to consumers, designed to help reduce pain and promote healing in muscles and joints. Its newest product recently received FDA clearance and is now in the early launch stage.

Sherry Fox, BioCare's CEO and brand champion, says that as a start-up, the company's product, LumiWave(r), is the brand and, therefore, it is most important asset. "We started working on branding even before we began manufacturing product," Fox said. "The brand helps guide the decisions we make and the processes we put in place to ensure we keep our promise to our customers."

According to Fox, brand values and promise helped drive decisions that included everything from redesigning prototypes for better form and aesthetics, to developing market surveys to determine consumer acceptance and troubleshoot any user issues, to developing and meticulously adhering to the highest manufacturing standards, and to creating marketing and sales materials that reflect the quality of the brand.

In order to create brand advocates, Fox spends a great deal of her time networking and getting product into the hands of the people who can help spread the word. "Once someone uses the LumiWave, they become believers," Fox said. "And we all know what great messengers people can be when they believe in something."

Changing Culture

So what may be preventing more CEOs and senior managers from jumping on the "brandwagon"? One reason might be that it requires a culture change and changing culture is hard work. It takes strong commitment to establishing the fundamental operating philosophies, structure and communications processes that support the brand, and relentless effort from everyone in the organization to hold one another accountable for their part in upholding the brand promise.

Mike Leiser, a senior partner at Prophet-a brand, business, and marketing strategies consulting firm-wrote this about branding in a column featured on Brandchannel.com in January: "As businesses increasingly realize the power of brand to transform an organization,

P a g e | 27

they also realize that the ability to tap into that power requires that the right structure (supported by the right people with the right capabilities) is in place to see it through. Increasingly, that takes a collaborative effort that transcends business silos and is undertaken over the long term."

Integrating the brand into the daily life of the organization is, indeed, a transformation process. It takes time to nurture and financial and human resources to implement effectively. However, simply identifying the need for and agreeing to develop what could be called a "brand-centric" structure isn't enough; it needs a driving force to succeed and the impetus for that has to come from the top because no one else really has the authority to make it happen.

Even so, there are still plenty of challenges along the way: not everyone is easily convinced and pushback is likely; to some, the concept is either "too soft" or they are "too busy trying to survive," or they "just don't have time for this kind of thing." And, of course, there are the diehards who, while not "anti" branding per se, are simply stuck in the dark ages and continue to think of the brand only in terms of their company's logo, graphic standards, marketing and advertising.

To that latter group, I wonder what the Top 25 Brand Leader CEOs' reaction would be to the respondents to a recent Business Marketing Association study in which only 60% said their company has a brand standards manual for employees to follow when producing marketing materials. Probably something like: "Get yourselves a brand champion. Fast!"

Branding from the top down might not be easy, but it certainly seems worth it. Just ask other CEOs like Jeff Bezos, Meg Whitman, Richard Branson, Fred Smith, Bill Marriott... et al.

A Good Starting Point

Here is some things to consider if you are thinking about integrating top-down branding into your organization's structure: The CEO is the brand champion and role model for brand behaviour; Senior managers must follow the CEO's lead; their buy-in and follow through is crucial; All employees must be aligned with brand values and promise;

P a g e | 28

Brand behaviour should be an organizational mindset - employees need to ask themselves how their everyday decisions and actions impact the brand; Don't skimp when communicating brand values and promises to internal stakeholders - as your first-line brand ambassadors, employees are just as important as your customers; Measure and reward good brand behaviour; Everyone is accountable - living the brand is everyone's job!

Bob Wolper is president of The Wolper Group, a marketing communications firm that provides strategic communications counsel, planning and implementation services. He can be reached by phone at 303-707-1021 or by email at bwolper@thewolpergroup.com

P a g e | 29

What Makes a CEO a Brand Leader?

At DPK Public Relations, we work with company CEOs and presidents to become living embodiments of their brands. If you want your brand to be seen as leading edge, you need to project an image that is leading edge. Get a nice haircut, a tailored suit and a quality watch. If you want your brand to be seen as friendly and approachable, it's probably not a good idea to be driving around in a Maserati.

What are the characteristics of a "brand leader?" According to Chief Executive Magazine and consulting firm Lippincott Mercer, there are nine potential characteristics that executives should strive for: Customer experience Foresight and innovation Brand investment Brand importance Brand image management Measuring and monitoring Marketplace vitality Design Organizational stature That's a pretty good list and it's worth asking how your chief executive stacks up. But the analysis that determined the list of the top 25 CEO brand leaders, which is featured in the October 2005 issue of Chief Executive, didn't end there. Next, a short list was compiled of 100 companies that have earned worldwide recognition for a relevant dimension, such as being a most admired company. Finally, using those building blocks, a web-based survey was used to query approximately 450 corporate and marketing executives.

P a g e | 30

Here's the top 25:

1. Apple Computer 2. Starbucks 3. Dell 4. eBay 5. Harley Davidson 6.FedEx 7. Amazon.com 8. Southwest Airlines 9. Virgin 10. Nike 11. Google 12. Target 13. Coca-Cola 14. JetBlue Airways 15. Walt Disney 16. American Express 17. Anheuser-Busch 18. Microsoft 19. BMW 20. Wal-Mart 21. Procter & Gamble 22. McDonalds 23. Polo Ralph Lauren 24. UPS 25. Marriott International Steve Jobs Jim Donald Kevin Rollins Meg Whitman James Ziemer Fred Smith Jeff Bezos Gary Kelly Richard Branson Bill Perez Eric Schmidt Robert Ulrich E. Neville Isdell David Neeleman Michael Eisner Kenneth Chenault Patrick Stokes Steve Ballmer Helmut Panke H. Lee Scott Jr. A.G. Lafley Jim Skinner Ralph Lauren Mike Eskew Bill Marriott Jr.

P a g e | 31

Top 25 Most Valuable Brands 2009

1. Coca-Cola 2. IBM 3. Microsoft 4. GE 5. Nokia 6. McDonald's 7. Google 8. Toyota 9. Intel 10. Disney 11. HP 12. Mercedes-Benz 13. Gillette 14. Cisco 15. BMW 16. Louis Vuitton 17. Marlboro 18. Honda 19. Samsung 20. Apple 21. H&M 22. American Express 23. Pepsi 24. Oracle 25. Nescafe

Okay, there are a few in there (Michael Eisner) that might raise some eyebrows, but for the most part this list is a great reminder of the importance of integrating the image of the CEO with the image of the brand. Certainly three out of the top four -- Jobs, Donald and Whitman - illustrate the point. Richard Branson may take it a step too far, but it seems to work. "One very interesting issue raised in this ranking is whether CEOs should use their own personalities to help brand their products," said Chief Executive Magazine Editor in Chief William J. Holstein, who oversaw the ranking process. "In the cases of Steve Jobs and certainly Richard Branson, it works fabulously well for them. But the majority of CEOs rely on teams and processes and are reluctant to inject their own personalities. The common thread is that all of these top brand leaders have a knack for what the customer wants, sometimes even before the customer knows it. That instinct may ultimately be more important than whether they choose to use their own personalities or not."

P a g e | 32

The Deadliest Branding Mistakes to Avoid

OSCAR WILDE, THE IRISH POET, ONCE wrote, Experience is the name that everyone gives to their mistakes. You cannot escape from making mistakes but they can teach you a lot. Some of the best lessons I have learned in my career came from mistakes I have made. When people ask me how I got to be good at branding I tell them, I ran into brick walls so many times that I eventually figured out the smart thing to do is go around the wall, not at it. You can learn a lot from your mistakes, but it is better to learn from other peoples mistakes! Even big global brands make mistakes but some of them never seem to learn. Some may learn after they got burned but after a few years, corporate amnesia sets in and they go back to making the same mistakes again. However, big corporations can often get away with mistakes. You cannot. That is not to say that you should not take risks, but you should try to minimise your chances of stepping on a landmine by learning about the 14 deadliest branding mistakes outlined in this 2-part series.

Mistake No. 1: Do not Know What Branding Is Perhaps there is so much that has been written about branding that people are confused as to what branding really is. A lot of the definitions that you find these days sound very impressive but they miss the point. What is branding all about? Differentiation.

Many people still mistake branding as logo design. While it did originate with a logo (remember how cattle owners singe their logo or initials into the rumps of cows?), that logo is there for a purposedifferentiation. Before you can build a brand, you need to first know what branding is. The form of branding might have changed over 4,000 years but its function has remained the same. Mistake No. 2: Middle-Of-The-Road Approach Many brands make the mistake of being stuck in the middle. I have come across so many brands that claimed they are differentiated by being (and I quote), 80% as good as the

P a g e | 33

leading brand but only 30% more expensive than the entry-level brands. Life is hard enough without having to think in fractions! When you take the middle-of-the-road approach, you are neither here nor there. The middle is no place to be because the 2 segments that are growing rapidly in every category in any market are the high end and the low end. Thus, if you are stuck in the middle, youre not going anywhere. To build a strong brand, youve got to take a stand. You are either this or you are that. You cant be both. You know why you scream at your children when they play in the middle of the road? Thats where accidents happen. So, why do you want to put your brand there?

Mistake No. 3: Forgot What Made Them Famous If you study brands carefully, you will notice that one of the first things that they do when they become successful is that they tend to forget what made them famous. Xerox at one point in time forgot that what made them famous was the photocopier. They started line extending the brand into other products such as computers, scanners, fax machines, printers, etc. and that damaged the brand tremendously. Kodak forgot that what made them famous is film and not cameras but they stuck the Kodak brand onto cameras anyway. Where are the Xerox computers today? Dead. Would you buy a Kodak digital camera over an Olympus or Nikon or Canon if the one from Kodak were priced the same? Neither would I.

You must understand that what makes your brand famous will also tend to keep your brand stuck in that product or category. If that category dies, the brand dies. Polaroid is tied to instant photography, and when that category died, Polaroid went along with it. If what makes you famous is no longer relevant and you have to move into a new category, launch a new brand. Never lose sight of the thing that made you famous in the first place because that should always be the focus of all your innovation and marketing efforts. Mistake No. 4: Driven By Opportunity, Not Vision The difference between a brand and a business is that a business is driven by opportunities whereas a brand is driven by vision. A business will jump into whatever makes them money now. If selling iPod skins makes money today, thats what a business will dofind a way to sell as many iPod skins as possible. If selling car stereos makes money tomorrow, it will jump into selling car stereos. A business wants to own 5% of 10 markets because it thinks that by doing so it is diversifying its risk and will remain small enough that the big boys wont bother

P a g e | 34

them. What it is forgetting is that by doing that, they are actually taking on 10 different sets of competitors. Every problem they face will be multiplied by 10, as they are in 10 different categories.

A brand wants to own 50% of one market. A brand is driven by a strong vision. It is willing to give up 9 out of 10 categories in order to be dominant in one. Of course, you cannot ignore market opportunities, but you need to have a vision first and look for opportunities that fulfil that vision. Mistake No. 5: Right Execution, Wrong Strategy Many companies that I have come across dont spend enough time developing their strategy. They rush into doing things. They might execute things very well, however, a flawed strategy, no matter how well executed, will still not lead you to success. In the book, Trout On Strategy, renowned positioning guru, Jack Trout, wrote that the difference between successful companies and the also-rans is simply the right strategy. Yet, many companies dont spend enough time thinking about strategy. The guru of execution, Ram Charan, often quotes Toyota as a company that executes very well. You wont find any arguments from me here. However, Toyota is successful because it is executing the right strategy well and that is what its Kanban just-in-time manufacturing system is all aboutthe right strategy. Mistake No. 6: Branding Is The Job Of Marketing Most companies that I have met in the past seemed to think that branding is the job of the marketing department. Several companies (including one public listed company) that I have met even told me they are putting their group accountant in charge of branding. Well, I love accountants. After all, I am married to a CPA. However, what I cant quite fathom is why put the accountant in charge of branding. One company told me its because branding involves a lot of money, so therefore the accountant should be in charge. I know your head hurts thinking about itbeen there, done that! Branding is not the job of the accountant. Branding is not even the job of marketing. These are just supporting actors.

Branding is the job of the CEO. The CEO has to play the part of the Brand Champion. If you look at successful brands that went from being tiny start-ups to big global brands (i.e. Microsoft, Sony, Google, Apple, Disney, Ferrari, Starbucks, Virgin, The Body Shop, etc.) you will find that they usually have a strong Brand Champion as the leader. The CEO must be the one driving the brand because only he/ she is given that mandate. The head of the marketing

P a g e | 35

department doesnt have that kind of authority. The head of marketing is not the head of the company. This is a job that needs to be done by the CEO, and its one that he/ she cannot delegate. Mistake No. 7: No Brand Ambassadors The Brand Champion cannot do it alone. He/ she will need to build up an army of Brand Ambassadors to promote the brand. The CEO needs to inspire the rest of the company to become advocates of the brandto talk the talk and to walk the walk. I have very often found that in local companies, the senior management doesnt communicate enough to the rest of the company. Everything about strategy and direction is confined to the top few people. Granted that the development of a strategy cannot involve too many people or it will become diluted; but once that strategy is developed, it needs to be communicated by the CEO to the rest of the company to generate support and buy-in.

When Lotus bet the farm on its Notes groupware in the face of its Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet programme being slowly strangled to death by Microsofts Excel, the CEO had to sell that new brand vision to the rest of the company over and over and over again to create buy-in and build an army of Brand Ambassadors. It was a dirty job but again, that is what CEOs are paid to do!

2009 Branding Blunders:

Merrill Lynchs $35,000 Toilet CEO John Thain got a $15 million signing bonus, between $50 to $120 million a year, and even then felt obligated to spend corporate money to renovate his office suite to the tune of $131,000 for area rugs, a $68,000 antique credenza, guest chairs costing $87,000, a $1,400 wastebasket. Next to that, the $35,000 toilet seems like chicken you-know-what. Unfortunately, a $35,000 toilet is the kind of corporate perk that tells the world that the top managers in this company think they excrete diamonds. Its symbolic, in the most ribald manner possible, of the culture of insane excess which characterizes the banking industry.

P a g e | 36

Citibanks Stadium Logo Even in the best of times, stadium-naming is a stupid branding move. As far as I can tell, theres absolutely no evidence that any good will transfers itself from the stadium to the brand. (See Boston Garden.) However, when Citibank decided to go ahead with plans to spend $400 million to stick its logo on a stadium in Queens, it was just after the company had accepted billions of dollars in bailout money to save itself from financial disaster. Dumb move. To make matters worse, Citibank didnt even put their logo on the stadium, but instead created a stadium logo that echoes their corporate logo, thereby limiting the brand identification to the 50 or so branding wonks in the world who care about such stuff

Dunkin Donuts Challenges McDonalds Apparently, McDonalds new actually drinkable coffee has Dunkin Donuts running scared. In reaction, Dunkin Donuts has done the worst thing possible called even more attention to the fact that you can now get good coffee, cheap, at the Golden Arches. They have launched billboards explaining that Dunkin Donuts dont clown around a clear reference to long-time mascot, Ronald McDonald. The problem with counter-branding is that it always has the exact opposite effect. Rather than positioning Dunkin Donuts as something special, this campaign simply reminds people, once again, that McDonalds now has coffee thats arguably as good as Dunkins. Why else would Dunkin bother to carp about it? Dumb Really dumb

P a g e | 37

Differentiating Your Brand Less is More

A brand means different things to different people but a brand is essentially an idea that a company owns in the minds of its stakeholders. A strong brand is one that has an idea that it is firmly associated with it. For customers to remember and associate a brand with a particular idea, the idea must be unique (Trout 2000). However, uniqueness alone is not sufficient; a differentiator must also be desirable, defensible and above all, relevant. A relevant differentiator is one that your customers see value in. Intels technology leadership in the field of microprocessors is one such example. Intel is differentiated from its competitors by staying at the forefront of semiconductor technology. The ability to make its microprocessors smaller, faster and more energy efficient translates into a relevant value proposition for its customers as computers that use Intel microprocessors are perceived to run faster and saves more energy. Therefore, a differentiator is only useful if your customers can appreciate the value associated with your differentiator, vis--vis your competitors.

However, in order for your customers to understand the value of your differentiator, it must be simple. For Intels case, its technology leadership is conveyed lucidly through its position as the worlds leader in semiconductor technology. This trend towards simplicity is one that has been proliferating in both consumer and industrial buyers as a response to the everburgeoning choices they face and the advent of a highly connected world. In the postrecession environment, this trend is likely to accelerate as downturns typically increase buyers preference for simplicity. Therefore, it is important to keep your differentiator simple.

It is also important to maintain a single-minded focus on the differentiating idea that makes your brand stand out and avoid falling into the everything for everybody trap described by Jack Trout in his book, Big Brand Big Trouble. There are 13 differentiation strategies that companies can use to find a desirable, defensible and relevant differentiating idea. These strategies were examined in detail in the book, Killer Differentiators: 13 Strategies To Grow Your Brand.

P a g e | 38

Be Consistent Or Be Dead Your Call

Having the right Differentiation Strategy provides you with a powerful weapon; however, it is the execution of that strategy that ultimately determines victory in the battlefield. The successful execution of a brand strategy requires management to establish a farsighted marketing strategy that ensures that the brand is communicated constantly and in a consistent manner (Reid 2002). .

Internally, it is imperative that every staff member is aligned to the brand; and through alignment, they will know what the brand is all about, and how to behave in ways that will enhance the brands reputation. Externally, consistency of the brand is attained through an integrated marketing communications strategy that ensures that a consistent brand image is portrayed at all communication channels. This requires a network of harmonized, stakeholder-specific brand messages that are coherent with the brand strategy and capable of uniting stakeholders perception of the brand.

The Paradox That Needs To Be Solved

In order to build strong and differentiated brands, the attitude that management adopts towards brand building should be likened to ones attitude towards saving. To most people, the inclination towards saving reflects prudence and wisdom. Brand building too works on the principle of saving the more you save or rather, invest in building your brand, the more valuable it becomes.

P a g e | 39

Herein lays the paradox in brand building. The question most businesses face in a boom is not whether the business is making money the question is just how much? During an economic upswing, the ability to make tidy profits, with or without a strong brand, often creates a misleading sense of security and cultivates a spirit of complacency. Branding, a fundamentally strategic activity is usually done haphazardly, if any at all. This is especially prevalent in the SME sector, as most SME owners perceive branding as an activity only for the big boys. To resolve this paradox, there must be a fundamental change in managements mindset to appreciate the role strong brands play in ensuring that revenue streams are safeguarded and profits can be earned continuously in both good times and bad. Building a strong brand requires consistency and persistence; therefore, a fair amount of corporate discipline is vital to ensure that the brand building efforts are not compromised by factors such as changing economic conditions or leadership. Rome Wasnt Built In A Day

Building a strong brand takes the right strategy and execution as well as a whole lot of patience. Four out of 5 of the worlds top global brands in 2009, as reported in BusinessWeek, are companies that have been around for at least a century, and have conscientiously invested in communicating their brand over and over again.

As you invest in your brand through brand building activities and continue to do so correctly, your brand will over time, become value-bearing assets that you can leverage during good times and draw upon during bad times. If you do this right, the next recession and it will come all too soon is not to be feared but to be looked forward to, because if you have a strong brand, you can ride out the storm better while those competitors with weak brands will be lost at sea. And that is, as they say, Good riddance.

The upbeat impact of crisis is that competitors become mediocre, and the ambitious find ways to grow.

P a g e | 40

What the CEO (or Board) Really Wants to Know About Branding
Hint: Aligning brand strategy with business growth and vitality will get the CEO to pay attention. Often the biggest hurdle you'll face in developing or refining the brand strategy for your company is the reluctance of the CEO to buy into the importance-- the vital nature--of branding. But it's critical to get the full support and backing from the CEO or your board before proceeding down the brand path. Communications consultant Bob Lamons says, "The CEO needs to be the No. 1 brand champion. No exceptions. No extenuating circumstances. If she resists accepting this responsibility, the company will suffer." I've had more than one CEO ask the questions, "But how does the brand fit into the big picture? What will be the impact on sales growth? If our priority is growing customers and repeat business, how will the refocused brand help us achieve that? While there is no one-sentence answer to those questions, a brand is a business reputation in the minds of its customers and prospects. It is the gut feeling that one has for a company or product. However, great companies actively manage their brand. That means having a compelling answer to the question, "Why should I support your business?" What that means to the big picture--and for attracting customers and loyal followers--is that in a society where people have less time and shorter attention spans, your business must have a succinct, compelling, and unique brand. By having a fanatical focus, alignment, and linkage reinforcing your brand reputation in everything you do (and eliminating those things which dilute this reputation), customers and prospects who are looking for your unique attribute are more likely to engage with you.

P a g e | 41

So your brand is not just a component of the big picture, rather it IS the big picture. There is a maxim that states: "The brand is the strategy." So for your companys leadership, it is important for them to understand that the brand will be the touchstone on which everything else you do and say should relate and reflect. Your logo, tagline, or any other tactical marketing and communications approaches are simply reflections and reinforcements of the brand. Your companys brand will be driven by the experiences you create with staff, vendors, media, government, industry, communities, and customers--and the emotional feelings these groups develop as a result of those positive experiences. Refocusing of your brand will help to make your business reputation clearer. Your message can be spoken in relevant and authentic tones making your results more consistent. When you begin to move forward tactically, on a solid brand strategy platform, you can speak across multiple channels with one-voice consistency. Over time, this will impress your unique value to the marketplace--those who can and will consider buying your products or services-and you will see growth. It's about having a strategy that your CEO --and your entire organization-- can get behind, believe in, and live through every customer and prospect touch point. And that is what the CEO wants to know about branding.

Long before Twitter, Facebook, and the current financial crisis, Einstein proposed three rules of work:

Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

P a g e | 42

Affordable Branding
You could go out and hire yourself an excellent branding agency or pay a branding consultant to help your business develop a brand strategy. But you are here because you are looking for affordable branding solutions. Affordable branding starts with you, because frankly, no one knows your brand better than you do. The key to affordable branding can be likened to taking on a home improvement project. Some people are naturally more gifted than others are when it comes to working with their hands and with tools. And some projects should only be performed by professionals (or you will end up spending more money fixing your mistakes than you would have to pay a pro from the start). However, if you surround yourself with the right tools, and you follow the right process, and you use best practices, you CAN complete just about any home improvement you put your mind to. That is how it is with do-it-yourself branding. Most small business does not need to hire a pro. With the right tools and the right process, you can develop a solid and focused brand strategy for your business.

P a g e | 43

The Affordable Branding Positioning Construct When tackling your own brand strategy development, your first task is to zoom out. And then, when you can quickly (almost intuitively) and confidently fill in the following blanks, you will be well on your way to affordable branding success. Who: ________________________________________________ What: ________________________________________________ For whom: ________________________________________________ What need: ________________________________________________ Against whom: _____________________________________________ What is different: ___________________________________________ So: ________________________________________________ Vision: ________________________________________________ Mission: ________________________________________________ Below, I have filled in the positioning construct with information about this businessHow-toBrandingas an example of how you can position your own business. Who: How-to-Branding.com What: is the ONLY step-by-step, do-it-yourself affordable branding resource For whom: for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and marketing executives What need: that wants to improve their marketing and communications results through a more clear and focused brand platform. Against whom: Unlike traditional consultants or agencies who do it all for you and deliver a brand that may not convey the results you expected What is different: How-to-Branding.com believes that no one knows your brand better than you do. So we offer brand workshops and other tools, plus a website packed with tips, techniques, and ideas to grow your brandand your business

P a g e | 44

So: so your company can arrive at an actionable brand strategy more efficiently and effectively and so you can increase revenues for your business. Vision: To be the leading provider of branding workshops and DIY tools and techniques to help grow small businesses. Mission: To assist businesses in the development of an authentic, relevant, and differentiated brand through proven and highly effective workshops, tools, and techniques. With this vital and strategic foundation, I can now go about building and branding my business to align with the principles set forth in this simple construct. It serves as a branding roadmap of sorts; one that I will continue to refer to as I add content, develop new tools and offerings, and market and advertise my business.

You CAN do it yourselfaffordably. Here is how:

1. Continue to explore the free resources available on this site. Start at the beginning and work your way through. 2. Be sure to check out all the other helpful, free How-to-Branding.com advice available here. 3. Subscribe to the Affordable Branding eZine. It is free and you can unsubscribe at any time if it gets annoying. 4. Bookmark the Affordable Branding blog (or subscribe to the RSS feed). 5. Consider purchasing the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Brand Strategy Workshop. As a free bonus, you will also receive the How-to-Branding DIY Branding Toolkit with all Forms, Exercises, and Process Documents. 6. I would highly recommend getting my eBook, Shadowcasting: Growing Your Business By Growing Your Reputation. 7. If you get stuck along the way, no worries: Consider either One-on-One (Show Me) or DoIt-For-Me (DIFM) Branding Coaching. 8. If you get stuck on the harder, tactical executions (business or product naming, logo design, or tagline development) we can help. Click here for more information.

Good luck with your brand strategy! It is a critical part of the business-building puzzle.

P a g e | 45

Branding Examples: The Power of Branding

A brand is the visual, emotional, rational, and cultural image that you associate with a company or a product. Here are some well-known branding examples. When you think Volvo, you might think safety. When you think Nike, you might think of Tiger Woods or "Just Do It." When you think IBM, you might think "Big Blue." The fact that you remember the brand name and have positive associations with that brand makes your product selection easier and enhances the value and satisfaction you get from the product or service. While Brand X cola, or even Pepsi-Cola, may win blind taste tests over Coca Cola, the fact is that more people buy Coke than any other cola and, most importantly, they enjoy the experience of buying and drinking Coca Cola. The fond memories of childhood and refreshment that people have when they drink Coke is often more important than a little bit better cola taste. It is this emotional relationship with brands that make them so powerful. A brand is not just a logo, ad campaign, spokesperson or slogan. Rather a brand is a product of the millions of experiences a company creates with employees, vendors, reporters, communities, and customersand the emotional feelings these groups develop as a result of their experiences. A brand is the sum of all the characteristics that make your offering unique: Reputation Customer Service A Promise Price Feeling Attitude Logo Product Line

P a g e | 46

Every business has a brand, whether they like it or not, whether they realize it or not, whether or not they have an expensive ad campaign or a new logo. A company has a brand whether it is selling bread, beer, oxygen cylinders, accounting services, or chemicals. Even cities and geographic areas have brands think New York, Los Angeles, Cape Cod and Detroit. Some cities have such a strong brand identities that they have products named after them to leverage this imageSouth Beach Diet, LA Fitness, and Chevy Tahoe. Your business has a brand. It is the sum of everything your organization is, says, and does. The only question is, are you in control of your brand? When you are, your image will be clear and your results will be consistent. When you are not in control of your brand, the marketplace will let you know. You can see it for yourself with companies like AOL. They placed much emphasis on an initial push for consumer business which resulted in big sales, but whose service was not able to keep up with the demand they created. Until AOL built greater capacity, the results were dissatisfactioneven anger from consumers diminished trust.

P a g e | 47

Branding = Trust Consumerswhether for business or personal products or servicesselect brands they believe will serve them best, even if that brand is priced at a premium. American Express, for instance, has created a culture of service that provides so much perceived brand value that many consumers are willing to pay more for privilege to use the card. The success of the personal card has allowed AMEX to continue to grow and create new brand extensions: Gold, Platinum, Blue, Plum, and Black. These extensions already have an advantage in the minds of consumers before they are even launched because they carry the AmEx brand. Here are more brands that command a premium: Starbucks you are buying a lifestyle, an image, the cache; Mercedes Benz engineering, quality, performance, consumer service. I am sure you can think of plenty of others.

P a g e | 48

Toyota shares all of these attributes and in some cases provides better quality than Mercedes, so why is it not seen as a direct competitor? Toyota is not positioned as a premium brand in the minds of consumers. What did they do to compete in this market segment? They created a premium brand: Lexus. Both Toyota and Lexus brands share engineering, chassis, design elements the brand is what differs in the minds of the consumer. The branding goes beyond the vehicle you find branding in everything that Lexus does: the way the salesperson first approaches you in the showroom how he/she is dressed (in a suit vs. Saturn salespeople in Polos) the layout of the showroom the choice of building materials and interiorsslate floors, leather chairs the waiting areas the cleanliness of service areas the branding of Lexus continues after the sale Lexus has received JD Powers highest customer satisfaction rating for years. Now, this is not simply because Lexus has so many fewer problems than BMW or Audi or Mercedes, but it is due to the level of customer service this is how Lexus extends its brand through a brand experience.

P a g e | 49

Powerful branding makes for a strong brand experience

Mc Donalds Fast Service Consistent Food Taste and Quality Consistent Pricing NetFlix Convenience Service Speed Cost Ritz-Carlton Hotels Hotel Design Location Customer Service Restaurants Quality of Products In-Room Think about how your business could control and strengthen its brand through the brand experience. In order for your company to build its brand, it must strategically set a level of expectations through consistency of Customer service Customer acquisition process Messaging (including your voice and tone) Customer touch-points Marketing and communications

P a g e | 50

Understanding your brand starts with discovery When you go looking, you are much like a gold prospectoroften discovering assets that are already there: valuable attributes and ideas that exist deep inside the business, but have not been brought to light. Of course, you could also find our share of fools gold: attributes and attitudes that hinder the good experience you want your audience to have with your company. As the process of discovery goes on, it becomes easier and easier to see the attributes that make your brand uniquely valuable and to determine which aspects of your business are not in alignment. The first step in discovery is to understand which audiences are important to your company and what each of their experiences has actually been. What is your business doing, saying, and how is it acting? Is this in alignment with what makes your brand special? Where are you missing opportunities and where are there potential contradictions? This will help you learn what to capitalize on and what to correct. What makes up a brand identity? A typical brand identity includes a brand name, positioning statement, category descriptor, organizational values, brand archetype, and the brand's key purchase factors with their tangible and emotional benefits (brand associations). A good brand name gives a good first impression, is easy to remember, and evokes positive associations with the brand. The positioning statement tells, in one sentence, what business the company is in, what benefits it provides, and why it is better than the competition. Imagine you are in an elevator and you have 30 seconds to answer the question, "What business are you in?" The category descriptor lets your customers know what "hook" to put your branding on in their mind or where to file your business in their mental Rolodex.

Linking your internal business values with your brand builds trust with your customers. Brand archetype and personality adds emotion, culture, and myth to the brand identity by the use of a famous spokesperson (Bill Cosby - Jell-O), a character (the Pink Panther for OwensCorning insulation), an animal (the Merrill Lynch bull), or an image (You are in good hands with Allstate).

P a g e | 51

Ensuring Long-Term Branding Success So many businesses will invest a tremendous amount of time and effort to develop their brand and think they are done. However, they have just begun. The most important, fundamental thing a company has to do over time is to ensure that the experience its audiences will get from the organization will be consistent with the brand. This is called managing the brand. You can spend a lot of money and time in communicating your brand, but unless your employees deliver the brand the right way, it is a waste. A business with a healthy brand is one where every employee understands what the brand is about and his or her role in delivering that brand. Never underestimate your staff they are the ones who deliver your brand to the world.

Did you know?

Studies have shown that up to 86% of employees who interface with customers are communicating inaccurate or incomplete vital information.

P a g e | 52

IMAGE VIRGIN ATLATIC POTRAYS

To begin with some words from Richard Branson himself: "A brand name that is known internationally for innovation, quality and a sense of fun - this is what we have always aspired to with Virgin."

Virgin Atlantic defines its role to be the consumer champion, and they do so by delivering to the consumers their brand values, which include: Value for Money Good Quality Brilliant Customer Service Innovative Competitively Challenging Fun Richard Branson set out with these principles in mind in the 1970s and they still really define what Virgin is all about. Virgin believes that the most important thing is the way these values are delivered and brought to life. They deliver value for money by their Simple, honest & transparent pricing not necessarily the cheapest on the market. The good quality is provided by their high standards, attention to detail, being honest and delivering on promises. They have a brilliant customer service which is friendly and human. They are very innovative and have challenging conventions along with modern and stylish designs. They are very competitive and challenge their opponents with humor. Virgin Atlantic believes a lot in having fun and has one of the best entertainments on board.

P a g e | 53

Virgin Atlantic likes to challenge the everyday routine to give their passengers something different and special. Flying in Economy is all about fun and value, where they provide free amenity kits and have seat back TVs.

Premium Economy seats are bigger and wider and there's a separate cabin dedicated to Premium Economy passengers.

Their Upper class Suite is the ultimate in comfort and innovations. Their key features are: Massages on board Bar on Board Fully flat beds Ice cream served while watching movie Limo pick-ups Latest music and movies

For a company like Virgin, branding is an essential tool of gaining mind share across target customers. It is in the truest sense a marketing-led company that continues to emphasize on the inspirational value of the Virgin brand by way of continuous innovations both in services and products. Due to Richard Bransons entrepreneurial attitude and his fearless reputation for antics like ballooning across the Atlantic Ocean and traveling through Virgin Atlantic in shorts the Virgin brand is always guaranteed its fair share of publicity. Virgin Atlantics mission Statement is To grow a profitable airline, that people love to fly and where people love to work."

Its USP is to focus on customer service, with emphasis on value for money, quality, fun and innovation. The focus is customer driven and Virgin continues to establish and strengthen these values amongst its stakeholders, customers and travel trade partners, thereby consistently innovating and building on the strong foundation.

P a g e | 54

Brand Building Tips (On A Budget)

It is all very well for Coca-Cola. Everyone already knows who they are. They have an established, iconic presence. They have mega-bucks to spend. They hire very expensive people to make very expensive noises in every market place in the world. However, what do you do if you are a web entrepreneur trying to build a brand, from scratch, from your couch? I have put together a list of brand building ideas, strategies and resources that can help you enhance and establish your brand on a limited budget. 1. Own Your Keyword Name An obvious example of this strategy is SEOBook.com. I recall Aaron describing how there was no search volume for "Seo book" when he started, although there was a market for books on SEO. By building up that brand name, Aaron sparked brand searches, and forever owns the search term.

P a g e | 55

SEOs will be aware of the power of incorporating keywords into your brand name itself. The trick is not to be too generic; else, you will forever compete with everyone else who targets generic keyword terms. 2. Tell A Consistent Story You walk into a luxury hotel. The street frontage and reception and first class, but as you explore, you notice the hallways are shabby. The rooms are top notch, but the bathrooms are dated and there are cracks in the bath. The brand is not telling a consistent story - well, not a story that says "luxury" - and will suffer as a result. Everything you do on your site must tell a consistent story. Everything you do is your brand. Great design is of little use if the copy writing is sub-standard, and vice-versa. Get all those little, but important, details right. Broken links, 404s, slow load times, confusing navigation, unexpected surprises - they all part of your brand experience. 3. Tell A Great Story You will hear this a lot in modern marketing. Businesses often say, "we have a great story to tell". Stories can be very powerful brand building exercises because people like being told stories. Stories are easy to remember, they capture the imagination, and they engage people. Learn how stories are constructed. In a nutshell, stories move from a point of equilibrium, into chaos. The central character faces a series of challenges, which s/he overcomes. A new status quo is established. How could this be used for a brand? Apple started in a garage. Two misfit teens overcame the might of the corporate world to produce one of the worlds most successful, technology brands. That is a David vs. Goliath story. However, what if you don't have such a glorious story yet?

P a g e | 56

Tell a series of small stories. "I was always getting frustrated because I often had to yell over a crowd when there was no PA available. So I started using and selling cheap, mobile PA systems. Now everyone can hear me, whether they like it or not!" Not a great story, but it illustrates a benefit. What is your story? 4. User Experience Is Your Brand Site structure and usability are as much part of branding as site design. Learn the lessons of Google. The user experience is the brand i.e. fast, simple, and uncluttered. Brand recognition is largely created by the accumulation of experiences and associations the user makes with your company. There is often no need to hit people over the head with convoluted mission statements. People don't care about you. They care about them. If you make their experience a good one, they'll reward you. 5. Brand Partnership Partner with someone who has an existing brand. An example of this strategy was mentioned on CopyBlogger.com recently. Approach authors of well-known how-to books and provide an online learning resource. The author puts his/her name to it, and receives a share of the revenue. You run the online learning resource. You have the benefit of starting with a pre-established brand and audience. Also, consider licensing brands and product marks. 6. Let Your Customers Tell You What Your Brand Is In the 4-Hour Work Week, Timothy Ferris outlined a strategy using Ad words to decide the title of his book. He placed Ad words text ads, varied the titles, and chose the title with the highest click-thru rate. His potential audience decided his title, which is also his brand: "The Four Hour Work Week". This strategy is useful in that it can help identify untapped niches in markets.

P a g e | 57

7. Clarity Why is your product better than the others? Answer that question, and you have a brand. 8. Reputation Without it, you don't have a brand. Move heaven and earth to maintain your good standing. 9. Become The Brand Be your brand. Live your brand. Tell everyone, and tell them often. It seems obvious, but I've seen many a presentation where I couldn't recall the names of most of the companies by the end of the day, mostly because people didn't do the simple thing of repeating their brand name often enough. Chances are that you need to repeat this information five times before most people will remember it. As an aside, Jason Calacanis had a piece of advice in one of his recent newsletters. "If you don't *really* believe in your product on a deep, intrinsic level, it's going to come across *immediately* to the bloggers and press you're pitching". The simple, most powerful thing you can do is to believe in your brand. Everything else flows from there. 10. Viral Baby If you're reading this site, chances are you're already ahead of the curve when it comes to the huge potential the Internet offers the little guy. Multi-national businesses can now be run from a bedroom. Look at Digg. YouTube. Facebook. Flickr. They all started from relatively humble beginnings, then went supernova very quickly. Why? There are many reasons, but they all have one thing in common. They built viral into the brand.

P a g e | 58

They rely on one person telling another person. They facilitate it. They encourage it. They make it almost impossible not to do it. Can your brand be made viral? Can you twist it so that people will engage with it and pass it on to their friends? 11. Time To Advertise Once you've got your messages down, then it is time to advertise. You'd be surprised how many people do this the other way around! Some corporates are especially bad at this, possibly because the marketing department isn't talking to the sales department, but therein lays the opportunity for the nimble entrepreneur. One tip is to use banner ads, where you pay per click. Click-thru rates on banner ads are notoriously low, whereas they do generate brand awareness. Also, seek out sites that aren't in direct competition with you, but have a similar, established audience. You can leverage off their brand by association. Whatever channels you choose, the key is to repeat a single, simple, compelling message, over-and-over again.

Did you know?

Employees focused on delivering your brand stay at your company longer, work harder and deliver on-brand work every day. In addition, they build your brand outside the walls of your organization.

P a g e | 59

BRAND GLOSSARY
Awareness The percentage of population or target market who are aware of the existence of a given brand or company. There are two types of awareness: spontaneous, which measures the percentage of people who spontaneously mention a particular brand when asked to name brands in a certain category; and prompted, which measures the percentage of people who recognise a brand from a particular category when shown a list.

Brand A brand is a mixture of attributes, tangible and intangible, symbolised in a trademark, which, if managed properly, creates value and influence. "Value" has different interpretations: from a marketing or consumer perspective, it is "the promise and delivery of an experience"; from a business perspective, it is "the security of future earnings"; from a legal perspective, it is "a separable piece of intellectual property." Brands offer customers a means to choose and enable recognition within cluttered markets. Brand Architecture How an organization structures and names the brands within its portfolio. There are three main types of brand architecture system: monolithic, where the corporate name is used on all products and services offered by the company; endorsed, where all sub-brands are linked to the corporate brand by means of either a verbal or visual endorsement; and freestanding, where the corporate brand operates merely as a holding company, and each product or service is individually branded for its target market. Brand Associations The feelings, beliefs and knowledge that consumers (customers) have about brands. These associations are derived as a result of experiences and must be consistent with the brand positioning and the basis of differentiation. Brand Commitment The degree to which a customer is committed to a given brand in that they are likely to re-purchase/re-use in the future. The level of commitment indicates the degree to which a brand's customer franchise is protected from competitors. Brand Earnings The share of a brand-owning business's cash flow that can be attributed to the brand alone. Brand Equity The sum of all distinguishing qualities of a brand, drawn from all relevant stakeholders, that result in personal commitment to and demand for the brand; these differentiating thoughts and feelings make the brand valued and valuable. Brand Equity Protection Is the implementation of strategies to reduce risk and liability from the effects attributable to counterfeiting, diversion, tampering and theft so that the differentiating thoughts and

P a g e | 60 feelings about the brand are maintained and remain valued and valuable. Brand Essence The brand's promise expressed in the simplest, most single-minded terms. For example, Volvo = safety; AA = Fourth Emergency Service. The most powerful brand essences are rooted in a fundamental customer need. Brand Experience The means by which a brand is created in the mind of a stakeholder. Some experiences are controlled such as retail environments, advertising, products/services, websites, etc. Some are uncontrolled like journalistic comment and word of mouth. Strong brands arise from consistent experiences, which combine to form a clear, differentiated overall brand experience. Brand Extension Leveraging the values of the brand to take the brand into new markets/sectors. Brand Harmonisation Ensuring that all products in a particular brand range have a consistent name, visual identity and, ideally, positioning across a number of geographic or product/service markets. Brand Identity The outward expression of the brand, including its name and visual appearance. The brand's identity is its fundamental means of consumer recognition and symbolizes the brand's differentiation from competitors. Brand Image The customer's net "out-take" from the brand. For users this is based on practical experience of the product or service concerned (informed impressions) and how well this meets expectations; for non-users it is based almost entirely upon uninformed impressions, attitudes and beliefs. Brand Licensing The leasing by a brand owner of the use of a brand to another company. Usually a licensing fee or royalty rate will be agreed for the use of the brand. Brand Management Practically this involves managing the tangible and intangible aspects of the brand. For product brands, the tangibles are the product itself, the packaging, the price, etc. For service brands (see Service Brands), the tangibles are to do with the customer experience - the retail environment, interface with salespeople, overall satisfaction, etc. For product, service and corporate brands, the intangibles are the same and refer to the emotional connections derived as a result of experience, identity, communication and people. Intangibles are therefore managed via the manipulation of identity, communication and people skills. Brand Mission See Brand Platform. Brand Parity A measure of how similar or different, different brands in the same category are perceived to be. Brand parity varies widely from one category to another. It is high for petrol, for example: about 80% of respondents (BBDO survey) see no real difference between brands. By contrast, brand parity for cars is low: only about 25% of respondents say that one make is much the same as another. Brand Personality The attribution of human personality traits (seriousness, warmth, imagination, etc.) to a brand as a way to achieve differentiation. Usually done through long-term above-the-line

P a g e | 61 advertising and appropriate packaging and graphics. These traits inform brand behaviour through both prepared communication/packaging, etc., and through the people who represent the brand - its employees. Brand Platform The Brand Platform consists of the following elements: Brand Vision The brand's guiding insight into its world. Brand Mission How the brand will act on its insight. Brand Values The code by which the brand lives. The brand values act as a benchmark to measure behaviors and performance. Brand Personality The brand's personality traits (See also definition for Brand Personality). Brand Tone of Voice How the brand speaks to its audiences. Brand Positioning The distinctive position that a brand adopts in its competitive environment to ensure that individuals in its target market can tell the brand apart from others. Positioning involves the careful manipulation of every element of the marketing mix. Brand Strategy A plan for the systematic development of a brand to enable it to meet its agreed objectives. The strategy should be rooted in the brand's vision and driven by the principles of differentiation and sustained consumer appeal. The brand strategy should influence the total operation of a business to ensure consistent brand behaviours and brand experiences. Brand Tone of Voice See Brand Platform. Brand Valuation The process of identifying and measuring the economic benefit - brand value - that derives from brand ownership. Brand Values The code by which the brand lives. The brand values act as a benchmark to measure behaviours and performance. (See also Brand Platform.) Brand Vision See Brand Platform. Branding Selecting and blending tangible and intangible attributes to differentiate the product, service or corporation in an attractive, meaningful and compelling way.

Co-branding The use of two or more brand names in support of a new product, service or venture. Consumer Product Goods (consumer goods) or services (consumer services) purchased for private use or for other members of the household. Core Competencies Relates to a company's particular areas of skill and competence that best contribute to its ability to compete. Corporate Identity At a minimum, is used to refer to the visual identity of a corporation (its logo,

P a g e | 62 signage, etc.), but usually taken to mean an organization's presentation to its stakeholders and the means by which it differentiates itself from other organizations. Counterfeiting When an organization or individual produces a product that looks like a branded product and is packaged and presented in a manner to deceive the purchaser. Country of Origin The country from which a given product comes. Customers' attitudes to a product and their willingness to buy it tend to be heavily influenced by what they associate with the place where it was designed and manufactured. Customer Characteristics All distinguishing, distinctive, typical or peculiar characteristics and circumstances or customers that can be used in market segmentation to tell one group of customers from another. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tracking customer behaviour for the purpose of developing marketing and relationship building processes that bond the consumer to the brand. Developing software or systems to provide one-to-one customer service and personal contact between the company and the customer. Customer Service The way in which the brand meets its customers' needs via its various different channels (for example, over the telephone or Internet in the case of remote banking, or in person in the case of retail or entertainment).

Demographics The description of outward traits that characterize a group of people, such as age, sex, nationality, marital status, education, occupation or income. Decisions on market segmentation are often based on demographic data. Differential Product Advantage A feature of a product that is valuable to customers and is not found in other products of the same category. Differentiation Creation or demonstration of unique characteristics in a company's products or brands compared to those of its competitors. Differentiator Any tangible or intangible characteristic that can be used to distinguish a product or a company from other products and companies. Diversion When genuine product is sold to a buyer in one market/channel and then resold by the same buyer into another market/channel, without the consent or authority of the brand owner, to take advantage of a price arbitrage situation. Definition also applies to parallel trade, gray market or gray market activities.

P a g e | 63

Endorsed brand (See Brand Architecture.) Generally a product or service brand name that is supported by a master brand - either dominantly e.g. Tesco Metro or lightly e.g. Nestle Kit-Kat.

FMCG Fast moving consumer goods. An expression used to describe frequently purchased consumer items, such as foods, cleaning products and toiletries. Focus Group A qualitative research technique in which a group of about eight people is invited to a neutral venue to discuss a given subject, for example hand-held power tools. The principle is the same as an in-depth interview, except that group dynamics help to make the discussion livelier and more wide-ranging. Qualitative groups enable the researcher to probe deeper into specific areas of interest (for example, the nature of commitment to a brand). The result adds richer texture to the understanding of broader data (for example, quantitative), which may paint general trends or observations. Also known as a group discussion. Freestanding Brand (See Brand Architecture.) A brand name and identity used for a single product or service in a portfolio, which is unrelated to the names and identities of other products in the company's portfolio. Functionality What a product does for the buyer and user; the utility it offers the user; what he or she can do with it.

Goods A product consisting predominantly of tangible values. Almost all goods, however, have intangible values to a greater or lesser extent. Group Discussion See Focus Group.

P a g e | 64

High Technology (high tech) A term with vague and far-reaching meaning. This covers electronics, data technology, telecommunications, medical technology and biochemistry. In order to be classed as a high tech company, one definition is that at least 35 percent of staff should have a technical qualification, and at least 15 percent of sales should be used for R&D. Another definition states that the company must employ twice as many scientists and engineers and invest twice as much in R&D as the average of all manufacturing companies in the country.

Intangibles "Intangible" - incapable of being touched. (1) Intangible assets - trademarks, copyrights, patents, design rights, proprietary expertise, databases, etc. (2) Intangible brand attributes - brand names, logos, graphics, colors, shapes and smells. (See Service Brand.)

Launch The initial marketing of a new product in a particular market. The way in which the launch is carried out greatly affects the product's profitability throughout its lifecycle.

Market Leader A company that has achieved a dominant position either in scale (e.g., British Airways) or influence (e.g., Virgin) - within its field. This leading position often comes about because the company was the first to market a certain type of product and, with the protection of a patent, has managed to consolidate its position before direct competition was possible. Alternatively, a company may overtake a previous market leader through greater efficiency and skilful positioning. Market Position A measure of the position of a company or product on a market. Defined as market share multiplied by share of mind. Market Segment A group of customers who (a) share the same needs and values, (b) can be expected to respond in much the same way to a company's offering, and (c) command enough purchasing power to be of strategic importance to the company.

P a g e | 65 Market Share A company's share of total sales of a given category of product on a given market. Can be expressed either in terms of volume (how many units sold) or value (the worth of units sold). Mass Marketing Simultaneous standardized marketing to a very large target market through mass media. Other names for this are market aggregation and undifferentiated marketing. Masterbrand A brand name that dominates all products or services in a range or across a business. Sometimes used with sub-brands, sometimes used with alpha or numeric signifiers. (See also Monolithic Brand.) Audi, Durex, Nescafe and Lego, for example, are all used as masterbrands. Monolithic Brand A single brand name that is used to "masterbrand" all products or services in a range. Individual products are nearly always identified by alpha or numeric signifiers. Companies like Mercedes and BMW favor such systems. Multibrand Strategy /Multiple Branding Marketing of two or more mutually competing products under different brand names by the same company. The motive may be that the company wishes to create internal competition to promote efficiency, or to differentiate its offering to different market segments, or to get maximum mileage out of established brands that it has acquired. When a company has achieved a dominant market share, multibrand strategy may be its only option for increasing sales still further without sacrificing profitability. For example, Lever Brothers sells washing powders under the Persil, Omo and Surf names; Cadbury sells chocolates under the Dairy Milk, Bournville and Fruit & Nut names; Heinz sells canned convenience foods under the Baked Beans, Spaghetti Hoops and Alphabetti Spaghetti names.

Names There are three basic categories of brand (or corporate) name: Descriptive name A name which describes the product or service for which it is intended, e.g., TALKING PAGES. Associative name A name which alludes to an aspect or benefit of the product or service, often by means of an original or striking image or idea, e.g., VISA. Freestanding name A name which has no link to the product or service but which might have meaning of its own, e.g., PENGUIN. The following are also helpful: Abstract name A name which is entirely invented and has no meaning of its own, e.g., ZENECA. Abstract names are a sub-set of freestanding names because they also have no link to the product of service. Coined name Any name which is in some way invented. Coined names can be descriptive (CO-CREATE), associative (IMATION) and freestanding/abstract (ZENECA). Niche Marketing Marketing adapted to the needs, wishes and expectations of small, precisely defined groups of individuals. A form of market segmentation, but aimed at very small segments. Niche

P a g e | 66 marketing characteristically uses selective media.

OEM market OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturers. The OEM market consists of companies that use another company's product as a component in their own production. A manufacturer of ball bearings, for example, sells both to OEM customers who build the bearings into machines, and to end users who need the bearings as spare parts for machines that they have bought from the OEMs. Most manufacturing companies thus have an OEM market and a replacement market. The latter is usually called the MRO market or aftermarket. Offering What a company offers for sale to customers. An offering includes the product and its design, features, quality, packaging, distribution, etc., together with associated services such as financing, warranties and installation. The name and brand of the product are also part of the offering.

Packaging Design The design of the pack format and graphics for a product brand. Parent Brand A brand that acts as an endorsement to one or more sub-brands within a range. Passing Off The name given to a legal action brought to protect the "reputation" of a particular trademark/brand/get up. In essence, the action is designed to prevent others from trading on the reputation/goodwill of an existing trademark/brand/get up. The action is only available in those countries that recognize unregistered trademark rights (for example the UK and US). In some countries, it is called "unfair competition action." Perceptual Mapping Graphic Analysis and presentation of where actual and potential customers place a product or supplier in relation to other products and suppliers. Most perceptual maps show only two dimensions at a time, for example price on one axis and quality on the other. There also are methods of graphically analyzing and presenting measurement data in three or more dimensions. Positioning Statement A written description of the position that a company wishes itself, its product or its brand to occupy in the minds of a defined target audience. Power Branding A strategy in which every product in a company's range has its own brand name which functions independently, unsupported by either the company's corporate brand or its other product brands. Power branding is a resource-intensive strategy, since each brand must be commercially promoted and legally protected. This strategy is used mainly by manufacturers of consumer goods. Lever's and Procter & Gamble's detergents are good examples of power brands. Product Brand A brand which is synonymous with a particular product offering, for example, Cheerios.

P a g e | 67

Rebrand When a brand owner revisits the brand with the purpose of updating or revising based on internal or external circumstances. Rebranding is often necessary after an M&A or if the brand has outgrown its identity/marketplace. Relative Market Share Your own company's market share compared to those of your competitors. A large share confers advantages of scale in product development, manufacturing and marketing. It also puts you in a stronger position in the minds of customers, which has a positive influence on pricing. Relaunch Reintroducing a product into a specific market. The term implies that the company has previously marketed the product but stopped marketing it. A relaunched product has usually undergone one or more changes. It may, for example, be technically modified, rebranded, distributed through different channels or repositioned. Repositioning Communications activities to give an existing product a new position in customers' minds and so expanding or otherwise altering its potential market. Many potentially valuable products lead an obscure existence because they were launched or positioned in an inadequate manner. It is almost always possible to enhance the value of such products by repositioning them. Rollout The process by which a company introduces a new product or service to different geographical markets or consumer segments.

Selective Media Media that, unlike mass media, reach only small and identifiable groups of people, for example, members of a particular profession or industry or other groups defined by geographic, demographic or psychographic data (otherwise known as targeted media). Service Brand A product consisting predominantly of intangible values. "A service is something that you can buy and sell, but not drop on your foot" (The Economist). In this sense, a service is something that you do for somebody, or a promise that you make to them. Share of Mind There are many definitions of share of mind. At its most precise, share of mind measures how often consumers think about a particular brand as a percentage of all the times they think about all the brands in its category. More loosely, share of mind can be defined simply as positive perceptions of the brand obtained by market research. Whereas market share measures the width of a company's market position, share of mind can be said to measure its depth. Share of Voice The media spending of a particular brand when compared to others in its category. Sub-brand A product or service brand that had its own name and visual identity to differentiate it from the parent brand.

P a g e | 68

Tangibles "Tangible" - capable of being touched. (1) Tangible assets - manufacturing plant, bricks and mortar, cash, investments, etc. (2) Tangible brand attributes - the product and its packaging. (3) Tangible brand values - useful qualities of the brand known to exist through experience and knowledge. Target Market The market segment or group of customers that a company has decided to serve, and at which it consequently aims its marketing activities. Top-of-Mind What is present in the uppermost level of consciousness; the manufacturer or brand that people in market surveys name first when asked to list products in a specific category. Top-of-mind is the highest degree of share of mind. To attain that position, a company normally needs to have a large share of voice in its category. Trademark "Any sign capable of being represented graphically which is capable of distinguishing goods or services of one undertaking from those of another undertaking" (UK Trade Marks Act 1994). Trademark Infringement A trademark registration is infringed by the unauthorized use of the registered trademark, or of one that is confusingly similar to it, on the registered goods or services, or in certain circumstances on similar or dissimilar goods and services. Trendsetter Someone or thing that breaks a traditional mold or routine and gains a following because of it. iMac is an example of trendsetting in design as now office supplies come in the familiar colors and translucent packaging of an iMac.

User Segmentation Division of potential customers into market segments according to how and for what purpose they use a product. Do they use it for cleaning their teeth or for making cakes (baking powder)? For oiling their hair or for frying food? (True story concerning use of Brylcreem in Nigeria). As a decongestant chest rub or as an aphrodisiac? (True story concerning Ribby Rub in Caribbean).

Visual Identity What a brand looks like - including, among other things, its logo, typography, packaging and literature systems.

http://www.how-to-branding.com/CEO-and-Branding.html http://visual-branding.com/eight-outlines/rationale-of-visual-branding/ http://www.brandedservice.com/resource-center/downloads/toolbox-exercises/brand-dna http://vmhn.org/home/index.php?/What-knowledge-do-you-think-that-one-CEO-needs/the-costs-of-ceofailure.html

P a g e | 69

Addendum 1
ANALYSIS: Virgin Airline
Customer Questionnaire
1) How often do you travel by air internationally?

14 people travel internationally 1-2 times a year 10 people travel internationally3-4 times a year, and 6 people travel internationally more than 5 times a year.

2) What do you as a customer, look for in an airline? (Rate according to preference on a scale of 1-5, 5 being the best)

To analyze this question, we took the average amount of each criteria and made a comparison between question 2 and 3 showing the difference between what the customers expected out of an airline and what they got out of Virgin Atlantic.

Punctuality: Pricing: Entertainment: On Board Crew: Food: Security: Comfort: A different experience-:

4.7 3.9 4.3 4.6 4.2 4.4 4.7 4.0

The above mentioned parameters are an average rating given by the customers as to what they would look for in an airline.

P a g e | 70

3) Rate virgin on the above mentioned parameters?(on a scale of 1-5, 5 being the best)

Punctuality-------------4.8 Pricing------------------3.7 Entertainment---------4.7 On Board Crew--------4.4 Food--------------------3.5 Security-----------------4.2 Comfort-----------------4.2 A different experience-4.1

The above mentioned parameters are an average rating given by the customers after their experience at Virgin Atlantic. Below are the graphs which show the comparison between the customers expectations and what Virgin actually provides them.

PunctualityInferencePunctuality is the art of estimating how long the other is going to be late. It is one of the key performance indicators in the airline industry and an important service differentiator especially for valuable high-yield customers. Delays cause passengers to miss connecting flights, get late for meetings, and put them behind schedule. Hence, leading to customer dissatisfaction. That is where Virgin Atlantic steps in and lives up to its image of being very punctual.

In our survey, we asked customers what they would like to have from an airline, and what they actually received from Virgin Atlantic, and thus have made a graph showing on an average the comparison between the two. The customers have rated the punctuality of Virgin Atlantic a peg higher than what they expected from the airline industry.

We can see through this graph that Virgin Atlantic flights are very punctual and always fly as per schedule and on time, not disappointing their customers and living up to its needs and expectations.

P a g e | 71

PricingInferenceVirgin Atlantic provides a lot of additional onboard activities like massages, onboard bar etc, for which their pricing is comparatively a little higher as compared to other competing airlines. The company manager whom we interviewed also mentioned that virgin is an exclusive airline meant for the upper middle class. In our graph infers that there were a few passengers who didnt feel that the experience was that exceptional and therefore did not see any need to spend that extra bit on flying by Virgin Atlantic. Hence we infer from our survey that Virgin Atlantic has not lived up to its goal of being value for money according to some customers. Majority of the people we interviewed were people from the upper classes and they felt that the experience was worth the money.

EntertainmentInference: Virgin Atlantic has one of the best entertainment facilities on board where they play award winning music the latest movies and have an onboard bar. From our graph its seen that where entertainment is concerned virgin is a cut above the rest.

On-board crewInference: On board crew plays a very important role in creating an image about the airline. Most airlines advertise of having a very friendly crew; however in reality it is very different. Virgin Atlantic too advertises of its crew living up to its image of being high on life. As can be seen from the above graph, a few virgin customers were not happy with its on-board crew. Some of our customers also complained of arrogance, both by Virgin Atlantics on-board crew as well as its airport crew.

FoodInference: International flights are long and people expect good food. If virgins marketing campaign is carefully analyzed, one will notice that Virgin Atlantic never talks about its food. The company manager Mr.Kiran Yadri enlightened us about the freedom menus i.e. the passenger can order from a wide variety at whatever time he chooses to. In spite of this facility a few customers were unhappy about the food and rated it quite low.

P a g e | 72

SecurityInference: Security is something that is not really thought of but it is always present in the subconscious mind of the passenger and it is always expected from the airline authorities.

Virgin Atlantic talks about having the latest Boeing aircrafts. However on the India route most of the aircrafts are outdated. Moreover the Customers of Virgin Atlantic expressed their disappointment about the baggage claim procedure and also the overall security procedure mainly at Heathrow Airport.

ComfortInference: Comfort plays a very important role, especially when one is expected to sit in the same place for hours at a stretch. Virgin advertises comfort. Its ad campaigns talk about a flight from Bombay to London being paradise. However some customers were disappointed by the comfort in the aircraft. Some complained about the legroom in the economy class and also the upper class was disappointed with the seat pitch as they expected fully flat beds.

A different experienceInference: In todays competitive market what makes Virgin successful is that they do everything slightly different from the other airlines. The Virgin Atlantic Upper Class environment offers a departure from stereotypical aircraft interiors, setting new standards in aviation interior design with a refined definition of the available space. The interior consists of an impressive onboard bar, an innovative class-leading suite and an in-flight beautician's area. As with the new furniture, a key achievement of the design team was for the interior to offer an experience closer to that found in ground-base environments, such as in luxury lounges, hotels, restaurants and bars. The design language summarised by the phrase "an air of natural glamour" led the design, so the passenger experienced an interior that is effortlessly stylish and relaxed. Lighting is an essential element considered in the interior, and has been used to revitalize the entire space. A contemporary chandelier helps to define the bar area and further accentuates its glamorous atmosphere. A fully controllable mood lighting system blends through different scenes throughout the flight, with colours chosen to make passengers look and feel attractive and relaxed. All these facilities help in giving the customers a truly unique experience.

P a g e | 73

4)What is your opinion/perception/image/brand persona of Virgin Atlantic? Customer is always correct as the line goes, we all know that no company in the entire worlds can survive without its customers, they are most vital to every enterprise and so is the case for Virgin Atlantic where they try to pamper their customers as much as possible, and where each and every customer is taken care of in such a way that he doesnt go back unsatisfied. Their crews are specially given rigorous training in hospitality. Every staff member is expected to be on his/her best behavior.

From our survey we found out that some of the customers are quite satisfied with the entire experience of flying with Virgin Atlantic. They think so because they truly find the service to be worth the money they shell out. People are quite happy with the crew on board, the extra services, the food, the punctuality, the ambience on flight etc. Majority of the people think that the entire company is all made by a one-man army named Richard Branson. His entire personality is reflected in the companys behavior and persona. We have got quite a few responses that the First thing that comes to mind when customers hear about Virgin Atlantic is Richard Branson and his fun lifestyle. A few said that the entire flying is a joy, and that its very glamorous and vibrant. Here are a few comments we got: Party time Goes an extra mile to keep its customers happy The best, glamorous crew, fun and lively experience Fantastic limo service and upper class is efficient The company is a reflection is Mr. Bransons character. However, there were some customers who flew Virgin Atlantic only to fulfill their curiosity factor. There is a curiosity factor with everything connected with Virgin Atlantic; this includes the name of the airline. This is largely due to the fact that the owner of the airline, Sir Richard Branson gets involved in news breaking events from time to time.

Few customers felt that the hype created around the airline caused people to get disappointed after their travel, as their expectations were very high.

5. Has Virgin Atlantic lived up to its expectation?

P a g e | 74

Our Survey results revealed the following: -

While 60% of the respondents said that the airline was able to match their expectations, 23% said to an extent and 17% said no. This could be due to the following factors 1. The advertising hype that the airline had undertaken in Mumbai a month prior its operations from Mumbai. For a whole month there were regular full-page advertisements in Times of India and hoardings in prominent locations boasting of transporting people to Paradise on their way to their London. 2. The previous image of the brand which is closely associated with Richard Branson i.e. an image of fun, celebration, exclusive, high quality, unique etc. Hence peoples curiosity and expectations were high as their imagination to take them, causing a let down effect in some. 3. They expected a different experience. Word-of-mouth information from previous Virgin passengers made the Indian travelers believe that they would experience something exceptional, which did not happen. If the goal is to get customers to think different about a brand they have to experience it differently and they have to notice a difference. There were instances where passengers, especially the conservative passengers, found the informal attitude of the cabin crew which is intended to be different, to be intimidating. 4. Pricing: Virgin is priced higher than the competing carriers on the London route. As per our observation the Indian traveler is willing to pay a higher price, as a unique experience is high on their priority list especially since most of the carriers have a uniform offering. Having paid the price they felt let down and cheated. As we all know, a brand is nothing more or less than the peoples perception of the product or company. The closer the perception is to what the company intends them to be, the stronger the brand. Most importantly, perception is the only reality.

From this it can be assumed that the brand of Virgin is so strong that even the people who said that their expectations were met were probably too intimidated by the image of the brand, to say otherwise.

However, some passengers were clearly ambassadors for the Virgin brand. They were highly impressed with the friendly cabin crew, in flight entertainment, informal, fun and vibrant ambience, onboard additional services like the massages, which was found to be very convenient and relaxing. On board, the passengers, especially the premium class passengers, felt truly pampered. Also the limousine service for business class passengers

P a g e | 75

was found to be useful and safe particularly since the flight landed into London in the night.

6. If no, then what suggestions would you offer?

The people who were disappointed mainly suggested that Virgin Atlantic should tone down the advertising hype to reduce the gap between expectations and delivery. It was a situation of anticipation of being better than the real thing. Virgin Atlantic has a very distinct and strong brand identity and appeal. The hype is so high that any element that dint live up to being exceptional caused a negative impact, which on another airline may have passed off as a routine. Although the Indian customers nowadays with an increase in disposable income is willing to spend for a good product and unique experience, but he needs to get value for that amount. There were a few customers who felt that the experience was not as unique as projected by the airline, they felt that because of their over expectations due to all the hype created about virgin they were let down. Also the advertisements gave an impression of a flat bed in business class which was not so. They also suggested that Virgin Atlantic should have a new aircraft on the India route because Indian customers today have a lot of choice and have been exposed to the latest aircrafts of other airlines.

7. If Virgin Atlantic airways materializes like a person, how would it be?

The survey response from both the customer and non customer groups was similar. Most of them felt that if Virgin Atlantic were to appear in flesh and blood it would look like Richard Branson in terms of having his personality traits such as being creative, bold, carefree and without any boundaries, aspiring to be the best. Some people also gave comments likeIt would be a Rock star Youthful and energetic Page 3 celebrity Friendly but professional Glamorous, dynamic and flamboyant, standing out from the rest Fun and rebellious Some people identified it with Indian stars like Shahrukh Khan,Preity Zinta,Mallika Sherawat who are celebrities who are famous, bold ,fun and with no barriers at all and most of all they were common people who made it big because they stood out from the rest.

This merely goes to say that Richard Branson as a brand has got so deeply meshed into the

P a g e | 76

Virgin Atlantic as a product that people immediately associate him with it. Also, it suits Virgin Atlantic as they do not have to pay for this publicity. All the advertising campaign carries his face and the exploits that he undertakes such as the hot air balloon ride, sailing the Atlantic solo etc. Since he was being written about automatically the airline got publicity. He has begun to represent the common mans dream to reach for the skies. Most importantly, he represents a success story. Hence, people found it easy to identify and connect with the airline through him.

However, there were a few people who replied by saying that if Virgin Atlantic materialized as a person it would be like any other average person, red attired common man not afraid of being different.

8. Do u think there is a need for improvement in virgin? If yes, then how? In todays context of fierce competition in the Indian aviation sector, airlines operating to and from India have to ensure their product offering is top- of- the- line. This not only includes the service on- ground and on- board but also the type of equipment (aircraft). Todays well travelled Indian passenger is exposed to the latest aircrafts especially since airlines like Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Lufthansa, for whom India is a very lucrative market, fly modern, latest aircrafts on this route. On Virgin Atlantic on the India-London-India flights some passengers complained about

1. The seat pitch and leg room space in economy class.

2. The Business class passengers were disappointed that Virgin Atlantic did not have flat beds especially since the advertisements gave the impression that it was a lie flat product. Hence, they felt let down and disappointed as reality did mot match up to their expectations.

3. The aircrafts of Virgin Atlantic on the India route requiring refurbishment.

4. Flexible and better baggage facilities-the fun, casual image of the airline did not match the strict enforcement of baggage allowance. While most airlines permit excess baggage of 5 kgs per person, Virgin Atlantic charges for anything more than the 20 kgs officially permitted baggage allowance. Indians are not known to be light travelers hence flexibility in baggage allowances is assumed from an airline.

P a g e | 77

5. The fun and casual image also impacted virgin when they wanted to charge for any change in reservations.

6. Change in flight timings-While the Virgin Atlantic flight leaves Mumbai and arrives into Mumbai at a very convenient hour, passengers were not happy with the arrival time into London, viz. 2100hrs . It is a well know fact that most Indians are comfortable arriving into India at night hours; the same however, is not true when they land into a foreign land. Most Indians like arriving at their destination during daylight hours. The current schedule also impacts the connecting flights. In view of the fact that the flight arrives into London in the night it misses the connecting flight to New York and other important cities. Hence, people are forced to spend the night in London even when they not have any work/need to stay the night in London.

7. Unfriendly service at London Heathrow airport-Again this caused a mismatch between the preconceived notion that the passenger has about the airline via what they observed at the customer service counter at Heathrow leading to disappointment.

Hence, while the first time traveler of Virgin Atlantic is very excited, the second time the above constraints cause him/her to be in two minds.

As mentioned above nowadays there are more airlines operating in the Indian skies than ever before. Not very long ago, a few airlines ruled due to protective aviation rules prevailing in the country. The consumer was almost sort of panting for the next innovation, the next new product offering, the next breakthrough in airline technology. Now they're not. There are more airline seats(supply) than consumers(demand), and therefore airlines have to have some kind of different way of selling themselves and also make sure hey are of the best quality.

P a g e | 78

non- Customer Questionnaire

1. How often do you travel by air internationally?

17 people travel internationally once a year. 13 people travel internationally 2-3 times a year. 5 people travel 3-4 times a year, and 5 people travel more than 4 times in a year.

2. What do you as a customer, look for in an airline? (Rate according to preference)(On a scale of 1-5, 5 being the best) Here, we have taken an average amount of each criteria and displayed all the criterias together in one graph. Punctuality---------------4.6 Pricing--------------------4.4 Entertainment-----------3.75 On-board crew-----------4.12 Food-----------------------4.2 Security-------------------4.2 Comfort-------------------4.45 A different experience---3.47

4. What is your perception/opinion/brand persona of virgin?

Most of the airlines in the world have the knack of projecting themselves as formal and business oriented. The whole airline industry is something that people think is very elite and sophisticated in a very corporate way. The airport itself means that its not a place where one can do something informal and fun. The entire idea of the air industry is formal.

This is where Virgin Atlantic is unique and different in its own way.

Virgin Atlantic has always portrayed itself as a pleasurable and lively experience. Its mass appeal is basically of an airline industry where people are rich and sophisticated. The entire

P a g e | 79

feel given to the airline is lively, informal and entertaining. If u see anything that is a virgin product is always given flashy colors like red etc. This makes even a non-customer think that it is something young energetic sand vivacious. The whole feeling is of something young, energetic, vibrant and sophisticated. Virgin Atlantic has succeeded in building an image, which has made people to believe that flying is a fun experience with this airline. A very strong image that has been created in the minds of the people is also that the aircrew consists of very pretty ladies and handsome young men. The crew itself is making such an impact on the minds of the people.

This whole perception is created in the minds of the people because of the publicity it attracts. The major impact is made because of Mr. Bransons partying ways and rich lifestyle. The other factors which lead to this idea are the on board crew, the colorful products, the entertainment on board, the extra facilities like the limousine service, massage on board, music and movies etc.

From the entire survey we found out that most of the non- customers think of virgin as an airline that is meant for the upper and elite class of the society. Most of them also think that it is a very customer friendly airline and takes good care to see that its customers are well satisfied. They also tend to think that this airline is expensive and doesnt live up to its expectation price wise. A few feel that the staff etc is arrogant and unfriendly, whereas some feel that they are extremely customer friendly. We also got a few comments like cool, professional, energetic, modern and customer friendly!, unconventional and naughty! , Fun, flirtatious, comfortable, advanced etc.

Hence, we see that basically, Virgin Atlantic has lived up to its image in the minds on the non-customers.

5. Rate the following mediums according to their importance in formation of your image about Virgin? Newspapers- Magazines- HoardingsInternet- Richard Bransons image/partiesWord of mouth from users-

We analyzed this question by giving points to each medium and thus have made a pie chart to show the result.

P a g e | 80

As we can see Richard Branson plays a very important role in the branding and creating awareness about Virgin Atlantic. In fact Alison Copus, Marketing Director, Virgin Atlantic Airways said: "We do not like to spend huge amounts on sales promotions. Instead, we just put our Chairman, not our money, where our mouth is." Even if that includes putting your Chairman (in Virgin's case, the colourful Richard Branson) on an elephant or posing with women dressed in samba attire or even getting him to throw a party at his mansion for 60,000 loyal customers and employees. "People like to identify with people. This strategy is also very useful in places where we are relatively new and unknown, such as India, where such promos help create news and excitement. It is the best way to announce that we are here," says Copus. "We have used the conventional promotions too, which were especially helpful in the post 9/11 and SARS scenario, which had thrown the airline industry into a recession. At that time, we ran promotions such as `I love NY' in which we gave away free tickets to New York as a confidence-building measure to assure that it is safe to fly to the city. Otherwise, we try to create awareness through products innovations such as in-flight massages, or four free limousine transfers with every business class ticket. 6. Do you think Virgin Atlantics Indian venture has been timely-appropriate?

Virgin Atlantic started its operations from Mumbai in March 2005. Majority of the people found Virgin Atlantics Indian venture most timely, as the route had previously been significantly under served. Also, British Airways operating on the London route had started adopting monopolistic attitude as they had no competition except for Air India who was no real threat to their business. Hence, a large number of passengers had been forced to travel to London through other Indian cities or through other countries, extending their journey time and making their travel inconvenient

7. If Virgin Atlantic materializes like a person, how would it be?

The inference for this question is same as the one for the customer questionnaire, as all the people have given similar opinions.

P a g e | 81

GAP ANALYSIS Virgin Atlantic tries to project a different unique experience, using the various innovative mediums given below, in their promotional material:-

1. The color the backdrop which is red, a color which represents being dynamic, daring and bold.

2. The text for example, Mumbai paradise to London- talking about giving passengers a heavenly experience.

3. Pictures of young, pretty looking hostesses girls-projecting glamour, glitter and fun and additional facilities such as the massages on board limo service, etc. which have really built up the curiosity of the customers. 4. Richard Branson plays a very important role in maintaining Virgin Atlantics image, through all the innovative marketing strategies that he uses. All the way throughout the surveying we found that there had to be a mention of Mr. Branson.

This just goes to show how powerful his persona actually is and that how he is an integral part of the entire perception of this company.

Majority of the customers that we interviewed enjoyed the experience of flying Virgin Atlantic. They thought it was a unique, unconventional and vibrant airline which went that extra mile to make passengers feel comfortable and truly made flying a fun experience. The upper class passengers thoroughly enjoyed the additional facilities on board which were very convenient.

However, there were some customers who flew Virgin Atlantic only to fulfill their curiosity factor. There is a curiosity factor with everything connected with Virgin Atlantic; this includes the name of the airline. This is largely due to the fact that the owner of the airline, Sir Richard Branson gets involved in news breaking events from time to time. Hence, for many first time users of Virgin Atlantic, it is the curiosity factor which drives the decision to travel on Virgin Atlantic, even if it means having to pay a little more than a competing carrier. To some extent, they think it is a different experience. Once the first trip is undertaken, the enthusiasm to travel again on the airline is reduced, as the curiosity factor is satisfied. Few customers felt that the hype created around the airline caused people to get disappointed after their travel, as their expectations were very high. Its ad campaigns talk about a flight from Bombay to

P a g e | 82

London being paradise. Howe ever a few passengers did not find anything unique or exceptional about their experience, they in fact found Virgin Atlantic facilities like their seats, the on board crew, the ambience, entertainment like any other airline. It was a situation of anticipation of being better than the real thing. Therefore few customers opinion about the airline was that it is average and not drastically different from any other international carrier.

Most of the non customers go with the strong brand of Virgin Atlantic, which is mainly because of Sir Richard Branson. The non customers, who we interviewed included students, frequent flyers, travel agents and also some common people, were aware of Virgin Atlantic and its image that it portrayed of being different and fun-loving. Their reflection of the airline too was similar to what the company is trying to project of their airline. Especially leisure travelers think that it is definitely an airline which one must fly as it is an enjoyable airline to experience. They think it is different, energetic, innovative, customer friendly, value for money, stylish, flashy, elite, and flirtatious.

Hence, by this we conclude that there is a slight gap between what Virgin Atlantic projects about its image and what the customers perceive about it. Based on our survey we have recommended a few suggestions, which are given under.

RECOMMENDATIONS

From the feedback received from our respondents we have following recommendations 1. On the product front-

a. Operate a better aircraft- The present aircraft on the India route is old and needs urgent refurbishment. Also, the business class should have better seats (lie flat like their arch rival British Airways) b. Since many people try the airline the first time due to the curiosity factor there is a possibility of them not returning as repeat clients. It is important they keep using innovative means to keep attracting new people and sustain their current passengers. The novelty of frills such as massages, on board bar etc can lose its magic. Also, this can be copied by competitors very easily. They will need to keep coming up with services that have a first runner advantage. Such as book your ticket to space in 2008

P a g e | 83

2. From the Advertising perspective-

a. All the promotional matter is too Richard Branson centric. Most people got to know about the airline through news associated with Richard Branson. Although this is a cost effective means, it could threaten the longevity of the product as the dependence for brand awareness on one person is too high. They should concentrate more on the product offering of the airline.

b. Reduce the hype-The hype about the Virgin experience is so high that many people were disappointed at the end of their journey. It became a matter of Anticipation being better than the Real thing.

3. On the people front-

While the airline was projected as a fun and friendly airline, the ground staff at London Heathrow airport came through as very stiff, unfriendly, unapproachable and rule bound. In the service industry, it is a well known fact that customer service plays a very important role and very often customers first interaction with the airline starts at the airport. It is important that this element of their ground service is looked into.

P a g e | 84

The Best Practice Institutes (BPI) list of the 25 Top CEOs in the world. BPI examined its own subscriber data, Fortune and Global 1000 lists, and several other primary and secondary resources to identify the 25 Top CEOs. The CEOs were selected according to their tenure, company size, commitment and investment to positive organizational change, growth strategy, and earnings estimates under the leadership of the CEO.

A.G. Lafley (The Procter & Gamble Company) Andrea Jung (Avon Products, Inc.) Andrew Liveris (The Dow Chemical Company) Anne Mulcahy (Xerox Corporation) Arthur Levinson (Genentech, Inc.) Bill Sullivan (Agilent Technologies, Inc.) Bill Weldon (Johnson & Johnson) Bob Nardelli (The Home Depot, Inc.) Brad Anderson (Best Buy Co., Inc.) Dick Kovacevich (Wells Fargo & Company) Fred Smith (FedEx Corporation) J.P. Garnier (GlaxoSmithKline) Jeff Immelt (General Electric Company) Jim Donald (Starbucks Corporation) Jim Skinner (McDonald's Corporation) John Chambers (Cisco Systems, Inc.) Ken Lewis (Bank of America Corporation) Kevin Rollins (Dell Incorporated) Meg Whitman (eBay, Inc.) Michel Tilmant (ING Group) Pat Russo (Lucent Technology) Paul Otellini (Intel Corporation) Paul Pressler (Gap Inc.) Robert Ulrich (Target Corporation) Wendell Weeks (Corning Incorporated)

P a g e | 85

The Global Brand CEO - Starbucks and Dove

Building global marketing capability to accelerate brand growth

A Starbucks cappuccino is the same around the world, yet baristas from Singapore to Stuttgart ensure that the brand experience is an intensely personal one for local customers. Similarly, Doves breakthrough Real Beauty campaign, which challenged traditional beauty stereotypes while showing real women in their underwear, has been a success in more than 30 countries.

Despite intensifying local and global competition, Starbucks, Dove and many other leading global brands have seen sales grow steadily as a result of their ability to create one global voice and make that voice relevant to the local consumer.

Over the last seven years, EffectiveBrands has studied over 50 global brands closely and found that success is directly pegged to an important quality of the leaders of these brands: approaching work with the mindset of a Global Brand CEO. Instead of just focusing on developing effective global marketing mixes for their brands, the most successful marketing leaders also focus on building a global marketing capability for their organizations.

People like Karin Koonings, vp of marketing at Starbucks Coffee International, and Silvia Lagnado, former global brand VP at Dove, helped create long-term success for their brands,

P a g e | 86

much as a good CEO creates continuity for a successful company. So, regardless of their actual titles, companies in search of global brand growth must put in place and support the efforts of a new breed of global brand leaders, the Global Brand CEOs.

GETTING GLOBAL MARKETING RIGHT

Grooming Global Brand CEOs like Koonings and Lagnado is crucial, as globalization has become arguably the most important marketing priority of the 21st century. The challenge for both the organization and brand leader is that the marketing qualities that led to the global job are not what determine success in the new role.

Our experience is that new global brand leaders are typically quite comfortable developing the what of global marketing: insights, innovation and communication. We found that what keeps many global brand leaders awake at night is the new challenge of global leverage the how of global marketing: developing a single global brand strategy, enabling marketing team alignment, improving speed to market and building brand expertise across geographies. Its about leveraging global economies of scale and competition-mandated cost-efficiencies, satisfying consumers increasing demand for customized products and services, and satisfying local marketing and talent needs. The reward for solving this equation is substantial and sustainable growth for global brandsduring the years that Lagnado led Dove, the brand almost doubled in global sales.

GLOBAL MARKETING CHALLENGES

Our experience is that the leaders of global brands often face very similar challenges as they work to increase global leveragenot the least of which is the ability to protect the universal truths that define their brand broad global consumer resonance. Another significant challenge is internal alignment around the brands mission and objectives. Interestingly, we often find that both local and global marketers are right about what will drive success for the brand, and that most disagreements can be explained by bad communication, and differences in vantage points and time horizons.

Even with the brand mission and brand strategy agreed upon, there is often a lack of alignment on what priority projects will best enable the brand objectives. Uncoordinated resources and secret regional projects go hand in hand with insufficiently resourced global

P a g e | 87

projects and strike at the heart of the brands global competitiveness. The results are often subpar global innovation and increased market research costs as global marketers find local marketing colleagues checking that the global mix will actually deliver in their countries. Even more importantly, this often leads to unproductive behaviors that quickly spiral downward into a lack of willingness to focus sufficient resources on global projects.

But the biggest underlying challenge to address is often a lack of real trust, and interdependence between the local and global marketing teams. Local marketers often feel misunderstood and even disenfranchised by global marketers, who may be perceived as lacking understanding of the local market reality and having no accountability for actually landing initiatives in real markets.

BUILDING GLOBAL MARKETING CAPABILITY

Global Brand CEOs understand this dynamic instinctively and make it their job to evolve the organization from the traditional product, functional or geography-based orientation to one that builds sustainable growth by focusing on building the mindsets, behaviors and enablers required for success. We call this building global marketing capability. The EffectiveBrands Global Marketing Capability Program was developed as a framework for successful global brand leadership. The Program promotes global brand success by encouraging leaders to focus on the mindsets, behaviors and enablers that accelerate global marketing effectiveness: Connect, Inspire, Focus, Organize and Build.

CONNECT: Building interdependence

Succeeding globally means that it is crucial to ensure that all players share a common understanding of the market realities at local and global levels. Connecting is about building understanding, trust and interdependence. Local teams want to know that their markets success is what drives the global teams work and global teams want to see that looking for similarities, rather than differences, is the prevailing mindset among local teams. When Koonings first joined Starbucks international marketing team, she found that the teams internal clientslocal marketers around the worldwere largely unimpressed by the

P a g e | 88

teams previous efforts to support the markets. It was felt that the U.S.-based internal marketing team lacked understanding of what was happening outside the United States. Koonings therefore made it her first order of business to connect personally with regional and local teams to listen and determine firsthand their challenges and opportunities. She then briefed her teams to better connect with international markets via regular personal visits, telephone calls and new functional forums at corporate and in regions to offer strategic planning as often as possible.

Koonings also initiated an annual online global brand benchmark: a quantitative survey reaching out to all global and local marketers to understand how better global alignment could lead to better results in market.

Koonings took connecting disparate markets a step further by promoting rotational assignments among employee partners, offering them the chance to rotate to other markets. Such connection is crucially important since Starbucks, which opened its first location outside of the United States in 1996, now operates in over 40 countries and is projected to double the number of international stores within just a few years.

Lagnado likewise faced massive challenges in trying to connect long-autonomous local marketing directors from each region when she became the global lead for Dove in 2001. Dove was Unilevers first brand ever to be assigned a dedicated global brand team. In the end, she initiated the successful alignment of some 600 Unilever marketers and their ad agency counterparts behind the single, focused Real Beauty strategy by creating a Dove Board, a team that included five marketers from each of the brands key regions, and by institutionalizing the regular updates between the global and local teams with the creation of Top 10 Market Summits.

INSPIRE: Energize passion around the brand

At EffectiveBrands, we have found that behind every successful global brand is the gem of a universal insight that not only attracts consumers but also has the power to inspire all who work with the brand. Over time, these truths can become lost or hidden through too many marketers or positioning consultancies wanting to make their mark by changing something. It often takes a significant peeling-of-the-onion exercise and strong leadership focus to get back to a simple formulation that is understood in all languages and hits the universal sweet spot.

P a g e | 89

Successful leaders of global brands instinctively understand the importance of energizing passion for the brand internally and go out of their way to ensure that it powers the growth of the brand. Doves Campaign for Real Beauty did just that. Research unearthed that only 2 percent of women in the world felt comfortable saying they were beautiful, and that even young girls felt fat. From that insight, Lagnado and her team derived the importance of building womens self-esteem, seeing it as their mission to forge a stronger emotional bond between its brand and women around the world. The simple concept was a surefire hit, inspiring and rallying not just consumers but also all Dove marketers around the globe, many of whom are women or have mothers, sisters or daughters. But it wasnt only the message. It was the way the message was communicated that helped Lagnado to mobilize the organization globally with conferences, web chats, newsletters and personal interactions. She was careful not to be perceived as selling her vision for the brand too much - instead employing what we call Global Brand Servant Leadership: combining a genuine in-depth focus on key markets and concern for addressing those local marketers needs with very clear communication of the non-negotiable global brand direction. Lagnado made it her job to elicit feedback early on and create an atmosphere where local and global marketers were both challenged and celebrated for applying their expertise and ensure successful program development and delivery.

FOCUS: Set global brand priorities that win big

Vigilant focus and commitment to an agreed-upon set of global brand priorities are crucial to the success of the global brand. Inconsistency often leads to lower quality and higher costs and global initiatives lacking the boldness and quality required for success.

For Dove, focusing the global brand team meant ruthlessly consolidating five regionally distinct brand plans into a one-page global brand strategy document to create clarity around its brand vision, mission and strategy. The Dove One-Pager, which has become something of a legend at Unilever, defines what everyone now working on Dove lives and breathes. Lagnado also dramatically reduced the number of innovation projects globally from 400 to fewer than 20 to ensure that adequate resourcing for success was in place.

Likewise, to stay focused on the global message, Starbucks consolidated the multitude of regional initiatives into a single international promotion calendar. Developed by the

P a g e | 90

international team in conjunction with regional support teams, this calendar agenda is rolled out and implemented by local marketing teams across the globe. Such continuity has helped Starbucks fulfill its brand promise of exceptional customer service and fuel its explosive international growth.

ORGANIZE: Clarify and enforce roles and responsibilities

The biggest pitfall that the companies we have studied struggle with is the failure to clarify roles and responsibilities early on. Many global brand organizations get stuck in a consensus-driven culture and lack the courage to give full decision-making responsibility to only those accountable. Defining the operating model and roles on key decisions is important, but enforcing the model and required behaviors is even more important. If behaviors inconsistent with the new operating model are tolerated, particularly among leaders, this will cause significant delay and frustration.

When Lagnado started her job, Dove had held quarterly global brand team meetings where 30 people would get together to exchange ideas, but no decisions were made. Creating an empowered Dove Board of seven that took global responsibility for one Dove strategy was the turning point for the brands success. This included giving global responsibilities for global decisions like advertising development to regional brand leaders. The work was divided up among the board members, but the full alignment amongst members ensured that there was just one voice on any topic.

In the case of Starbucks, Koonings brought all regional marketing leaders together for a twoday summit and facilitated explicit agreement on who was in the lead and who followed for all key brand decision-making processes. Although uncomfortable at first, the sessions created enormous transparency, trust and agreements on team behaviors moving forward.

Many global brands are transitioning innovation and communication development responsibilities away from the countries and into global brand teams. The consistency, cost and speed arguments for this are strong. Such a shift allows companies to decrease local staff levels and increase the focus on local market activation. Sadly, often far too little attention is given to recognizing the crucial importance of local marketers who are driving brand growth through the brands local activation programs.

P a g e | 91

Communicating the strategic importance of the refocused local marketing activation role, driving new marketing excellence programs to increase organizational capability in this area and celebrating the successes of activation leaders will ensure that global-local transitions happen more smoothly and that key local marketing talent is retained.

BUILD: Harvesting and leveraging brand expertise

Maintaining brand consistency over time, avoiding the reinvention of programs, and accelerating the rollout of successful brand programs globally make up some of the biggest challenges for a Global Brand CEO. Without these, the advantages of global leverage to drive competitive advantage against local and retailer brands are quickly lost. Global success is accelerated when a brands marketers everywhere speak one language, and are willing and equipped to quickly build on each others successes and mistakes. This requires the cultivation of a learning mindset with marketers willing to share and listen, and can be achieved only if the brands leaders are setting the example, turning around limiting mindsets, rewarding the right behaviors and putting the enablers in place to make it happen smoothly.

Successful global brand leaders give high priority to educating anyone who touches the brand, and creating a platform for the harvesting and sharing of learning from those countries that got it rightor wrongallowing marketers in other countries to quickly learn from and apply the experience. To accelerate Starbucks continued global expansion, Koonings recognized that it would be crucial to have the tools in place to maintain the consistency of marketing programs around the world. She created a marketing excellence program called The Starbucks Learning Series to build marketing skills for local marketers and create an exchange platform for practical experience. Koonings also launched a monthly Spark internal newsletter to share best practices.

Similarly, the Dove Board worked very closely with the leader of Unilever marketing knowledge management to create the Dove Planet, a brand intranet that addresses all significant brand questions and shares in-depth experience, results and guidelines.

P a g e | 92

GET GOING GLOBAL

Going global is no longer a choice for most brands. Globalization is happening, and the most important question for global brand leaders today has become how to leverage scale and at the same time increase local competitiveness. Lagnado must have done something right: When archrival P&Gs CEO Jim Stengel, was asked to identify the competitor he most respected, he focused on the significant global growth of Dove and the Real Beauty campaign. Similarly, Starbucks international growth has pushed the company from 5,000 to over 12,000 stores worldwide in just under five years. We have been amazed by the global acceptance and visibility of our brand in all our international markets, says Howard Schultz, chairman and chief global strategist, on the companys website.

We believe Lagnado and Koonings are at the head of the pack of successful global brand leaders precisely because they focus on the building of global marketing capability. Their work has resulted in extraordinary international growth for their brands and clearly demonstrates the importance of adopting the mindset of a Global Brand CEO. Can you afford not to?