The Brand Promise
If most marketers were forced to designate one element as the most important part of the brand, it would likely be the promise. Simply stated, the brand promise is the benefit the brand will deliver to consumers, and fulfilling that promise is one of the most important actions a company can take.
Suppose you visit a Web site that provides travel information. According to the site, they can give you more comprehensive information on remote destinations than any other travel site on the Web. So you search through the site to help you as you plan your upcoming vacation. After searching for a while, you settle on the island of St. Maarten in the Caribbean. The site details the exciting night life, a championship golf course, and award winning restaurants that make St. Maarten one of the most highly rated island destinations. You’re sold! You book your flight, pack your bags and head out, anxious to play a round of golf and dance the night away.
There’s only one problem—the Web site forgot to mention that a hurricane that hit the island over three years ago destroyed the golf course, which was never rebuilt. They also left out the fact that the night life consists of bars and clubs that are only open during specific months of the year, and they are all closed during the time that you’re there. So much for “comprehensive information.”
The site did not do what it promised. It promised you comprehensive information, but the information it actually provided was old and incomplete. The next time you are planning to take a trip, it’s highly doubtful you will return to this site for information.
Fulfilling the brand promise is key to building trust for the brand. Initially, the consumer can only go by what the brand promises and assume that that promise will be fulfilled. If the promise is fulfilled, the brand is strengthened. A positive reputation has begun, and the expectation of positive returns during future use is increased, making it likely that the consumer will use that brand again. Break the promise, and the brand has been breached, raising doubt and diminishing trust. While trust can be difficult to build, losing it can be fairly easy. Regaining trust is often impossible, regardless of how much money is spent on advertising.
The Brand Personality
When we think about personalities, we think about the people we come in contact with everyday and not so much about the brands we use. In reality, personalities in the brands we buy have an impact similar to the personalities of people that we meet.
Think about the people you meet on a daily basis. Some are super funny. Some are really good listeners. Some tend to be more serious. Still others are terrific conversationalists or have a depth of thought that makes them unique. Some people are obnoxious. Others are shy. Some are depressing, and some are generally upbeat. Chances are the people that you gravitate toward are people with whom you share similar personality traits.
It is likely that you will gravitate toward brands that have personalities similar to your own, as well. Like people, brands have their own personalities, and they use that personality to relate to a market that shares similar traits. Volkswagen, for example, comes off as fun and irreverent, while Lexus comes off as serious and elegant. Each brand has developed a personality meant to attract a specific audience.
Often times, consumers judge personality by first impression, usually based on aesthetic presentation. Go to any crowded place that attracts all different types of people, such as a mall. Find a bench, sit back, relax, and observe. Watch the people walking by. See the woman with the heavy make-up, pink hat, and loud pink pants? What do you think her personality is like? What about that guy with the comb-over, wearing the sweater vest, and walking timidly behind his wife, his head down and his hands deep in his pocket? How about the teenager riding the escalator, with the black Metallica t-shirt, baggy jeans, and half of his hair shaved off ?
Right or wrong, people often make an immediate assumption about an individual’s personality just by the way he or she looks, the colors that they wear, the style of clothes they choose, and other visual elements. Brands are no different. Brand personalities are often immediately judged by how they present themselves to the public through visual elements (discussed later in the chapter) and marketing efforts.
The Unique Selling Proposition
Consumers make purchases based on need, desire, or both. Brands can make all sorts of promises and exude tons of personality; however, each brand still needs to offer a unique selling proposition (USP)—something that can differentiate the brand from their competitors—or brand loyalty will be impossible to achieve.
Assume that every bar of soap on a grocery store shelf looked exactly the same. Each was a plain white bar in a colorful box, with each box saying that this particular soap was guaranteed to get you clean. Th at is pretty much what soap is supposed to do, so it doesn’t really tell you very much. Beyond that, the only thing that separates one product from another is the name and the logo. If the prices were exactly the same across all products, there wouldn’t really be much of a choice to make. You could grab any bar of soap and feel relatively confi dent that it would do just as good of a job as any other bar.
Brands must look for ways to distinguish themselves from one another—to give consumers a reason to gravitate toward them. Maybe one brand adds the scent of exotic flowers to their soap, another develops a unique formula that gets users even cleaner, and still another shapes their soap in fancy designs. In doing so, they distinguish themselves from one another, giving consumers added reason to choose their product over competing products.
Image
While intangible features such as the promise and personality live at the heart of the brand, consumers need a visual way to identify, distinguish, and recall these messages. Image elements such as logos, taglines, and colors and fonts lend tangible and visual elements to intangible concepts, giving consumers an easier means of mentally categorizing each brand.
Logos
Like the burn mark on the farmer’s cow discussed earlier, the logo is a unique, visual means by which people can instantly recognize a company and understand its product, promise, and personality. Typically, logos are designed to be relatively simple, made up of no more than a couple of colors and lacking fine detail. There are a number of reasons to maintain simplicity in a logo, including:
• Simpler logos allow for easier and quicker audience recognition.
• Less detail makes a logo easier to replicate at smaller sizes such as on business cards or embroidered on shirts.
• Fewer colors are less expensive to reproduce.
Consistency
When it comes to marketing the brand, the most important rule is to remain consistent. Companies may spend a good part of their marketing budgets on brand management (efforts to promote a brand and ensure it is being used properly and effectively) to make sure that the integrity of the brand is upheld throughout all forms of public dissemination. Th e larger the company, the harder it is to maintain consistency because larger companies tend to have a global reach, use
multiple marketing and promotional agencies, and be involved in a large number of promotional efforts at any one time.
Consider the following scenario. Someone who visits a B2B Web site immediately gets a sense of that company’s brand from the layout, navigation, and copy of the site. If he or she is interested in what the company
has to offer, the visitor might e-mail a request for more literature. When it arrives, the colors used in the materials are different from the colors used on the Web site. In addition, the Web site uses photographic imagery in dark backgrounds, while the printed pieces have cartoon style illustrations against stark white backgrounds. The tagline “Build it Better. Build it With Us,” which appears on the site, is nowhere to be found on the literature. Potential consumers might not notice the discrepancies, but from the company’s perspective, an opportunity to drive the brand message home has been lost. If the difference is noticed, the company could appear disorganized or not well-established.