Reading Time: 4 minutesMuch is made of the idea that your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room. However, brands are defined by more than reputation, and stories are told and spread by more than just consumers. Some stories you control. Many you can’t. Here are 8 types of brand stories […]
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Perspectives
How to build strong, high-performing brand equity
Reading Time: 5 minutesBrand equity is the accumulated added value element of your brand. I often refer to as “emotional margin”. It’s frequently measured as the gap between the price your brand can command through its very presence because of the goodwill it has built up compared with how consumers value non-branded products in your category.
Engaging senior leaders around the value of brands
Reading Time: 4 minutesRecent conversations have served as a reminder that not all senior leaders regard brands as something they should be involved with. If you’re struggling to get your senior team to put important brand matters on the executive agenda, here’s some reminders by way of making the case for greater consideration.
How to build a quiet brand in a world of noise
Reading Time: 4 minutesEverywhere you look today it seems, there are people and brands only too keen to spell out exactly what they think and what they want you to know, in the loudest terms possible. As the volume continues to climb, can you even be a quiet brand today?
4 ways to successfully franchise your brand
Reading Time: 5 minutesFranchising can be a very powerful way to grow your brand, but it is a way of branding a business that has very specific characteristics and challenges.
An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Disruption
Reading Time: < 1 minuteIn my latest article for Entrepreneur, I challenge entrepreneurs to articulate what they intend to disrupt. As per the article, “if you are not entering a sector to turn it upside down, then chances are you are dooming yourself to being just another participant”. Hope you like. If you do, please share.
Finding new answers by asking new questions
Reading Time: 3 minutesIf businesses are truly intent on developing strategies that cut through, perhaps the best place to start is with stranger questions. Asking the less obvious might push more brands to think more laterally about their futures.
The harsh realities of distinctualising your brand
Reading Time: 5 minutesOur gut instinct as marketers is to go with what is working, because everything in the corporate rewards system is geared towards that: lack of risk appetite; the quest for short term results; even performance incentives. The irony for brands of course is that the more you go with what works for others, the less […]
The search for simplicity. It’s complicated.
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe hardest thing you can do as an owner I believe is to insist on building a powerfully simple brand. It’s hard because single-mindedness is difficult in a world where the consideration set is huge and where others will quickly seek to engage you in a relentlessly upgraded features war.
The key to taking charge is staying true to how you started
Reading Time: 3 minutesChristopher Zook’s article on why companies with strong founders are more innovative, generate a greater number of patents, and more valuable patents at that, and are proactive in investing in and adapting their business model is a reminder to all of the very human qualities required to keep a company (and its brands) growing.
Will your customers forgive you?
Reading Time: 5 minutesPerhaps it’s inevitable. At some stage, a brand is going to do something to upset customers and prospects. That’s the price companies pay for trading in an era of greater and greater transparency. The key question is: when something does go wrong, will your brand be forgiven?
When brands change hands: 6 decisions for new owners
Reading Time: 4 minutesIf your brand is taken over by another company or your company takes over other brands, either as a stand-alone buy or as part of a broader merger and acquisition, what aspects of your current brand should stay as they are and what might you look to change?