Articles about branding

During 2009 I will be writing articles about branding for the Swedish site www.driftig.nu. It is a site mainly for female entrepreneurs within all kinds of businesses. Come and visit every month to get some new insights in branding and many other subjects like health, economy, leadership and sales.

Shine.

Whatever your talent is, make sure that you use and develop it in the best way you can. Get better at it, inspire other people and enjoy it on the way. That is the best way to build your personal brand.




"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Marianne Williamson 1992, as spoken by Nelson Mandela

The fragrance of a brand

Brands are built in so many different ways!

One of our strong senses is the olfactory sense. It has a strong connection to our memory. When we smell cinnamon we might think of Christmas. A certain perfume might bring your thoughts to a certain person. Many people associate the smell of tar with boats. Lavender may bring back memories of newly-washed bedlinen. You can probably think of many more examples like this.

If we manage to connect a fragrance to our brand, we will influence people both consciously and subconsciously. The trick is to find a fragrance that most people find pleasant and that has a natural connection to your product or service. Make it subtile, but still strong enough so that people will notice it and appreciate it.

If you run a store, there are companies who offer special fragrance-systems and a quantity of different scents. If you work with products, you need to build the fragrance into the product - or the package. If you build your personal brand you might like to be associated with a certain perfume. If you meet clients in your office - play with fragrances like fresh flowers, newly-baked cookies or fresh tidiness.



If you don´t want to add fragrances to your brand - at least you need to make sure that the genuine fragrance is positive and attractive. Otherwise you might need to adjust it. Remember that the olfactory sense is strong and that it has an important effect on our memory and mood. It can put your clients in a buying-mood or a non-buying-mood.

Outsourcing with quality assurance of the brand

Every person who works for a brand is also an ambassador for it. A happy employee is usually a great ambassador with a direct connection to the business.

The further a person is from the core-organization, the harder it is to be updated about the brand identity and thus speak about the brand in wishful ways. Personal opinions will then colour the way a person communicates the brand.

Think about this when you consider outsourcing - even if it concerns areas that are distant from your clients. You need to educate every single person who works with your brand. Give them as much information as possible when it comes to core values, positioning and values. Encourage them to build and take care of the brand in the part of the business where they are active.

All brand ambassadors are valuable for you. Treat them well. The more you communicate with them, the closer their own brand stories will be to yours.

A 100 % strategy

In branding, there is no coffee-break or day off. Branding continues day and night, weekday and holiday all year around. To build a successful brand platform, you need branding activities that link into eachother and cover different areas, different targetgroups, different times of day, different medias. Your budget may be limited, which means that your mix must be cost-effective.

Make sure that you use the grape-vine, which is free of charge. Your loyal fans will do part of the job for you.

Build a storybank which makes it easy for your ambassadors - employees and loyal clients - to spread positive and genuine stories about your company. Storytelling can also be a great tool within the company, when you want to build a certain atmosphere.

Make sure that your graphic manuals and design manuals are up to date and easy to use. The visual part of the brand is very important, and you need to be professional here.



Be brave and surprise your clients every now and then. They will love you for it.

Whatever tools you use to build your brand - use a 100 % strategy. Halfway solutions should not be your bag. A halfway solution is a halfway brand.

Brand your time

Some people love their electronic calendars. I have had one for a few years. It has never really made my day. Posts are erased without reason, I can not get a good overview of my time and I can not use nice pens to write in it.

For people like me, there is a good complement: personal calenders. Build the whole calendar in your own personal way. It isn´t fancy, but it is creative. Check it out at www.personligalmanacka.se.

I got mine as a gift from a friend and it has turned into a favorite.

Copies for better and for worse

It is easy to find cheap clothes in Nepal - if you are ok with buying copies of the well-known brands. I have not checked, but I assume that some countries have said No Thanks to the large companies when they want to protect their brands legally on the local market. The copycat-business is enormous, both for tourists and locals.

In outdoor-equipment you can find copies of brands like Mammut, Marmot, Nike, Adidas, Haglöfs, North Face, Patagonia... You can actually choose a piece of clothing, tell the shop-owner which logotype you prefer, and get it embroidered on the garment within a few hours. This evens out the different styles of the brands.



There are obviously reasons why this is negative for the original brand.
1) Poor quality of the copies will hollow out the image of the original brand
2) Copies will cannibalize on the sales of the original stuff
3) The style and fashion of the copies does not always rhyme with the original
4) If/when the quality of a copy is good, it will make it harder to justify the price-difference of original vs copy.

Could there possibly be any positive aspects of these copies? I believe so.
1) Just the fact that you´re being copied is quite an acknowledgement which strengthens your image
2) The target group of the originals and the copies is probably not quite the same. In this way the brand (= the copy of it) will be spread to a larger amount of people

We think we may own and rule our brands, but the market is actually playing tricks with us right in front of our eyes. We depend on our customers, but they can also throw a spanner in the works if they don´t value the qualities of our original brand high enough. We need to find new strategies to handle this.