Cattle are lucky, despite the initial pain, because they only have to be branded once. Companies are branded daily. Their brands are reinforced and refreshed by everything they do: their advertising, their product performance, their public relations, their consumer relations, their customer service, their store or office environment and of course, their logos, slogans, corporate colors and designs. Of course “product quality,” “consumer relations” and “customer service” are parts of the brand that your advertising agency has no control over. But what your agency can do is create, reinforce and refine your image to create an emotional connection and a feeling of trust, between your company and your clients. And help you win the enthusiastic support of your managers, employees and franchisees.
The emotional bond is all-important in differentiating you from your competition. People don’t make rational decisions when choosing one company over another. They use the same technique they use to choose friends – emotion first and logic second. If you reach out and touch their hearts, your brand becomes your company’s character and personality. In the rush and clutter of today’s marketplace, your brand helps them simplify their lives by giving them a image they can rely on – a guarantee of consistency and value. As hard as it might be to earn that brand every day, your clientele will reward you handsomely for it.
Branding is not a luxury. The right brand can take a company to the top. Branded products and companies achieve consistently stronger customer loyalty, command higher prices and perceived investor value. They also attract the most talented and highly prized employees. A strong brand makes it easier to enter new markets, attract new customers, introduce new product lines, and build new partnerships.
A memorable, compelling brand involves a relevant and innovative design, corporate-wide consistency and strict reinforcement of the brand in every avenue of corporate communications. Above all, the essence of branding is the creation of the right image in the mind of the end-customer. The most important element of branding is differentiation, which would seem to be easier if your product is actually different. But that is hardly essential. The actual difference between Coke and Pepsi is subtle indeed. They’re both brown. They both fizz. They both come in cans and bottles, and taste good with Chinese food. A fine line at best. The difference between Andre champagne and Lafitte Rothschild, however, is not so much splitting a fine line as it is a splitting headache.
Also, a careless treatment of even the most truly “new and different” products can obliterate differentiation. Otis may have invented the elevator, but he neglected to trademark the name. Now everyone can make an elevator. TempurPedic® Swedish Mattress® trademarked their name, and their Tempur® material, a heat-and-pressure sensitive, visco-elastic foam which they called Memory Cells®. However, they forgot to trademark the one element that made their differentiation immediately understandable to their customers: the image of a hand pressing into the foam and leaving an exact imprint. It was never protected and is now used by all their competitors.
At Pasadena, we identify your brand attributes, develop a brand strategy, plan tactics to implement that strategy, develop and maintain the campaign to launch the brand and establish steps to verify and maintain the brand. We will also help you change your internal corporate communications and interactions to maintain and reinforce your brand, including establishing a brand council or similar infrastructure and helping you measure your brand performance.
Cattle are lucky, despite the initial pain, because they only have to be branded once. Companies are branded daily. Their brands are reinforced and refreshed by everything they do: their advertising, their product performance, their public relations, their consumer relations, their customer service, their store or office environment and of course, their logos, slogans, corporate colors and designs. Of course “product quality,” “consumer relations” and “customer service” are parts of the brand that your advertising agency has no control over. But what your agency can do is create, reinforce and refine your image to create an emotional connection and a feeling of trust, between your company and your clients. And help you win the enthusiastic support of your managers, employees and franchisees.
The emotional bond is all-important in differentiating you from your competition. People don’t make rational decisions when choosing one company over another. They use the same technique they use to choose friends – emotion first and logic second. If you reach out and touch their hearts, your brand becomes your company’s character and personality. In the rush and clutter of today’s marketplace, your brand helps them simplify their lives by giving them a image they can rely on – a guarantee of consistency and value. As hard as it might be to earn that brand every day, your clientele will reward you handsomely for it.
Branding is not a luxury. The right brand can take a company to the top. Branded products and companies achieve consistently stronger customer loyalty, command higher prices and perceived investor value. They also attract the most talented and highly prized employees. A strong brand makes it easier to enter new markets, attract new customers, introduce new product lines, and build new partnerships.
A memorable, compelling brand involves a relevant and innovative design, corporate-wide consistency and strict reinforcement of the brand in every avenue of corporate communications. Above all, the essence of branding is the creation of the right image in the mind of the end-customer. The most important element of branding is differentiation, which would seem to be easier if your product is actually different. But that is hardly essential. The actual difference between Coke and Pepsi is subtle indeed. They’re both brown. They both fizz. They both come in cans and bottles, and taste good with Chinese food. A fine line at best. The difference between Andre champagne and Lafitte Rothschild, however, is not so much splitting a fine line as it is a splitting headache.
Also, a careless treatment of even the most truly “new and different” products can obliterate differentiation. Otis may have invented the elevator, but he neglected to trademark the name. Now everyone can make an elevator. TempurPedic® Swedish Mattress® trademarked their name, and their Tempur® material, a heat-and-pressure sensitive, visco-elastic foam which they called Memory Cells®. However, they forgot to trademark the one element that made their differentiation immediately understandable to their customers: the image of a hand pressing into the foam and leaving an exact imprint. It was never protected and is now used by all their competitors.
At Pasadena, we identify your brand attributes, develop a brand strategy, plan tactics to implement that strategy, develop and maintain the campaign to launch the brand and establish steps to verify and maintain the brand. We will also help you change your internal corporate communications and interactions to maintain and reinforce your brand, including establishing a brand council or similar infrastructure and helping you measure your brand performance.