Comm branding PDF

Session 2 Introduction to Branding in the world of startups What do you expect in a brand? Direct identification - Product manufactured by X - Consistent experience - I know what to expect, decisions made easy - Name, term, sign symbol (combination of these) that identifies the mak...

Session 2 Introduction to Branding in the world of startups What do you expect in a brand? Direct identification - Product manufactured by X - Consistent experience - I know what to expect, decisions made easy - Name, term, sign symbol (combination of these) that identifies the maker or seller of product Identification with brand itself - Brand is about X - Brand is for people like me - Brand will make me feel sexy, successful, cool, rich, free… - Brands make you feel stuff → design + experience + advertising + other people’s opinions Startups need to create both identifications - I know who you are and what you offer - I know how you do things and i identify / love / want them A brand is essentially a big idea - Use - Aspire to - Love - Share - Be inspired with And in the case of startups brands are vital to stand out - There are many ways to deliver an idea What we have learnt so far - Your startup band must embody an idea - Idea must have emotional resonance to be memorable - The brand will help you stand out - The brand will shape everything you do → from the people you hire to the ads you put out to the products you sell or the type of music you hear in your hotline while you wait - Disruption What is branding viideo Session 4 Disruptive branding Authentic brands don’t emerge from marketing cubicles or advertising agencies. They emanate from everything the company does DISRUPTION → recognition + identification + opportunity Great brands → great experiences What we need to do: - Create brand at the beginning - The brand will shape the way think about your company - It will shape your products, services and customer experience - Everything will be on-brand and you will stand out and be memorable Brand elements - Name (if experience is right) - Logo (symbol of what we do what we are) - Tagline or slogan (few catchy words to describe what you offer) - Positioning statement (short statement that identifies unique value to your clients) - Set expectation in customer’s mind - Brand voice → not what we say but how you say it - there every time company speaks - The flow of brand and experience The brand connects / touches everything - Brand concept - Brand attributes - Customer journey - Products and services Building emotional connection - Your brand must speak to the hearts and emotions of your audiences - What are you passionate about? - What motivates you most in your work / life? - What are you most proud of? - What is your best characteristic? Understand your business and take advantage - Is there something your industry is doing wrong or not doing? - A customer need not satisfied? Feel the unique needs and expectations of your clients - Explore the audience that will buy from you - What do they want, how do they spend their time, what do they want from you? - What would surprise and delight them? Do the unexpected - Promote your competitive advantage in an unexpected way - Create buzz by doing something remarkable, in your offering or marketing - It will make you stand out in the minds of your potential clients and create free publicity if you do it right Be relevant and stay relevant - Knowledge of your sector and customer should provide you with an insight into what you can do to say close to what you can provide - Staying relevant is more important than ever - It is a continuous process Use humour - Learn to take yourself and your product highly - If you laugh at yourself, people will laugh with you and love you Breach the boundaries - Break the codes of your industry Session 6 Creating right brand experience and employee engagement What is brand experience - The positive, negative or neutral perceptions that an individual has of brand before, during and after being exposed to it or having interacted with it A brand is a promise → delivered It tells its customer what to expect when - They interact with it - They buy its products - They visit its spaces - They use its services - A brand sets expectations and success when it fulfils them Designing a brand experience You have to consider the components of what will be your brand experience anc combine them coherently - Brand idea - Business strategy - Brand touchpoints - Customer relations Brand touchpoints Be coherent in these four areas - Product and service - Behaviour - Environment - Systems Product and service - Interaction with your product or service if often what customers will associate with your brand - Be sure that they breathe your brand idea and do a good job delivering it Behaviours - Of your staff among themselves (in a shop, office…) - With customers, suppliers, colleagues - Before, during, after purchase - Your behaviour must reflect the set of values your brand represents Environment - Retail space, planes, trains, buses, lounges, museums… - The trend is that environments will provide sensory experiences and sales will be done online Systems - Make sure that your digital experience represents and reflects your brand - Use technology to deliver your promise → beauty, service, surprise, elegance… Lego brand engagement notes Employee engagement Brand ownership → employees living the band - Employees are crucial for the success of any brand - Brand shapes behaviour, so employees must feel ownership and loyalty to theirs - Making sure employees are deeply engaged with your values is crucial in a startup Brand engagement is a continual process - Making your employees live your brand is not an end in itself - It is a process - It must help employees in their jobs - It must be experiences as a tangible solution to their problems, not an additional activity Top 10 employee retention strategies video How do you engage your staff? - More than internal communication campaigns - It requires involving employees and their individual tasks - Engagement programme → the sum of different initiatives, long term, to achieve internal brand engagement - It is crucial to manage disruption → by avoiding it or creating it Effective employee engagement in 7 steps Be clear on the objectives - Know your challenges and which are brand-related - Be clear on what you want from the programme - Make the programme deliver tangible solutions to your employees - Horizontal mentality - Lack of bureaucracy - Quick-decision making Be flexible - This is not a rigid sequence of initiatives. Be ready to change - Three-day brand retreat? Online portal? - Keep rethinking your programme, update it, make it relevant Don’t overload your people - Establish priorities, don’t try to achieve everything at once - You will have time to address issues in order of urgency - Focus on the truly relevant and highly visible issues - Think long-term Get top management backing and presence - Shows people you mean it - Put your money where your mouth it - Lead by example - Become the personification of what your brand wants to mean Motivate - Participation in an engagement programme is usually “beyond” normal duties - Find ways to motivate participants → over-time pay, feeling of exclusivity, brand ambassadors - Tailor the incentives to your different types of employees Involve don’t only inform - Active participation results in higher involvement - Use interactive tools such as workshops, groups, digital forums… - Build-in feedback to every activity Think long-term - Powerful brands rebrand themselves every 7 - 10 years, that is your scope - People need to see it strategical, not tactical, for the company - People need to have the time to see the programme’s real benefits in their work - These benefits should be positive and measurable Session 7 Corporate storytelling and its elements Your company is your brand - Bigger companies can afford to differentiate between them and the products they sell - Startups ar brands, as much as their products - How do you “brand” your company? Consistency is key - The branding concepts we have seen (idea, values, personality…) - The corporate identity must be aligned with what the company sells and communicates Strong v. weak brands - High awareness - Strategic alignment - Clear message - Distinctive image - Loyal customers - Enthusiastic team - Consistent usage Corporate identity → the symbols and nomenclature an organisation uses to identity itself to people Corporate image → the global evaluation (comprises of a set of beliefs and feelings) a person has about an organisation (short term, variable) Corporate reputation → the values associated with the understanding of a company’s image (long term, stable) Corporate identity → what are the company’s distinct attributes? Corporate image → how is the company currently perceived? Corporate reputation → how is the company perceived over time? Corporate communication → what does the company communicate and to whom? Why building a corporate brand matters - Consumers now look beyond the products sold by companies - How do they treat their workers? - Are they responsible members of their communities? - Is their activity sustainable? - Do they pay their fair share of taxes$’ - All of this can affect your sales (positive or negative) Corporate brand equity - Your stakeholders (audiences) hold strong, favourable and unique perceptions about your brand - Your audiences will react more favourably to your communications - The corporate brand equity must align with your marketing objectives - Corporate brand exists in a bigger territory than their product brands Corporate storytelling What is it? - Presenting your brand identity and values to a wider public with the help of narrative techniques - Communication strategy that aims at engaging your audience to an imaginative universe that delivers information through stories - One of the most effective ways to represent a reality - If well done, it will trigger engagement Corporate story - A comprehensive narrative about your company - Include things like its origin, mission, what you value - No too long or complex - Everybody can understand it and remember it (if they care about you) - It helps you to internalise what your brand is about - Helps you in achieving consistency Basic elements of a good corporate story Relevant → important to company’s target audience Responsive → permits interaction between company and target audiences Realistic → focuses upon company’s unique characteristics Sustainable → satisfies needs and desires of target audiences whale meeting company objectives Formula for successful storytelling 1. Simple → like a fable. Revolves about a single situation and has a moral 2. Complete → whether it’s a 20 second video or a 2000 word article, your story needs a logical structure → beginning, middle and end 3. Moving → combine information and emotion. Your story could convey happiness, relief, joy, optimism… how would you like your clients and prospects to feel while listening to it? And how should they feel afterwards? 4. Genuine → reflect and highlight your corporate values as well as the value your clients get from using your products or service. Corporate storytelling is a promise - and you’ll have to keep your word 5. Relevant → if your narrative doesn’t resonate with your audience, it won’t cut through the noise Session 8 Putting together your communication strategy Communication strategy Direction of the organisation → tells you the activities you need to undertake to make your brand stronger among your audiences 2 key questions - How do i want to be seen by my audiences - What activities must i put in motion to prove the perception of each audience to where i want it Instructions 1. Process to follow → how to develop a communication strategy that works 2. Usual content → what do communication strategies normally consist of? 3. Practical → a model to put together and implement a communication strategy for your organisation 1. Developing a strategy that works Strategy = planned + emergent process - Pre-structured and planned annual programmes and campaigns - Reactive responses to issues and events that “emerge” Strategy = general direction, not a sum of tactics - Strategy is about the position and general direction of your company over a long period of time - Tactics help you achieve your strategy, but are not the strategy itself - Short term and part of a larger area Strategy = organisation + external environment - Long term choices must adapt to your organisation and must be feasible within its conditions - It must also take into account the company’s environment and deal with opportunities and threats that may arise Communication strategy is “frontier work” Brand and communication strategies need to be linked 2. Content of a communication strategy How is content developed - Rational - Company makes a superiority claim based on a distinctive advantage - Useful when competition cannot make the same claim - You have supporting information to make your claim - Symbolic - Company makes a claim based on a symbolic association - Useful when it is difficult to demonstrate superiority - You link yourself to moral attributes and capital to become legitimate - Emotional - Company makes reference to (positive) emotions to win your support and involvement - You need to be authentic and touch on the relevant emotions - Typically appeal to freedom, joy, community, nostalgia - Generic - Company makes a claim that any competitor could make - You only do this when you lead an industry or are the only player - Any improvement in sales will benefit you most as the leader - Pre-emptive - Company makes a generic-type claim but suggests they have superiority - By saying it first you stop competitors from saying the same thing - It is a clever way of taking a territory for yourself Planning and executing programmes and campaigns 1. Strategic intent - What is the current perception of your organisation / product / service in the minds of your audience? - Do you want to consolidate or change this perception - What do you want this audience to think? - What are your goals in terms of reputation? 2. Define communications objectives - Set specific communication objectives - They should be specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and timely - Develop different objectives per audience - What messages and style are best for each objective / audience 3. Identify and prioritise target audiences - Identify your most important stakeholders - Segment them in specific audience groups according to relevant criteria for your programme or campaign - Is there an order of priority? Who comes first / takes more budget? 4. Identify themed messages - What is your core message going to be? - What other messages will accompany the core one? - Do they need to have different versions per stakeholder? 5. Develop message styles - What message style is more appropriate to your objective or target audience? - Slogan? Pictures? A jingle - Don’t be afraid of using multiple styles if needed (rational for investors, emotional for consumers…) 6. Develop a media strategy - What media can best carry your message to your audience? - Be effective and be efficient with your budget limitations - Look at what the competition are doing (to imitate or to avoid) - Integrate online and offline seamlessly 7. Prepare the budget - Most of your budget is usually spent in media buying - Save money for production and evaluation - Be flexible, prepare to jump at opportunities if they arise - Sometimes you will have to work starting from this point Session 10 Launching your company Launch 1. Define your message 2. Define your audience 3. Define why it is relevant for them Launch has 3 phases - Pre launch - Launch - Post launch Pre launch Pick the right launch date - Link it to existing milestone or event to maximize impact - Could be a festival, an international day - Don’t lose energy if it lasts more than one day Align your internal audiences - Involve them in the launch to get them on board - Inform them regularly of new preparation milestones - Launch the brand to them first, one or 2 weeks before - Train everyone on the messages to convey Define your external audiences - Set up “persons” for each subgroup, it makes it easier - Build you launch play by audience, ensuring each get the right message in the right channel - Have a list of core messages and adapt them by audience - Business partners, resellers, clients, competitors, authorities, media, influencers, etc.. Put together a communications plan - Your launch is an opportunity to make a splash - Think of it as a blueprint for how you will be reaching each audience and when - Bring all the elements of the planning together in a document that everyone can use Choose the right channels to reach your audience - Small startups rarely resort to traditional media (tv, radio, print) - Social media is usually the chosen channel¨ - Beware ! you need to build up your followers first - Never underestimate the power of a creative PR stunt that you can “milk” in all the channels you use Launch Important things to remember - Launching is important, but never neglect pre and post launch - It is not the end of the process, rather the beginning - Live in a state of constant reinvention and improvement Build a PR toolkit - Press release → no longer than A4 one side, all the key facts, well structure to make media writing essay - Visual material → logo, pictures, and videos of product, storytelling, information graphics - Information hub → repository of information for background purposes: - Past releases, recorded interviews, photo collections, making of… Make your touchpoints perform - Product, shop, website, app… what will you have ready to show in your launch - Don’t stress about not having everything ready - Concentrate on the ones with biggest impact, the “quick wins” - Make sure everything is in place for the perfect impression Chose a significant date - Company anniversary - Shareholders or stagg meeting - Industry event or fair - Key dates for your sales cycle (start of summer, back to school, pre christmas, ski season) Post launch Check status again - See where you stand after launch and decide /adapt your further implementation plans - Create tools and channels to receive feedback and comments from your main stakeholders - Be clear on how to address feedback and solve any issues Ensure continuity - Often, you will spend almost all of your energy and resources in a big launching splash - Try to sustain communication over time and avoid falling into oblivion - Planning is key Measuring success - Disruptive potential of an idea is difficult to measure - Consider usefulness of measuring some attributes of your brand and how they are perceived  - Measure before and after to see progress - If brand is new, can measure awareness first and attribute perception over time Session 12 Creative briefing, media strategy, SEO Creative briefing process 1. You have a need - Low awareness or sales, launch coming up, a new competitor trying to take over your market - Requires a communication solution 2. Brief - Document with all the necessary information an agency needs to provide a communication solution to your problem 3. Agency selection - As a client, you get to chose the agency - Direct designation, competitive pitch 4. Handing of the brief - The selected agency receives the brief - It is a great opportunity for both parties to get to know each other and explain your needs in detail 5. Brief review - Agency makes questions, asks for clarification, even presents a version of what they understood and demand client ok for it 6. Analysis and strategy - Agency decides the strategic outline of the campaign → what they shall say, what will they support it with, how they justify it with research or insights 7. Central campaign idea - Strategic team at the agency will formulate the central idea around which campaign will be built 8. Creative brief - Internal agency document, written for their creative department, with the central campaign idea, other useful notes, deadlines, formats,etc… 9. Campaign presentation - Agency presents central campaign idea, creativity, media plan, budget, timing, etc… 10. Last changes and OK - Agency introduced changes and adjustments requested by client and the campaign receives its final sign off (OK) 11. Production and artwork - Creativity is filmed, recorded, photographed 12. Media buy - Media department or agency reserve the spaces contemplated in the media plan approved by the client 13. Campaign launch  - Campaign starts appearing in the approved date, as agreed with client 14. Follow up measurement - Agency and client make sure that the campaign appears as contracted and the agreed parameters are measured (GRPs, pressure, awareness, approval) 15. Results presentation - Campaign and post test results are presented with learnings and suggestions for future initiatives 16. Billing - As a last step in the process, the agency bills the client the agreed-upon sum (% of media buy, fees, etc) Types of agencies Full services - They offer a wide range of integrated services - Services can be offered by the agency or their group, even partners - Less hassle for you, as they offer one-stop solutions - Usually good in some aspect and average in the rest Specialists - Their services are limited to one specific communication area - Deeper and wider expertise in this area - You hire them if you are weak in that area of specialise in it - Creative boutiques, performance marketing, experiential marketing The brief - Key element of client agency relation - Clear - Short - Written for frequent consultation - Explained in person Brief structure → 6 steps 1. Situation → where are we? 2. Objectives → where do we want to be? 3. Actions → what have we done / will do to reach these objectives? 4. Target → who we are aiming our communication at? 5. Evaluation → what will we measure to know we succeeded ? 6. Practical aspects and sign off Situation → where we are - Current info about company / brand / product / competition / industry - Sales / market share / distribution / customer… Objectives → where do we want to be - What do you want? - Increase sales  - Create or change perception of brand - Increase penetration in one particular segment - Increase repeat purchases or brand loyalty - knowing objective will help agency to focus Actions → what have we done / will do to reach these objectives - Advertising, marketing initiatives done in the past or currently to reach these objectives - It allows the agency to follow-up on a previous campaign - It lets the agency avoid proposing stuff that has already been done - It saves everyone time and money Target → who are we aiming our communication at? - Essential so the right creative and media strategy can be chosen - Include information about - Social and demographic profile - Use and purchase patterns - Motivations → why do they buy? - Obstacles → why do they not buy? Evaluation → what will we measure? - You may have to order before and after research - Sales cannot be the only KPI (key performance indicator) - Other possible indicators you can measure - Strengthening of attributes in consumers minds - Awareness, campaign recall - Loyalty Practical aspect and sign off - Deadlines → start, finish, key milestone - Assigned budget - Approval processes → who approves what, by when, etc - Media requirements → what you can and cannot do - Legal indications, if applicable → medicine financial products Media strategy Media agencies - Companies who purchase advertising space - They do it on behalf of their clients - They work as wholesalers (buy in bulk, sell in portions at a profit) - They offer increasingly crucial services like consumer research, planning and creativity Why is a media agency worth it? 1. Purchasing power 2. Knowledge of the media landscape  3. Knowledge of the consumer 4. Execution muscle 5. Capacity to gather information and generate high-quality reports 6. Increasingly creative times that will give you the extra bang you need Difference in ABOVE the line and BELOW the line ATL (above the line) - Uses massive media - TV, press, radio, outdoor media, internet - Goes after consumers as groups, not individuals BTL (below the line) - Uses non-mass media - Promotions, demos, tastings, coupons, merchandising, telemarketing, fairs, sponsorships - Goes after consumers individually or in small groups Internet / SEO - Techniques to improve your organic results in google How does google rank results? - Over 200 criteria. Three main ones - Content → how relevant is content to search entered? - Backlinks → how many quality / trusted sites have links to your page or website? - Rankbraind → what has google learnt about your site, using data from its 3.5 billion daily searches (AI) Work for your users, not for google - Be sure your page loads quickly - Link your site to other relevant sites for your users - Have other trusted sites link to yours - Have your analytics ready from day one - Write unique and relevant meta-descriptions for each page - Use legible urls that have meaning - Use social media to boost your site google ranking - Use the correct keywords in your images too - Keep your content fresh → google ranks freshness - Keep yourself updated Session 13 Measuring success and making adjustments Measuring your brand - Is your brand performing well? - Meeting the ambitions you had for it? - What do you measure? - How do you read the information? - What do you do about it? Why measure - Increased competition - Heightened stockholder expectations - Value of brand as an asset → needs to be managed - Data allows informed decisions → focus effort on a market, change of communications - Is the brand delivering on its promise? - In all its touchpoints ? Measuring is an ongoing process Advantages - Enable you to see how the brand evolves - Understand the strength and value of your brand - Where it needs fine-tuning - Changes and adaptations to new market situations - Early warning system if you are going “off-brand” What do we measure? Brand equity - If you put a monetary value to your brand, how much would it be? - The goodwill and name recognition that your brand has earned over time, which translates into higher sales and profit against competitors - The purpose of brand equity metrics is to measure the value of a brand - Remember, brand encompasses name, logo, image, perceptions that identify a product, service… in the minds of customers David Aaker’s brand equity model Brand equity: - Brand loyalty - Perceived quality - Brand association - Brand awareness - Financial behavior Brand loyalty - Do people prefer your brand to others offering similar products? - Does this affect the way they show? Would they go out of their way? - Are you able to demand a price premium for this? Perceived quality - Do people see your brand as a leader in your sector? - Is it considered to be of high quality - Means reduced marketing costs, stable source of revenue - High price, availability and brand extensions usually mean quality for the consumer Brand association - What do people associate with your brand? - Does it create positive attitudes and feelings? - Does it differentiate you from the competition? Brand awareness - Do people know about your brand? - Do they understand what your product / service actually does? - Do they know the value they get from using it? - Is it in their top-of-mind when they are shopping Financial behavior - Metrics traditionally considered when valuing a company - Patents - Trademarks - Licences, etc… - It gives a financial / competitive advantage to the company How to read the results - Depending on your brand, some aspects will be more important - New brands need awareness more than loyalty - If your brand has a lot of competition, then differentiation is key - Avoid solving one problem while creating another Practical things to measure Organic data - Awareness by measuring increase of decrease of social media mentions of your brand - Customer satisfaction by looking at reviews and ratings (tripadvisor) - Brand perceptions by semantically analysing comments to your brand Qualitative data - Simple individual or group interviews - Ethnographic research (observe people interacting with your brand) - Moderator-led focus groups - Opportunity to understand what people think and why - Usually first step to quantitative data Quantitative data - Statistical confirmation of qualitative information - Online, paper, phone, mobile surveys - Usually thousands of participants - Method will depend on ease of reach, access to computers, budget, timing, etc.. Qualitative v. quantitative Qualitative - Based on opinions and experiences - Smaller sample - Interviews, focus groups, ethnographies - Open ended questions - In depth analysis Quantitative - Based on numbers - Large sample - Online, phone, postal surveys - Mostly closed questions - Statistic analysis Checklist - Measurement is essential for the long-term success of your brand - Measurement is a management tool. You can’t manage what you don’t measure - Allows you to understand the value your brand brings to your business - This is known as brand equity - Your objectives will determine your measurement methods and the data you collect - One you have collected your data, it needs to be consolidated and analysed - After you collect your insights, use them to inform your next decision