I forgot how we spelled it out on the storyboard… Raayyyynnn.. or Raaaiiinnn….but I do remember ‘on the hunt’ for Rainier Beer TV spots driving across the true old floating bridge when a Harley behind me  shifted down and roared around to pass just as I was thinking ‘Rainier’. Beeerrrrrrr  just fit in nicely with the next shift as I looked across the lake to the mountain with that warm glow of an idea resting in place……. Been told it’s back on the radio again… be good to get some new stuff  don’t you think.

It’s most often measured by strength of re-purchasing over time. For most business brands, repeated purchasing is considered a necessary condition of loyalty. On closer inspection, loyalty is made up of many variables and there are other aspects surrounding the development and evidence of loyalty beside purchasing behavior. Brand advocacy in all forms and intent to purchase are examples. Also re-purchasing can occur without loyalty involved in cases where a product is required to be replenished without alternatives. Not all brands are in the business to sell something yet loyalty remains an important factor in their equity building.

All advertising communicating some aspect connected to a brand can be thought of as brand advertising. But there is a subset strategy in advertising that is created more specifically to influence people’s certain brand impressions rather than trying to influence  them to purchase something. Brand advertising explores ways to reinforce , keep in focus, or to strengthen info and emotions surrounding fundamental components of a brand definition. Often this component is an important differential trying to transcend or tie together all or a  particular set of experiences with the brand. There are also issues that crop up that require an overall brand positioning comment that would be considered a brand ad.  Some people call ads dealing with products from a different point of view other than overt or hard sell as brand ads.  This all can seem like a bunch of BS to managers that need to justify ad investments because of the  selling mantra.  You get into the task with them of  trying to  explain the value of brand advertising ?…. later.

It’s our experience that strategies for building brands are situational and all over the map. Many would call them business plans, but we have a nose for those that are actually named ‘brand strategy’. They vary on the business model, mission , type of brand , status of the inherent brand builders , scale, maturity and most often a business pressing issue. We’ve had some interesting start-up experiences where seasoned marketers having worked primarily with mature brands applied strategies dependent on higher levels of brand equity that just never got of the ground. We have also seen the reverse , where healthy mature brands with much greater potentials languished from a locked in early phase point of view. As situational as it is, the question still remains if there any higher level universal brand building strategies that can service any brand building effort regardless of the particulars ? Maybe these four could be considered….

1. ID and strengthen the inherent brand builders

2. Develop the best brand definition as possible and put it into operation

3. Establish an effective brand exposure plan

4. Establish a functional brand board providing on-going oversight on brand issues

Surely there are some better suggestions…. and I don’t mean reading Kevin Keller’s textbook , although we highly regard it.

Creating a brand is fairly straight forward and often inexpensive if you think it is ( or intend it to be ) giving some thing a special name , special name graphics , packaging and some marketing support. You dress it up, float it out there and hope it catches on enough to meet some pay back goals. In the process you might have created some brand equity.

But, building a brand with brand equity growth intentions, usually within a certain time frame is different.  These are things , yes, that have special brand dress, but also have strong inherent brand building qualities that address growth opportunities and strategies foreseeing multiple products and services. Understanding how to develop brand equity in service of brand growth intentions separates the building from the dressing.

The risks of transferring  brand equity from an existing brand name  to a new different brand name is always the central issue and can never be answered well enough to relieve the anxieties , particularly when from all other indications a brand is healthy. When considering a name change , the greatest impediment to the decision making process is the fear of the unknown . Unless there is a good alternative to entertain and a good transition plan out on the table, count on nothing happening.  We try our best to make this point as strongly as possible, confirming it with positive name change experiences and getting our client to clear the way for a good naming and transition process.  You can sense the added pressure in this kind of naming situation compared to a start-up. The new name being totally unfamiliar must somehow shine through all the comfortable familiarity of the existing name. When we’re dealing with an existing name that has obvious problems, this pressure can be reduced but it’s always there and needs to be handled with respect. We have erred in the past by not acknowledging this with enough sensitivity and as a result alienated decision makers that were most reluctant on change. How much confidence to show to which people is important. We are always confident however , no matter how carefully expressed , that we can produce effective brand names and guide smooth transfers of brand equity. We’ve  done it many times.

Recently thinking about the Starbucks , Gap , Pepsi and several of our own pieces of that kind of work and find the Pepsi adjustment the most perplexing. Think for a moment about the real direct cost of changes going on there. There’s massive neon Pepsi signs still waiting for the why update.   Certainly caused attention but will it chalk up on the equity side of their brand ?  What a waste of brand dev dollars. The new NFL Pepsi TV  stuff I watched only once …. extra  lame …..   maybe it’s partly the logo adjustment? How alone am I on this?

Just read my some of my comments in this AM Crosscut edition by Ron Holden and he got most of it right except I did not say anything about dropping the graphic as it might appear they are doing with the name. The decision to keep the mermaid image basically in tact is good for the reasons Howard outlines in his video. To suggest  the mermaid image is a direct literal signal for the name Starbucks functioning the same  as  the apple image is for the name Apple is erroneous. It is more like the Nike swish we see used often without the word Nike as well as thousands of other brand marks used alone in various applications where the business name inclusion is decisively too commercial.  I can’t imagine Starbucks functioning without their brand name being used in day to day business as always and even in a new layout proximity to the brand graphic signal yet to be shown. This move opens up new freedom to use the brand signals , both name and graphic mark, and will offer new benefits as well as some challenges in developing  good guide lines for when and when not to show up without a name to register or pronounce  . The mermaid is way smart enough to handle this.

Can anyone tell me the story behind the new Big Ten brand graphic ? It’s  a disappointing reflection on such a rich football heritage. Surely it can be redone at this point without a speck of yards lost. The pack ten gave it a better try at something more interesting. We did the Buff mark … the team voted it in , liking it over a rip off of the Buffalo Bills mark  Coach Sweeny wanted . Helmets off to Sweeny for letting the team vote. It’s important for brand marks to be liked. They have a better chance of being displayed more . This requires a good combination of content interest and artful graphic design. Something the new Big Ten mark falls way short of a first down on.

http://www.openforum.com/projectrebrand

American Express is a big company …. they gathered up a team of brand experts to offer small businesses insights into rebranding which seemed to focus on creating a new identity. There is a fairly wide collection of articles and a multiple choice question …. How did you develop your brand? 107 responses were tallied when I reviewed it as follows…..

— We designed our logo ourselves …. 50%

— It evolved organically with a mission statement , signage, and packaging … 14%

— We worked with a branding agency to define our core values and communicate them to our customers … 22%

— Who has time to think about branding? … 14%

It seems four different concepts of ‘ brand development’ is provided  and the most common one by far is designing a logo?  Wow. What do think of that…..