Every brand comes with a promise. It can be big or small, enticing or reassuring, fact or fiction, simple or abstract, classy or massy, or anything a customer easily relates with. How well it lives up to the promise decides its success factor in the market. A brand promise can be something as relevant as being on time – a sure shot thing you experience every time your favourite Pizza, or something as excitingly unique as the I-phone experience. But these are just two ways of creating a winning brand. There exists an ocean of promises delivered by countless brands across multiple customer tributaries. The challenge is to stand out and position your brand in a unique way by standing by a unique and relevant brand promise. Over a period of time this promise, if followed diligently will transform into Trust and customers will start vouching for your brand. Once you reach this stage your brand will be in a position to retain customers even if competition offers something better. Big Bazar is one such shining example of customer trust. Many a time you may find better priced products in other large format retail stores but still most customers blindly flock to Big Bazaar simple because they blindly trust it’s brand promise “Is se sasta aur achha kahi nahi!”. Considering best prices as a given, the brand has moved one step further by repositioning it as “Naye India ka Naya Bazaar”, raising customer expectations by communicating that you need not comprise because the price is less. You can still be contemporary and happening without spending more!
However, if a brand fails to live up to its promise, it receives a lukewarm or minimal response in the market. This could lead to a lot of negative repercussions. Right from negative word-of-mouth, competition leveraging on your brand’s weakness to promote their products and mass boycott by customers to total loss of trust and brand imagery. It may take a while to rebuild your brand image through corrective measures and reassuring brand communication. But the biggest risk is that your brand will be forced to leave its rightfully earned market space open for competitor cannibalization.
An accepted brand can do much more than generating smiling bottom lines. It can command its space in the market, negotiate more presence for less in retail spaces, **** competition even if they offer better products and puts your business on the driver’s seat. A successful brand also enjoys the privilege of promoting other brands from its parent family under its legacy, thereby creating a much desired multiplier effect.
10 steps to create a winning brand:
- Study your competition thoroughly
- Find market gaps or customer pain-points
- Choose a unique brand promise
- Find all the ways and means to fulfill this promise under any circumstances
- Make sure you train and align every member of your company to stand by the brand promise
- Make sure you are 100% infra-structure ready
- Select the next big upcoming opening season for your brand.
- Create and execute a winning multi-media campaign to reach out to your customers
- Make sure your product is present across your target markets
- Record customer insights and feedback to further enhance your brand promise
Brand Building for SMEs and Smaller Businesses:
Often, SMEs and Start-ups overlook brand building and concentrate more on product /capacity development and sales. Although both the above factors are important to your business, ignoring brand building can slow-down the acceptability of the brand. Offering a good product isn’t enough. Making sure your product gets into the consideration set and differentiates itself through relevant consumer advantages can work wonders even if there are established players. By doing so you are creating a unique market space for yourself and simultaneously enjoying the benefit of being the first mover in the category. Wondering what if your product has no differentiator? You can create so with strategic communication and a well-planned media outlay that gives more bangs for your buck. Media spends needn’t always be a multi-crore press/television plan. You can strategically use social media and other forms of online communication to reach out to your audience more cost-effectively. And for that, you will need an experienced communication consultant who can provide you with a single-window solution to all your communication and branding needs.
-Article by Joseph George