Aaker on Branding: 20 Principles that Drive Success

Book 2 of 52 in the Mitch’s Notes Project

This is an obnoxiously large picture of the book’s cover

Why did I choose this book? Let me tell you a fictional story about Mike and Joe. Mike, a flat-brimmed baseball hat wearing “bro” with a crossfit t-shirt two sizes too small for his creatine-fed pecs, nearly runs over Joe, an apple, linux-loving, gray hoodied developer, with his lift-kitted truck. After yelling at Joe to get out of the way they both sheepishly realize they work at the same big tech company. Mike is a sales guy (obviously, bro) and Joe in engineering. They become fast-friends when Joe mentioned coding in Python and Mike mistook the comment for admiration of his guns. They decide to leave big tech to start their own company. Joe locked himself in a dark room to build product and Mike hunted for customers. They bootstrapped and growth-hacked their way to some success. They brought in finance, operations, human resources, and product help. They even brought in Mike’s crossfit buddies to help push product. To them marketing is only about lead generation. It is the last thing on their minds and close to the last thing in their prioritized budget. And then, suddenly it seems, competitors outflank them, leads dry up, customers churn, everyone gets frustrated, and Joe goes back to big tech because he can’t handle Mike’s “roid rage” anymore.

Don’t be like Mike and Joe. Marketing is more than just leads. Don’t forget about marketing.

The first several book reviews in this project are dedicated to marketing. I have found that most early stage startups have some combination of sales and technical skills, but that few have competency outside of paid search. Too often companies enter the growth stage without thinking about positioning, messaging, and brand development; all of which are necessary to successfully navigate the growth stage. This book review should help. (This is another solid recommendation from Mercato’s marketing sherpa John Yoon. If you are looking for a more in-depth look at marketing, he is the man with the plan.)

About the Author: David Aaker is Professor Emeritus at U.C. Berkelely, consultant, and thought leader in marketing with a focus on brand strategy. He has written over 100 articles and 14 books on marketing and branding. Like the 22 Immutable Laws last week, Aaker’s 20 Principles that Drive Success is a summary of his most important contributions. My notes exceeded 30 pages and will not include all of them here. You will want to refer back to this one. You can buy it HERE.

Category: Marketing; Branding

Mitch’s Book Scorecard

Showing some love to excel

Readability: The book uses examples and stories, but it is so full of frameworks and checklists that it reads accordingly.

Cross Functional: The focus on internal branding, culture, and communication are key CEO competencies.

Inspiration: My note page / book page ratio is high 30/193=15%. The book inspired multiple practical ideas for companies within Mercato’s portfolio.

Tactical: Highly tactical, but stops short of showing you the finishing touches.

Strategic: The book is about creating a systematic way to strategically manage your brands.

Foundational: Establishing a brand vision from the outset is ideal and this book’s Part II and III are fantastic reads there.

Diagnostic: Diagnosing and improving brand positioning is covered as well.

Executive Summary

Organization:

How can CEOs use this book?

This book is checklist manifesto heaven for marketing. The book is broken down into 5 parts that should match your organization, whether early or late. Part I is about getting the Mikes and Joes of the world to change their mindset about branding. Part II is a step by step guide for creating and positioning a brand vision. Part III is the strategic implementation of that vision. Most startups could spend all day on Part II and Part III and would be well served by this book. Part IV and Part V offer advice on revitalizing and managing the brand as the organization matures and makes strategic decisions in the later growth stages.

The book offers “strategies, perspectives, tools, and concepts that represent not only what you should know, but also various action options to consider.” As the CEO, you can be either leading these initiatives or managing someone through the process. Either way, this book is your friend. The book inspired multiple brand building ideas and frameworks that I’m eager to share with our content hungry portfolio CEOs. It will undoubtedly do the same for you.

What questions does it answer or inspire you to ask?

1. Is your brand strategic, does it have a vision? Is that vision consistent with your position in the market and with customer perceptions?
2. Are you competing on price, or are you competing on brand?
3. Does your brand have equity? In other words, are potential customers aware of the brand? Do they associate certain attributes with your brand? And are customers loyal and persistent?
4. Is your brand consistent internally and externally? What is marketing’s role in ensuring that message is communicated effectively internally and externally? How should you as the CEO participate? How can you break down silos?
5. How are you thinking about brand in the budgeting process? How are you measuring marketing spend? Are you tracking the right things?
6. How do you respond to competitive changes?
7. How do you re-energize your brand? How do you respond to brand relevance?
8. How do you brand a new offering?

What frameworks does it have?

1. Ten Branding Challenges for CEOs — Epilogue
2. The Brand Vision Model and Process — Chapter 3
3. Creating a Brand Personality — Chapter 4
4. Culture->Brand Associations->Differentiation — Chapter 5
5. A “Must Have” Differentiation Checklist — Chapter 7
6. Branded Differentiator Checklist — Chapter 8
7. Brand-Building Idea Generator — Chapter 10
8. Digital Marketing Framework — Chapter 12
9. Branding a New Offering Framework — Chapter 17
10. Brand Extension Framework — Chapter 18 and 19

My thoughts:

Why is marketing at an early stage hard? Because it is easy to get caught on the product and sales treadmill. You won’t survive without sales and you can’t sell without a product. So, you spend time and money putting out the biggest fires. It is understandable, but it is short-sighted and the last few books have pointed out that marketing positioning and branding is all about the long game.

Where should you start? It is often helpful to start at the end and this book is a prime example of that. The Epilogue has a checklist of 10 items that CEO’s should measure their organizations efforts against:

1. Treat brands as assets
2. Have a compelling vision
3. Create new subcategories
4. Generate breakthrough brand building
5. Achieve integrated marketing communication
6. Sort out a digital strategy
7. Build the brand internally
8. Maintain brand relevance
9. Create a brand-portfolio strategy yielding synergy and clarity
10. Leverage brand assets to enable growth

Typing it out makes it seems easy. It’s not. However, establishing a set of OKRs and KPIs around these topics is a great place to start in upgrading your marketing engine.

Brand Extensions Revisited: If you remember in The 22 Immutable Laws, I chaffed at the limitations on brand extensions. This book provided the salve to that itch. I believe that brand equity gives you the ability to extend into new markets, but you need to do it thoughtfully. The process that Aaker outlines is fantastic. Once you have established awareness and associations for your brand you can systematically identify extension targets. That process means that you need to understand your customer. One of the key lessons I’ve learned at Mercato is that entire organizations (CEOs, engineers, marketers) should be exposed to customer conversations. If you don’t know your customers you don’t know your brand. And if you don’t know your brand you are going to make mistakes in positioning and brand extensions.

Must Read Chapters: Part II and Part III are required reading.

Marketing as Communication Link: As I’ve worked with portfolio companies, I have noticed that marketing needs to be the internal and external communication link between engineering/product and sales. Aaker points out that communication is central to brand management. At the early stage brand management is synonymous with company management and too often this communication link is broken. In the absence of effective marketing, potential customers don’t understand the product until a salesperson educates them (external communication fail). And Sales doesn’t understand the product which leads to low conversion and churn as the customers use of the product doesn’t match the sales person’s communicated value proposition (internal communication fail). The missing ingredient is internal and external alignment of the brand vision — or marketing.

“Test your organization by asking employees these two questions: What does your brand stand for? Do you care? If employees don’t answer both questions positively, there is little chance that the business strategy will be implemented successfully. The goal of internal branding is to make sure that employees know the brand vision, and critically, that they actually care.”

If you stop an employee in the hallway and ask them what the brand vision is, what would they say? And would there be any overlap if you asked three? More importantly, if you asked customers what your brand represented, would it match your team’s answers? If you have a confused brand internally and externally, review the brand vision model and process, your brand personality, and your organizational and cultural alignment around that brand (Chapters 3–5). And then review Chapter 20. “Cross-silo teams with clear goals and effective leaders…are powerful devices to stimulate cross-silo information flows, develop synergistic programs, and enable cross-silo relationships.” “The objective is to reframe marketing as a strategic driver of the business strategy instead of being a tactical management function.”

Framing the Subcategory: Reframing the category should be considered its own marketing discipline in technology companies. I alluded to this in the The 22 Laws review, the pace of technological change provides an opportunity to reframe categories. Framing the subcategory will be addressed more in subsequent Mitch’s Notes.

1. Brands Are Assets that Drive Strategy

From Tactical to Strategic — When brands are considered assets, the role of brand management radically changes, from tactical and reactive to strategic and visionary…For marketing driven organizations, where there is marketing talent at the top, the ultimate brand champion will be a top executive, perhaps the CEO. When the brand represents the organization…the CEO often is involved in bringing the brand to life because, in that case, the brand is intertwined with the organizational culture and values as well as its business strategy.

Focus on Brand Equity — Strong brands can be the basis of competitive advantage and long-term profitability. A primary brand-building goal will be to build, enhance, or leverage brand equity, the major dimensions of which are — awareness, associations (attributes), and loyalty (persistence) of the customer base.

Organizational Silo Issues Need to Be Addressed — It has become clear that centralized coordination is needed across the countries and products that are using the brand to drive the business.

Brand Manager as Communication Team Leader — The brand-as-asset driven communication needs to also generate understanding and buy-in inside the organization, because the brand will only deliver on the brand promise if the employees “believe” and live the brand in all the customer touchpoints.

Why Is It Hard — 1) power of short-term financials is overwhelming; 2) building brand assets is no easy feat. Getting the brand vision right and then finding breakthrough ways to bring it to life ranges from difficult to impossible; 3) some organizations do not have a marketing capability in the form of people, processes, or culture, and therefore will be slow to accept the brand-as-asset view…executives in such environments are slow to accept the strategic quality of brands and find it difficult to allocate resources in that direction. [sounds like Mike and Joe].

2. Brand Assets Have Real Value

A Conceptual Business Strategy Model — The three most important assets to most organizations are people, information technology, and brands. “In an increasingly crowded marketplace, fools will compete on price. Winners will find a way to create lasting value in the customer’s mind.”

Setting and Allocating Brand-Building Budgets — 1) the role of a brand in the conceptual business strategy model needs to drive the budgeting process; 2) the quality of the communication program is much more important than the budget; 3) measurement and experimentation can help. Using short term sales criterion can lead to an overemphasis on price deals, which can damage brands and thus long-term strategy.

3. Create a Brand Vision

Yogi Berra famously offered “If you don’t know where you are going you’ll end up somewhere else.” Your brand needs to have a vision: an articulated description of the aspirational image for the brand; what you want the brand to stand for in the eyes of customers and other relevant groups like employees and partners. Brand vision ultimately drives the brand-building component of the marketing program and greatly influences the rest. It should be one of the centerpieces of the strategic planning process.

The Brand vision model:

1. First, a brand is more than a three-word phrase; it may be based on six to twelve vision elements, thoughts, or phrase. Prioritized into core and non-core (extended) vision elements.
2. Second, the extended vision elements provide a useful role in establishing your brand vision
3. Third, the brand vision model is not a “one size fits all, fill in the box” model. Context matters, and varies between companies.
4. Fourth, the brand vision is aspirational and can differ from the current image. It is the associations the brand needs to have going forward, given its current and future business strategy.
5. Fifth, the brand essence represents a central theme of the brand vision and is optional.
6. Sixth, the brand position is a short-term communication guide that often expresses what will be communicated to what target audience with what logic.

The Brand Vision Development Process:

1. Starts with context and strategy. Customer segments, competitors, market trends, environmental forces, the current brand strengths and weaknesses, and the business strategy going forward is required background.
2. Identify the aspirational associations (50–100). Associations should also provide a point of differentiation that supports the value proposition or represent a point of parity. A vision should be inspiring to the firm’s employees and partners and it should make them care.
3. The third step to prioritize the brand vision elements. The most important and potentially most impactful, the core vision elements (2–3), will be the primary drivers of the brand-building programs. The extended vision elements support the core (4–5)
4. Fourth step is to create a brand essence, a single thought that reflects the core of the brand vision.
5. Fifth step is to create the brand position map.

Strategic Imperatives vs. Proof Points: The brand vision implies a promise to customers and a commitment by the organization. It cannot be an exercise in wishful thinking but, rather, needs to have substance behind it. Every brand vision elements should ultimately have proof points, capabilities, and programs in place that enable the organization to deliver the promise of each brand vision element and its associated value proposition. Proof points can be visible or behind the scenes.

4. A Brand Personality Connects

Brand personality can be defined as the set of human characteristics associated with the brand. Not all brands have a personality, or at least a strong, distinctive personality. However, those brands that do have personality have a significant advantage; they are more likely to stand out from the crowd and have a message.

Why a Brand Personality: Represent and communicate functional benefits. Provide energy. Define a brand relationship. Guides brand-building relationships — knowing that the brand aspires to be warm and approachable guides every brand association, including its product category, positioning, attributes, use experiences, user imagery, applications, firm values, and so on. Help understand the customer — gain an in-depth understanding of consumer perceptions of the brand.

What Brand Personality: Not all brands should aspire to have a personality, especially as a core vision element. The specification of what brand personality would helps is a key step in the brand vision process. A helpful exercise is to ask customers and employees to describe the brand as a person. [This chapter has a cheat sheet around brand personalities (e.g. Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication, Ruggedness) with their sub-attributes.]

5. The Organization and Its Higher-Purpose

Organizational values…which generate brand differentiation and a basis for a customer relationship, are enduring because they are difficult to copy. They can represent and thus communicate a value proposition, provide credibility as an endorser, and create a higher purpose valued by customers and employees. One challenge is to identify what organizational values will work for a brand. Another is to find ways to get credit for them in the marketplace.

How Organizational Values Work

1. Supports a Value Proposition — provide a “reason to believe” behind functional benefits that are the basis for a value proposition. The value proposition of a new offering is often based on the claim that it contains a breakthrough advance that can too often sound like puffery. A perception of an innovative organization can help support such a claim. [And be perceived of higher quality]
2. Provides Credibility as Endorser
3. A Higher Purpose — A Basis for a Relationship — it is worth doing because it improves some people’s lives. It also can provide satisfaction and even inspiration to employees. Customers can connect based on admiration of its higher purpose.

Organization Value

1. Perceived Quality
2. Innovation
3. Concern for Customers
4. Success/Size
5. Going Local
6. Environmental Programs
7. Social Programs

6. Get Beyond Functional Benefits

Brand personality, organizational associations, emotional benefits, self-expressive benefits, and social benefits are powerful drivers of brand relationships and loyalty, making them both broader and deeper than functional benefits defined by the offering. They go to very basic needs and motivations. The ability of competitors to disrupt the relationship based on a functional benefit appeal becomes lessened. There is a lot of upside to getting beyond functional benefits.

Emotional benefits — when I use this brand I feel…. The strongest brand identities have both functional and emotional benefits.

Self-expressive benefits — when I use this brand I am…. Brands that people like, admire, discuss, buy, and use also provide a vehicle for expressing either an actual or ideal self-self image.

Social benefits — when I use this brand, the type of people I relate to are…. A brand can enable a person to be part of a social group and thereby convey social benefits.

Which Benefits — one approach is to look at the experience of the most loyal customers…they have experiences that go beyond functional benefits.

7. Create “Must Haves” Rendering Competitors Irrelevant

Creating “must haves” that render competitors less relevant, and then building barriers to prevent them from becoming relevant is, with rare exceptions, the only way to go and has been shown to lead to high profit pay-offs. A potential “must have” should be considered as a “must have” by the marketplace and should represent an offering the firm can deliver. A key component in “must have” initiatives is to create and manage barriers to prevent competitors from becoming relevant. A big subcategory-defining innovation with the potential to get traction in the marketplace does not happen often, but when it does, the opportunity should not be lost by being too risk averse.

A “must have” can be based on a transformational innovation that creates an offering with characteristics that customers must have. The “must have” can improve the offering with: a feature, a benefit, an appealing design, a system offering, a new technology, a product designed for a segment, a dramatically low price point.

It connects with customers through a: shared interest, a personality, a passion, or organizational values

What is the Payoff — One study examined strategic moves by 108 companies. The 14% that were categorized as creating new categories had 38% of the revenues and 61% of the profits. Another study analyzed the one-hundred fastest-growing U.S. companies from 2009 to 2011 and found that the thirteen companies that were instrumental in creating their categories accounted for 53% of the incremental revenue growth and 74% of the incremental market capitalization growth over those three years.

8. To Own an Innovation, Brand It

A branded differentiator is a branded and actively managed branded feature, ingredient, technology, service, or program that creates a meaningful, impactful point of differentiation for a branded offering over an extended time period. It provides a way to own an innovation, provide credibility to it, and make communication easier and more memorable. When it is warranted, it can be a powerful part of the brand portfolio.

Needs to be meaningful in that it matters to customers, and impactful in that it is not a trivial difference. Needs to warrant active management and justify brand-building efforts. Needs to be linked to the branded offering.

Types of Branded Differentiators:

1. A branded feature — a unique benefit, something of value to customers, truly differentiating, and linked to the branded offering.
2. A branded ingredient — even if they don’t understand how the ingredient works, the fact that it was branded lends credibility to the explicit or implied claims.
3. A branded technology — A technology breakthrough, if branded, can make a difference by providing a rationale and thus credibility for a value proposition. The branded technology provides power just because it is branded.
4. A branded service — a classic way to differentiate a brand is to augment the offering with a branded service that then has the potential to be a branded differentiator.
5. Branded programs — broaden or supplement the offering can differentiate.

9. From Positioning the Brand to Framing the Subcategory

Framing: Framing aims to change the way people perceive, discuss, and feel about the subcategory and as such can change what people are buying and which brands are relevant to that purchase. It represents a very different perspective on competing and winning. Instead of assuming that the subcategory definition and set of competitors are fixed, framing allows the scope and defining characters of the subcategory to be in play. The choice of the subcategory to buy is the first stage of the buying process and dominating this first stage can influence, if not dictate, which brands wins. An alternative framing objective could be to broaden an existing attractive subcategory to include your brand

Changing the Perspective and Vocabulary Toward the Subcategory — The framing process works by shaping the choice discussion, providing a perspective and vocabulary that will enhance the chances that the new subcategory will find success. If the subcategory wins, so will the brand that is defining it. What makes the frame win? Finding the right label and/or metaphor to describe the frame that is on target and descriptive can be critical. Be persistent and disciplined. Always use the label or metaphor, never deviate. Make it so pervasive that competitors will also use it. That is when you know you have won. Frame affects perceptions and preferences. Frames can actually dominate factual information. It is easier to rely on what a frame stands for.

Become the Exemplar of the Subcategory:

1. Advocate for the subcategory or category rather than the brand
2. Develop a descriptive label to help define the subcategory and be prepared to manage that label
3. Invest to become the early market leader in terms of sales and market share
4. Make sure the subcategory wins

Framing cont’d: Instead of promoting the superiority of the brand, consider framing a subcategory such that competitors are excluded or placed at a disadvantage. Strong frames can smother and distort rational information processing and dominate brand decisions. Becoming a subcategory exemplar, the best route of subcategory control, invokes selling the subcategory rather than the brand, creating and dominating a subcategory level, and becoming the perceived market leader. Making sure the subcategory wins is a route to brand growth.

10. Where Do Brand-Building Ideas Come From?

Don’t be satisfied with spending a brand-building budget. Rather seek breakthrough ideas. Ideas can come from anywhere but can be facilitated by a host of methods and processes such as exploring external role models, analyzing brand touchpoints, identifying customer motivations and unmet needs, leveraging assets, being opportunities. What is important if the willingness to invest behind the brand vision, the motivation to bring it to life, and the aspiration to create “big” brand-building ideas.

External role models — find an organization that has successfully addressed a similar problem and adapt what they did. It is helpful not only to identify external role models that are on strategy, but also to probe the boundaries — role models that are either “too much” or “not enough.”

Brand Touchpoints — the brand experience is created by brand touchpoints that occur any time a person in the marketplace interacts with the brand

1. Identify all existing and potential touchpoints
2. Evaluate the touchpoint experience
3. Determine the impact of each touchpoint on consumer decisions and attitudes
4. Prioritize
5. Develop an action plan
6. Once you have all the touchpoints you can create a journey or set of touchpoints.

Customer Motivations and Unmet Needs

1. The most direct way to uncover them is to ask customers to identify motivations, problems, and unmet needs
2. “Living with” and observing customers as they shop for or use brands to learn about their habits, processes, and problems.
3. Brand teams can bypass customers entirely and make judgements on motivation and unmet needs by analyzing the customer context and by making judgements about how it could be improved [but unless you are a marketing savant (like Steve Jobs) I wouldn’t advise it]

Other Ideas:

1. Being opportunistic when something comes up (awards, etc.)
2. Leveraging assets — symbols
3. Customer Sweet Spots
4. Creative thinking processes
5. Find and leverage stories
6. Empower all units in the organization, not just marketing
7. Employ crowdsourcing
8. Look at competitor weaknesses
9. Emerging applications or market segments to refresh brand
10. Refine, refine, refine.

11. Focus on Customer’s Sweet Spots

Customers are not interested in efforts to promote an offering, brand, or firm, yet that is the basis of much marketing. An alternative is to focus on the activities or interests that customers are involved with, their sweet spot. The challenge is to create a sweet-spot program in which the brand is seen as a shared-interest partner. It is a big idea and can result in providing the brand with energy, likability, and credibility; the basis for a deeper relationship; and an activated social network. There are three on-ramps to a shared interest program depending whether the offering is embedded into the program, linked to it, or independent of it. The cost and evolution of an internal, owned program can be controlled by the organization, but an external program with an established brand and record will sometimes be more effective and feasible.

What Does a Customer-Driven Sweet-Spot Program Buy

1. Create brand energy and interest
2. Enhance brand likability and credibility
3. Form a friend, colleague, or mentor brand relationship
4. Stimulate a social network

12. Digital — A Critical Brand-Building Tool

Digital engages, allows rich content, targets, and engenders trust. It builds brands by augmenting the offering, supporting the offering, created brand-building platforms, and/or amplifying other brand-building platforms. Success in digital will involve participating in a wide range of modalities, achieving integrated marketing communication, avoiding thinking that digital is only tactical, experimentation, listening programs opportunities, great content, and measurement.

Communicate and Support the Offering — HBR found that those brands that scored in the top quartile on delivering simple, relevant information were 86 percent more likely to be purchased and 115 percent more likely to be recommended to others

Create a Brand-Building Platform

1. Online Viral Videos
2. Social Media-Driven Promotions

Building Out Digital

1. Achieve capabilities with a wide range of digital modalities
2. Learn to integrate digital into the marketing effort
3. Think strategic as well as tactical
4. Experiment
5. Listen
6. Be opportunities
7. Think content
8. Set objectives, measurable if possible

13. Consistency Wins

What is isn’t: Consistency does not mean strategic stubbornness about the vision or relentless repetition of a weak execution. There are real rationales for changing a brand strategy or its execution, such a weak or defective strategy or execution, a changing marketplace or business strategy, or a lack of energy. But a change should be justified and biases toward change should be identified and resisted. To guard against brand-change decision that are premature or unwarranted, the case for change should be as objective and comprehensive as possible. Is should not be left to someone’s instinct.

Change Motivations

1. You have evidence that the existing brand strategy is poorly conceived or cannot be executed.
2. A more innovative and involving execution is needed to bring the strategy to life. If they have a compelling value proposition and execution team can deliver creative, punchy programs.
3. Fundamental changes in the marketplace
4. Change in business strategy
5. Brand lacks energy and visibility

The Power of Consistency

1. It takes time for any brand position or brand-building program to get traction
2. Consistent brand program over time can lead to the virtual ownership of a position
3. Any change has the potential to dilute what has been built
4. Cost effective. Once a strong position is created, it is difficult to dislodge and relatively easy and inexpensive to maintain because you are reinforcing instead of breaking new ground
5. We are subject to change biases that should be controlled

14. Internal Branding: A Key Ingredient

Powerful brands are built from the inside out. To create a strong brand in the marketplace, employees and partners need to both know the brand vision and care about its realization. A clear, motivating internal brand will provide guidance and motivation to create programs that will move the brand forward and avoid programs that will confuse or undercut the promise. Creating a strong internal brand involves three stages “learning it,” “believing it,” and “living it” — aimed at key participants such as top executives, customer-facing employees, and internal brand ambassadors. Signature stories should be gathered and leveraged to support the brand in a vivid, authentic way.

Communicating the Brand Internally:

1. Learning — newsletters, workshops, and personal efforts brand ambassadors, senior managers, influencers, and others. A brand book and brand card are helpful if surrounded by the right culture. Especially if the CEO refers to it regularly.
2. Believing — put substance behind the brand vision to signal that the organization is committed. Visible programs that align the evaluation and reward of people around those programs. Measurement and rewards drive behavior.
3. Living — people are inspired to action
4. Getting employees in front of customers can be one way to make the brand vision have priority. When an executive interacts with customers first-hand and sees more vividly the issues, the importance of creating and support an internal brand is more visible. Organizationally, there should be a brand champion — someone or some team that is in charge of the brand and willing to carry the flag.

Signature Stories. Those that represent the brand at its core and have lived over time — can be powerful aids in bring the brand to life in the marketplace but especially internally. Stories can also be based on exceptional decisions or actions by employees, or out of the ordinary customer experiences that provide aspiration and emotion to the brand.

15. Three Threats to Brand Relevance

A brand can lose relevance in any of three ways.

1. A declining subcategory can be addressed by gaining parity along a deficient dimension, leapfrogging to superiority, repositioning your brand, applying the stick-to-your-knitting strategy, disinvesting, or selling.
2. A “reason-not-to-buy” can be neutralized by “negating the negative” or by changing the discussion.
3. The third threat is a loss of energy.

The challenge is to be aware of and sensitive to these relevant threats. They can be addressed, but only if they are identified and understood. Like attacking a serious illness, the earlier you can detect an emerging relevance issue, the easier it will be to create an effective response. Detection is not always easy. It requires a market research capability, the ability to get insights from data, and people who are strategically sensitive to marketplace changes and emerging brand weaknesses.

16. Energize Your Brand!

How can you energize a brand?

1. New offering vitality A continuous flow of offering innovations that create interest, visibility, and energy
2. Energize marketing. An involving promotion — the involving/engaging dimension is the most accessible and powerful for brands. Like activated by programs like a go-to website with an active community focused on the customer’s sweet spot — interests and activities that are important to their identity, values, and lifestyle. Compelling advertising. Go retail. A higher-order purpose. A viral video.
3. Find or create a branded energizer. Ownable, internal branded energizer — is a branded product, promotion, sponsorship, symbol, program, or other entity that by association significantly enhances and energizes a target brand and is developed and owned by the organization. External branded energizer — co-branding.

17. You Need a Brand Portfolio Strategy

There are two portfolio decisions that should be clearly understood, not only because they will influence the portfolio’s ability to achieve its objectives, but because they define and illustrate brand roles that are central to a portfolio strategy

1. First, how should a new (or existing) offering be branded? Should subbrands or endorsed brands play a role?
2. Second, what are the brand priorities within the portfolio? Which brands are strategic and which should be eliminated or received reduced support?

Selecting the Right Position on the Spectrum

1. Will the existing master brand enhance the offering?
2. Will the offering enhance the master brand?
3. Is there a compelling reason to generate a new brand, whether it be a stand-alone brand, an endorsed brand, or a subbrand?

Trimming the Portfolio — An evaluation and Consolidation Process

1. Evaluate each brand for 1) Brand equity; 2) Business strength; 3) Strategic fit; and 4) Branding options
2. Assess the investment level for each brand based on the evaluation. Tier one — strategic brands; Tier two — flanker or niche brands; Tier three — cash cow brands; Tier four — elimination brands

18. Brand Extensions: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Extension can expand a business base and provide new growth platforms. The good — a brand can help a new offering gain visibility and needed associations. The more good — a new offering can enhance the brand’s visibility and associations as well as expand the brand’s scope and provide a larger budget for brand building. The bad — the brand associations can fail to help or even damage the new offering. The ugly — the new offering can damage the brand by diffusing its image, by creating an undesired association, or by a marketplace blunder or accident. Determining candidate extensions involves finding leverageable brand associations, finding an offering that has a compelling value proposition, and making sure that extensions is not ad hoc but part of a larger vision

The Good — The Brand Enhances the Extension Offering

1. Awareness — people just have to connect a known brand to a new category rather than learning a new brand name and connecting it to a category
2. Brand Associations: Product category relevance; Attribute/functional benefits; Technological credibility; Organizational values; Brand personality/self-expressive benefits

More Good — consideration of how the extension affects the brand: Extensions provide: Visibility and association enhancement for the brand; Extensions also provide energy to the brand, a key needed element and one that can drive enhanced visibility, especially when they are successful and involve innovation. Extension can expand the scope of the brand and add associations that can be leveraged. Extensions can provide a larger budget for marketing and brand-building programs

The bad — if the brand fit is off or credibility is lacking, the brand may hurt instead of help the extension

The ugly — the brand name is often the key asset of the firm. An ill-advised or poorly implemented extension could damage the brand, especially if the extension did not fail quickly and quietly. Diluting Existing Brand Associations — reduce the brand’s credibility within its original setting. Undesirable Attribute Associations Get Created — the end result will depend on the success of the extensions, the nature of the reframing of the brand, and the ability of the firm to manage the strategy going forward. The Brand Fails to Live Up to Its Promise — any extension will risk brand equity if it does not deliver on the key brand promise

Finding Extension Candidates

1. First determine the brand’s associations because they are candidates on which to drive an extension concept
2. Second, identify extension product category options
3. Third, the candidate categories then need to be evaluated
4. Fourth, the potential offering needs to be identified and evaluated. Few “me too” new offerings succeed. We know from dozens of studies of new offerings that meaningful differentiation is the single highest correlate of market success. MUST be both innovative and has a convincing story.

Reducing Risk of Extensions

1. Use of subbrand or an endorsed brand can separate the extension from the master brand, thereby reducing risks due to a performance or fit issue.
2. The extension can be carefully positioned to reduce any effect of its associations on the master brand.
3. If the associations overlap they should not be presented differently or inconsistently in the extension context.

19. Vertical Brand Extensions Have Risks and Rewards

Vertical extension can have a compelling business rationale, as the value markets often have growth plus scale and the upscale segments deliver growth, margins, and buzz. It is important when pursuing them to make sure that the organization can deliver behind a very different brand promise and to understand the branding options and the associated benefits and risks of each. When a premium brand is used to support a value extension, it risks being tarnished and precipitating cannibalization. When it is used for a super-premium it may lack credibility. The use of subbrands and endorsed brands can reduce the risks.

Moving down market into a Value Market

1. In a maturing market with shrinking margins
2. Price sensitivity due to economic uncertainty
3. Value retailers may be the distribution channel for growth and a value offering will be needed
4. Disruptive technologies have entered the market
5. Value can be strategic for other reasons as well.
6. Branding the value entry. Stand alone brand. Use another brand that is owned and redundant. Use the premium brand, but run the risk tarnishing the premium brand, cannibalization, may fail due to the lingering perception that it is high priced. Use a subbrand or endorsed brands

Moving up market into a Premium Market

1. Margins, interest, vitality, prestige and self-expressive benefits reside
2. Branding the Upmarket Entry. Stand alone brand. Identify or acquire an established brand. Subbrands and endorsed brands. Two challenges: 1) No confidence that the brand can deliver the perceived quality or functional benefits; and 2) Brand is inconsistent with the need to deliver self-expressive benefits that may be driving the super-premium arena.

20. Silo Organizations Inhibit Brand Building

Isolated product, country, and functional silos are no longer a practical option, as they lead to a failure to create consistent brand messaging, leverage successes, scale programs, allocate brand resources optimally, build-cross silo offerings, and develop needed competencies. However, that does not mean a race to centralize or standardize, rather, the goal should be to foster a culture of communication and cooperation rather than isolation and competition. What works is to use non-threatening roles for the CMO team, teams and networks, common processes and systems, ways to adapt the brand vision, silos as a source of ideas, and CEOs to enable difficult organizational compromises. The functional silo problem has become acute with the advent of digital.

Get CEO / Organization support:

1. To make progress, the CMO team needs credibility and buy in. A key is to obtain visible CEO support, providing authority and resources. One route to getting the CEO on board is to align the role of marketing with that of the CEO’s priority agenda.
2. The objective is to reframe marketing as a strategic driver of the business strategy instead of being a tactical management function.
3. Use hard numbers in showing the relationship between marketing and financial performance. When the CMO teams can demonstrate an ROI return or its absence, their stature will be enhanced and their image of being soft and lacking analytical skills will at least be reduced.
4. Credibility also comes from customer knowledge. In fact, that is the ultimate source of influence.