August 16, 2009

BE DiFFERENT Branding

Recently I was asked to comment on a number of brand and logo alternatives a business had developed. From a creative point of view, some were quite clever and definitely better than others. Yet I couldn’t choose one.

Why? Because I didn’t understand what the business was trying to achieve. What was the communications strategy? To evaluate anything you need strategic context. In BE DiFFERENT or be dead, I talk about the importance in ‘looking up’ to your strategy to provide specific direction on tactics and programs. In the same way you need strategy clearly defined before you can decide on the appropriate tactic to employ. I see many organizations today ‘wallowing’ in tactics without a strategic rudder and happy doing it. The problem is their business doesn’t translate into performance because they don’t have the strategic metrics to examine.

A decision on your brand requires a clear understanding of the strategy you want to employ. Alternative brands are then evaluated in terms of how well each serves the strategy; how well each expresses it to your target customers. A brand is intended to convey your value proposition in a clear and compelling way. The debate within an organization should be around this issue and not be based on personal bias and emotional criteria (which ends up to be the case most of the time).

Conversely, if you want to change your brand it should be for one of two reasons: either your current brand doesn’t reflect your current strategy as effectively as it should, or, you have changed your strategy and need to reassess your brand accordingly. You shouldn’t be changing it because it is stale dated or it isn’t ‘sexy’enough. If you do, you run the risk of confusing your customers who may just presume that you are now something else - an outcome you didn’t intend.

Don’t change your brand unless it is no longer satisfying the strategy of the organization.

The New Democratic Party of Canada is considering changing it’s identity to The Democratic Party of Canada. The reason given is that the party isn’t ‘NEW” any longer and the party feels they need to build currency with younger people as did Obama in the US. Changing to the ‘Democratic Party’ won’t do it. Many people argue that the ‘NEW’ in the current name implies a new approach to democratic reform and not the age of the party.Does changing the name imply they are no longer interested in new approaches to solving the country’s problems?

If they are targeting new voter segments, what is their (new) value proposition to those groups and how does their revised identity reflect it? Not apparent to me. I suspect they are trying to capture some of the ‘Obama magic’ by changing their name. A very risky strategy indeed!

Here is the process to create an appropriate brand:
- Develop your BE DiFFERENT strategy - see Section Two of BE DiFFERENT or be dead
- Ensure your only claim is clear and concise
- Determine your communications strategy to serve the overall strategy you just developed
- Articulate the message you intend to send your target customers
- NOW look at a number of alternative creative executions to deliver the message

Cheers, Roy Osing

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Posted 8.16.09 at 06:04 am by Roy Osing | Read Comments (0) | Leave a Comment