Brand Story Archives : Page 4 of 4 : Persona Design

FMCG Branding: Going for Gold with Fast Moving Consumer Goods

March 5, 2014/3 Comments/in Brand Champions, Brand Culture, Brand Experience, Brand Loyalty, Brand Personality, Brand Promise, Brand Relevance, Brand Story, Brand Strategy, Brand Values, Branding, FMCG, Global Branding, Packaging /by Lorraine Carter

The fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector is one of the most volatile and toughest categories in which to succeed and sometimes considered the birthplace of modern branding. The competition has always been fierce and the fight for wallet share never more challenging then it is now.

Today’s FMCG industry is a multi-billion dollar sector that’s typically dominated by well-established household brands around the globe, from Coca-Cola to Kraft to Henkel. Breaking into that market as a new brand can be a serious challenge, particularly when you’re up against global powerhouses that have ruled their respective niches for decades with deep pockets. Having said that though, smaller brands have more opportunities to make their impact with limited resources than they ever had before, which helps level the playing field a little!

Image via www.kraftfoodsgroup.com

The question is how do you move from a ‘C’ or ‘D’ tier, largely unknown, consumer product to become a recognized household brand? Success in the FMCG sector is no longer epitomized by just ‘nice’ logos and good packaging alone—modern consumers expect far more.

The most successful brands are consistently creating an authentic customer experience around their consumable products, one that is worthwhile and personally engaging. These brands give their core target audience a more compelling reason to buy and create brand perceptions through their brands personality, promise, values, story and total brand world per se, which their customers find irresistible.

The following is an insight into what some of the most successful FMCG companies are doing to maintain consistently captivating brands. What keeps them front of mind in terms of customer preferences, and how you can incorporate these strategies into your own brand building efforts.

Aligning With And Focusing on Your Core Target Audience

While it may seem counterintuitive, the key to becoming a household brand is not to try appealing to a broader audience—it is to be desirable to the right core target audience. You need to know your market, your competitors, and your sector’s environment intimately, so you can focus on developing your branding strategy specifically tailored towards your primary customers – those who are most likely to buy fully into your brand and what it stands for.

Understanding not only what your ideal customers wants, but also how your offering can enhance their lives is hugely important. It’s only when you truly understand their needs, wants, loves, hates and aspirations that you can really craft a concise and focused brand message that cuts through the noise.

Consumers are bombarded with thousands of messages from multiple channels 24/7. Your challenge is to deliver the right message, on target to catch their much sought after attention, at the right time and then, most importantly, to hold their attention. You need to develop a customer avatar which you then use to underpin your brand proposition and profile.

Image via www.johnsonsbaby.com

Your brand should clearly indicate why and how you’ll meet your customers needs and that you understand what really matters to them. If yours is a family orientated brand then broadly speaking it might be important to communicate reliability, safety, and trust. However you need to dig deeper beyond just the general to the specific and identify more detailed characteristics to bring your brand alive in a way that’s meaningful, distinctive and different to your audience.

Millennials might enjoy quirky humor that helps mark your offerings as innovative but you still need to add something more unique to your brand story to help it standout and stick. Overall luxury brands focus on quality and prestige but they still need to develop other attributes, messages and stories that make their brand experience exclusive to them alone.

Developing Brand Loyalty

Returning customers are the heart of every successful company—and this is especially true in the FMCG sector where products are typically consumed quickly and frequently. Brand loyalty is critical to your long term success and you need to develop a brand strategy that helps ensure your customers become tunnel visioned with regard to your brand when they go shopping.

You want them to become blinkered to see only your brand offering so they buy it automatically because they aren’t even open to considering others. When you continue to meet their needs your loyal customers will not only continue to purchase your brand, they’ll become brand advocates encouraging family and friends to switch to your brand too.

How do you create brand loyalty? Many businesses make the mistake of trying to compete on price alone where only those with the deepest pockets can win. Customers aren’t necessarily looking for just the cheapest product. Cheap rarely engenders ongoing brand loyalty. Customers typically look for the right blend of quality and value, and many are willing to pay more for a brand they can trust and meets their needs on multiple other levels too. It’s also important to note that value doesn’t mean just price, it’s the complete mix of what the brand has to offer – your brand promise, brand values, brand culture, corporate social responsibility, customer experience, your way of doing things in your brand world etc. that collectively all add up to enhance perceived brand value.

One strong example of this is Johnson & Johnson, the global leader in baby care products. Johnson’s Baby has been helping parents and doctors give babies a healthy, happy start in life for more than 100 years – what a brand legacy. This company understands what its primary customers want – to give their babies a healthy, happy start in life because ‘every moment with your little one is precious’.

Saving money might feature somewhere in the mix with parents but babies health and happiness is the primary focus, and not at the expense of their child’s care. They are looking for products with safe, gentle ingredients, backed by a company that genuinely cares about the well-being of babies. Everything Johnson & Johnson does is done to reinforce that message, be it through the products themselves, its CSR strategy or advocacy in baby skin care or baby sleeping advice etc. This is an ethical, quality-focused ‘caring’ brand, successfully engaging its audience by pulling at the heart strings through all its communications strategies – which all but the cynical and hard nosed would find hard to resist.

Telling Your Brand Story in a Way That’s Relevant

Storytelling is more than just a buzzword. Creating authenticity with an emotional connection and an element of curiosity is very important to help distinguish your brand from the barrage of the external market. When you communicate your own brand journey, your growth and your message to potential customers, you’re able to connect with them on a more meaningful level.

The Askinosie chocolate brand story shows how its really important and worked for this relatively new confectionary company. Their target market consists of environmentally aware customers who typically shop in organic health food stores. Askinosie sets their brand apart through their packaging and their brand story which really resonates with their customers. Each of their chocolate bar wrappers relates personal stories about the cocoa farmers that supply the company with raw ingredients. The focus is on their relationship with Askinosie as business partners who are well compensated with prices that are higher than Fair Trade.

Image via www.askinosie.com

Great brand stories can help you elevate your products into the top tier and are a critical part of the successful brand mix and keep your customers coming back for more. A note of warning though – the brand values from your story and the promise it articulates must be consistently lived and demonstrated throughout the business at every level of interaction internally and externally every day.

Changing With The Times

The market is constantly evolving, and your brand must be flexible enough to keep up with the changing times. Successful FMCG brands understand how to recognize trends and implement shifts in strategy that will help them continue to stay relevant and meet market requirements over the years and decades.

Image via www.starbucks.com

Starbucks in spite of all its ups and downs has largely maintained a strong grasp of its market combined with a willingness to change, and has managed to remain one of the most recognized global brands. The Seattle-based company began as a local retail coffee store, and grew into a worldwide chain that caters to customers looking for an upscale coffee experience. By combining quality coffee with a diverse range of related products, a pleasant relaxing environment in which to enjoy their coffee and engaging with their customers more personally—and treating their employees better than other coffee chains—Starbucks has dominated its niche.

However, there is a fine line between staying relevant and incorporating new trends versus losing sight of what your brand really stands for by inadvertently ‘muddying the waters’ so to speak with an excessive plethora of confusing brand messages. You must always remain true to the core of what you stand for, whether yours is a well established brand or more recent launch to market.

Image via www.hersheys.com

Hershey’s has seen a decline in recent times compounded by overenthusiastic trend-chasing activities. In recent years, the company’s brand promise of simple, tasty chocolate has been lagging behind in their efforts to anticipate changing tastes. Extreme diversification has resulted in a confusing tangle of confectionery varieties: milk, dark, and white chocolate with a variety of fillings, coatings and new flavours—all of which is somewhat confusing in its marketing to customers who just want an original Hershey bar.

Developing Your Brand Message

Strong branding is a vital factor for long term success in the ultra-competitive FMCG industry. In order to create a strong and compelling brand message, you need to fully understand your target customers, including:

Who they are: Demographics, motivations, trends, and demands
Why they buy: Specific needs and wants (rational and emotional)
What they buy: The look and feel of the products they prefer
Where / how they buy: Channel preferences, point of sale activities
How they consume: Key usage situations for your products

Pinpoint your target audience, and develop your brand strategy to focus on the things that matter most to them. Transform your offerings into an experience that will keep your customers returning, and create brand ambassadors who will recommend you to like-minded customers. Focus on what helps elevate and grow your brand and your customer base will expand with you.

What do you think?

• How does your FMCG brand differentiate from your competitors?

• What message are you conveying with your brand? What should you convey?

• How can you tell the story of your brand more effectively?

• What steps are you taking to create brand loyalty?

• Has your brand evolved to stay relevant with the changing market—without losing sight of your core?

Brand Promises: Are You Consistently Delivering Yours?

February 20, 2014/0 Comments/in Brand Champions, Brand Experience, Brand Loyalty, Brand Personality, Brand Profiling & Positioning, Brand Promise, Brand Story, Brand Strategy, Brand Values, Brand Voice, Branding, Rebrand, Rebranding /by Lorraine Carter

A brand promise is what your company or brand commits to delivering for everyone who interacts with you. Your brand promise is a pledge, an assurance, or a guarantee that identifies what your customers can expect each and every time they connect with your company—whether it’s through your people, your marketing materials, or your products or services.

What makes a brand promise compelling? An effective brand promise must create distinction for your company’s offerings, and connect your purpose, positioning, and strategy. It must describe what customers can expect to receive beyond your product or service. It is more than a purchase—it is an experience, engaging your customers emotionally and allowing you to differentiate from your competitors. When working with our clients to help them develop their brand promise successfully we use our ‘Personality Profile Performer System™’.

Your brand promise presents a compelling reason for customers to buy from you, to return for repeat business—and most importantly, to become brand ambassadors, spreading the word about your company organically and enthusiastically.

Image via www.virgin.com

What Your Brand Promise Should (and Should Not) Be

Organizations often make the mistake of conflating brand promise with marketing. At one end, they may trot out clinically dry descriptions of products or services, on the premise that a brand “speaks for itself.” And on the other, they might make grand and ultimately meaningless statements, replete with abused superlatives such as “best practice”, “world class”, and “market leader.”

However, what truly works as a brand promise is not something in the middle, but rather a presentation that takes an entirely different approach to your offerings. A strong brand promise describes how people should feel when they interact with your brand, how your company delivers its products or services, and what sort of character your company embodies.

Image via www.nfl.com

To illustrate this idea in action, here are some powerful brand promises from highly successful brands:

The NFL: ‘To be the premier sports and entertainment brand that brings people together, connecting them socially and emotionally like no other’

Virgin: ‘To be the consumer champion while being genuine, fun, contemporary and different in everything we do at a reasonable price’

Apple: ‘To make insanely great, imaginative, cool, easy-to-use, cutting edge products that enrich peoples lives’

Coca-Cola: ‘To inspire moments of optimism and happiness’

Typically, a strong brand promise will achieve three key objectives:

It must convey a compelling benefit and emotionally resonate
It must be authentic and credible
The promise must be kept…every time

Any brand can create a compelling brand promise. However, the best and most successful brands will also demonstrate a proven track record of delivering on those promises. A powerful brand does not simply “talk the talk” — it “walks the walk,” consistently and reliably.

The Brand Promise At Work

McDonalds is the brand heard ’round the world. With over 33,000 restaurants in 119 countries, the company has to be doing something right—and the core of their success is their brand promise. They are the first job for many, involved with local communities and always seeking new ways to improve what they do best. When customers see the Golden Arches, they know what they can expect: simple, easy enjoyment with great service, cleanliness and value.

This is the brand promise McDonalds stands behind. Their more recent slogan, “I’m lovin’ it,” is a simple phrase in itself, one that can be translated easily within every international market the company serves. The McDonalds brand promise is effective, because the company consistently delivers uncomplicated fun with value and service to customer after customer.

Image via www.mcdonalds.com

Effective brand promises aren’t limited to the inexpensive and widely available, either. Successful luxury brands are also making a promise—that customers are paying a higher price, and in return receiving exceptional quality, value, and prestige.

European hotelier Kempinski has a stated purpose of “serving guests who expect excellence and value individuality.” As Europe’s oldest luxury hotel group and a five star prestigious brand, Kempinski promises more than lodgings—the company delivers an unforgettable experience for each and every customer by providing “luxurious hospitality in the grand European style.” They believe life should be lived with style!

Start Where You Want To End Up, and Watch Your Brand Take Off

If your brand is already successful, chances are you’re already clear on what you promise your customers—and you’ve managed to consistently keep your brand promise.

On the other hand, if…

You’re in the process of redefining a flagging brand
You haven’t started your branding process yet or developed a strong brand strategy
You want to know more about the reasons behind your successful brand, so you can maintain that success in the future

…then its time to conduct a brand audit, do a little research, and or re-evaluate your branding strategy.

It’s essential to define exactly what your brand promises to your customers. This process begins with research into your market, your target audience, competitors, and business environment. What do your customers really want? How are they getting it now—and how can your offering add even more value to those desires?

Your brand promise should deliver something your target audience really wants, but can’t get elsewhere. Remember, you’re creating an experience for your customers. When you define a unique brand promise first, and then consistently deliver, you’re making it easier for your business to keep that promise and realize branding success.

Earning Your Brand Promise

Once you’ve defined your brand promise, you need to focus on ensuring that you’re delivering on that promise—every time. Every aspect of your business should reflect what you stand for in your brand, from marketing to employee-customer interaction.

A brand that keeps its promises is virtually unbreakable. This is what kept Microsoft from knocking Google off the search engine throne with its “Bing It On” campaign, which attempted to convince consumers that real people choose Bing’s search results over Google.

The campaign failed to make a dent in the search engine giant’s market share—because Google’s brand promise is too strong. Their search engine consistently delivers what people want.

You Don’t Have to be Huge

Many smaller businesses make the mistake of thinking that only large corporations have the resources to consistently keep brand promises. The truth is, great branding is powerful enough to carry any business model successfully—when it’s done right.

Take, for example, The Ginger Pig. This London artisan butchery uses the brand promise of quality meats that taste great due to the care and effort they put forth in raising farm animals. The company emphasizes this brand promise through The Ginger Pig website, which opens with a brief and intriguing story about how they came to be—and their philosophy that well looked-after livestock simply tastes better.

Image via www.thegingerpig.co.uk

Is your company still looking for that perfect branding strategy? Prepare for success by taking the time to really think about your brand promise—and to ensure that you can, and do, deliver. Whether you’re a brand new start-up, a local supplier, or a national or global business, decide what will make your brand distinctive and memorable—something that’s worth talking about—and focus on delivering every time.

When you deliver on your brand promise, you build customer trust. This translates into brand loyalty that markets itself. Word-of-mouth, particularly through social media, will carry your brand promise to an ever-widening audience. As new customers realize they’re actually getting what they were promised, you’ll find more brand ambassadors out there recommending your offerings, all of which will help increase your profitability.

The earlier you establish and maintain your brand promise,

the more successful your branding will be.

What do you think?

How is your brand walking the talk?

Can a brand exist without brand promise?

Is your brand promising something you can’t deliver?

How can you communicate your brand promise to your customers?

Share your thoughts in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you.

Brand Story : The Key Ingredients to What Makes It Compelling

July 25, 2013/0 Comments/in Brand Champions, Brand Experience, Brand Story, Brand Strategy, Brand Values, Branding, Business /by Lorraine Carter

If you were asked to sum up your brand story in a valuable two minute radio sound bite or TV interview could you do it? If the answer is “NO” or you hesitate over your reply, then maybe its time to re-evaluate what your brand story is all about.

Is Your Brand Story

Worth Listening to?

Being able to succinctly articulate a compelling story around your brand, how it came in to being, what its all about, why it matters to your primary customers and where it’s heading into the future is crucial to your success. Stories connect people and your brand story is what gives it meaning and solidity, helps define its values, shapes its destiny and captures your customer’s imaginations, thereby attracting and engaging their ongoing interest.

A brand’s story isn’t a nice ‘add on’ for marketing purposes either. Rather it’s the foundations and inspiration for your marketing strategy – supporting the way you drive awareness and sales for your product or services and ultimately increase your business’s profitability and growth. The more compelling your story, the more powerful your brand.

A great brand story can be unifying (for both customers and stakeholders), motivating and inspiring for your teams internally and give the work they do more direction and meaning, thereby enriching the environment in which they work, all of which filters through to the experience your customers have with your brand through your front line staff – your brand ambassadors.

Brand stories are never static either, they continue to develop over time in order to stay relevant and respond to customer demands and ever changing market dynamics.

Image via Ben&Jerry’s

A great example, amongst many, of a brand with a very powerful story is Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. The tale of two young men who were determined to set up a company which would embrace sustainability and share prosperity (with employees and stakeholders alike) and, incidentally at the same time produce amazing ice cream, all of which hooked the imagination of the US public. Their story then went global and the rest is history.

Ben and Jerry’s aim today, they declare, continues to centre around finding interesting and unusual ways to improve the quality of life for individuals, produce top quality all-natural, wholesome ice cream and respect the environment at the same time…

Back in the UK, the well-known healthy fruit drink brand Innocent had a great story which, crucially, captured not only the imagination of consumers but journalists everywhere. Three Oxford educated students who wanted to produce drinks which would boost the nation’s health using only natural ingredients went on to succeed where many others had failed.

Image via Telegraph.co.uk

Their commitment to their cause and brand ethos couldn’t be faulted. Their packaging was simple and amusing yet full of character – and their social media channels (they were early adopters) reflected the same brand story and personality traits too. They had energy, enthusiasm and innovative marketing techniques to capture their core audiences attention.

Interestingly their brand has been bought over by global giant Coca Cola yet that move hasn’t dented the brand’s success. Innocent still continues to sell under the ‘wholesome goodness banner’ brand story and to this day it still continues to resonate with their customers. The brand was powerful enough in itself that it didn’t matter who owned the company. Their brand ethos and customer base had already been established to such an extent that the smooth take-over was hardly noticed. The brand has become a living entity in its own right.

Historically Innocent’s engagement with consumers began even before they’d launched. Following a busy day selling fruit drinks at a festival, the three owners asked their customers there whether they thought they should start up in business. The rest is history and a very successful and profitable one at that.

Lego, another long established and much loved Danish brand, with a compelling brand story too used a series of amusing YouTube vignettes in their video The Lego Story which they used to re-tell their brand story when they celebrated their 80th anniversary last year. It tells of their inventor, the company’s values and the commitment to their product both in terms of quality and the education of children around the globe.

The story of women’s underwear brand SPANX is very much connected with its founder and owner, the former sales trainer and stand up comedienne Sara Blakely. Her story of being unable to find tights she liked, then inventing her own, resonates with every woman who has a bulge or two to hide (at least the first part does!). This ‘everywoman’ even had her mum draw the design for the original prototype.

Image via themagicknickershop.co.uk

Today, proceeds from every pair of SPANX sold go towards the Sara Blakely Foundation which helps women in underprivileged parts of the world start up their own businesses through education and entrepreneurship.

Some re-occurring themes, worth reflecting on when reviewing elements of your own brand story, have appeared in each of the powerful brand stories mentioned above – however they must be authentic and real!

Share what you care about to engage your audience emotionally
Localize wherever possible in order to speak directly to local communities and create engaging connections
Encourage individuals to make your brand their own and become your brand champions

When creating your own brand story, be absolutely clear on what you want to communicate and why it’s important to both you and your core target audience. This should centre on who you are, why you’re doing it, why it’s important – so customers care, and what differentiates your brand from your competitors. To be truly engaging it must evoke strong emotions in your audience and ooze personality!

Your brand story must consistently underpin everything you do within your business, be the filter through which all your communications and brand strategy flows, influence the way in which you interact with your customers and shape the experiences they have through every touch point of your brand.

What’s the ‘truth’ or ‘inspiration’ behind your brand story?

What’s significant about your brand story compared to your competitors?

Have you considered how to consistently communicate your brand story and brand values through your fully integrated brand strategy?

Guerrilla Marketing : Targeting One to Reach Many With Your Brand

April 2, 2013/0 Comments/in Ambush Marketing, Brand Personality, Brand Story, Brand Strategy, Branding, Customer Engagement, Customer Service, Guerrilla Marketing, Integrated Marketing, Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Engagement, Social Media, Target Market /by Lorraine Carter

The concept of brands employing creative, innovative, and sometimes controversial tactics to generate buzz and demand attention is not a new one. However guerrilla marketing goes a step further.

By its very nature guerrilla marketing is about using unexpected tactics to generate maximum impact with as wide an audience as possible. Its success lies in creating a unique, engaging and thought provoking idea that connects with the target market and develops meaningful brand equity. Needless to say your guerrilla branding strategy needs to be totally congruent with your brand personality and what your brand stands for!

With guerrilla marketing it was often a case of the simple being the most effective. Despite a huge marketing spend at their disposal, Red Bull gained substantial exposure by choosing to adopt guerrilla tactic for their F1 London campaign; exploiting the impact of placing the extraordinary within the ordinary.

So too did McDonalds China with their McNuggets campaign.

Historically guerrilla marketing was typically viewed as a publicity stunt, with brands looking for maximum impact for minimal spend. The potential exposure and reach generated from online viral campaigns now however, has resulted in a new breed of guerrilla tactics being used by leading brands.

With greater understanding of digital metrics, brands are starting to accept the real impact that a virally successful guerrilla campaign can play on brand development. Viral success amounts to far more than greater brand awareness. The right campaign can tell a story and introduce the audience to an element of the brand personality sometimes lost in traditional advertising.

KLM are a brand who have a history of creating engaging guerrilla marketing campaigns.

With a strong social media presence in place, the brand has recently engaged in social heavy guerrilla campaigns that utilize social media data to executed targeted guerrilla campaigns to maximum effect.

KLM are the poster brand for social business. Their interaction with fans on twitter is a testament to how to develop brand image and build relationships using social media. Their willingness to engage with their fans has resulted in some incredible activities.

A recent guerrilla campaign by KLM took social involvement with fans to a new level. Over the Christmas period, KLM looked for passengers who checked into their flights on Foursquare and tweeted about waiting to board, did a little social media research to find out more about them, and then surprised them at their gates with personalized gifts. The campaign was filmed by KLM and soon went viral. It helped communicate the brands commitment to customer service, build positive brand associations, and spread brand awareness as well as a little holiday spirit.

In contrast, stress was the desired emotion of Nivea’s latest guerrilla efforts. While not as personally invasive as KLM’s airport gift campaign, Nivea too preyed on individuals to maximize viral attention. Using a variety of mediums the brand sought to play on customer stress and fear to create a context for their latest deodorant product. While KLM’s stunt was about developing brand equity through positive brand connotations, Nivea’s campaign was an obvious product push.

What both campaigns highlight is the impact that personalized guerrilla campaigns can have on the wider audience. While traditional guerrilla tactics get attention, it is not necessarily from the right target audience. By targeting individuals, the brands manage to involve all their target customers through social media sharing the experience of the campaign victims; smiling with KLM, squirming with Nivea! The use of actual customers draws the audience to identify with the people, the situation and evokes a genuine emotional response.

While some campaigns can be complex and costly to execute, the real success of modern guerrilla marketing, is to create great content, in the right context that sparks conversation and genuine emotional engagement.

Here’s the question, what kind of creative guerrilla marketing campaign, targeted at individuals but grabbing mass audience attention, could you leverage to increase genuine brand affinity with your target customers?

Have you even considered guerrilla marketing as part of your brand strategy?