“Any damn fool can put on a deal, but

it takes genius, faith and perseverance

to create a brand.”

David Ogilvy

Honestly, brands do not need

geniuses, prophets and not even faith.

What about perseverance ? More

needed are agility and adaptability

indeed.

What is not a brand ?

Brand is not....

● a checklist of deliverables

● a logo

● the domain of one department

● a thing you can control alone

● a static idea

● the result of pure creativity

● a promise, just a promise

What is a brand ?

Brand is....

● a relationship

● that takes place every day

● what people feel and say about you

● something you cannot fully control

● the result of a whole organisation

● a living idea incorporated into

actions, words, visuals, people

Approach. Develop brand as relationship and inspire (true) love.

Customer centric

Brands are about people, not products. Brands are about customers, not companies.

You start from a deep dive into the life of your customers. What do you enable them to do ? How will your brand improve their lives ? How will you make them feel better ?

Lean and agile

Not obsessed by big deliverables, you focus on what matters.

You develop an agile brand, that can evolve and adapt as markets and customers evolve, with ability to move easily into new markets.

You develop a light set of ideas and artifacts, that can be digested and - what´s more - inspire all the people of your organisation. Not a bible, but more of a compass.

Measurable

You go for relevant metrics, and leave behind the pure vanity metrics.

You define core metrics that you can use to evaluate your brand health ongoing, with focus on consumer engagement, participation, trust and... love.

And yes, that is all valid for B2B brands too.

Let your brand be...

The approach, step by step.

CUSTOMER STORY

BRAND AUDIT

BRAND STORY

MINIMUMVIABLEBRAND

TEST & ITERATE

ACTIVATE

BRING THE BRAND TO

LIFE

ARTIFACTS

PEOPLE &CULTURE

METRICS

PLAYGROUNDS

An outside-in (i.e. customer driven) point of view on...

● Competition Who your customers consider as your competitors ? ● Perception Which values do they associate with you ? ● Audience Who are your customers ? ● Resonance Do you have brand lovers ?

...and some groundwork of course: surveys, social media research, collection of messages and visuals currently sent out a/o shared with customers.

BRAND AUDIT

Competition reality check

Your competitors are not who you think they are, but who your target audience considers in competition with you.

E.g. lastminute.com vs. Trivago vs. Airbnb.

As business model, they are not competitors at all. But they all belong to the same repertoire of services customers reach out when they look for travel. They compete on attention, trust, memory.

Customer segments

Use the audit to verify the consumer segmentation, so to increase relevance, define the appropriate brand story and how to engage with them. Go for behaviors, rather than demographics.

E.g. lastminute.com

More singles or more family ? More city explorers of pumpered relaxers ?

The elements of value How much love do you inspire ?

Three statements that allow to build a "Brand Passion Score":

● X is a brand for me - the strongest measure of resonance. Do customer perceive a real, personal, specific bond with the brand ?

● X is a brand I can trust - in an age when people do only trust their peer, this is a crucial metric

● X is a brand I enjoy introducing other people to - if they´re really in love with you, they´ll recommend you. The Net Promoter Score is all about this... the Holy Grail of Brand Lovers

CUSTOMER STORY

Empathise and understand...

● The job to be done. What do customer want to achieve with your product ?

● Aspiration. What is your customer ultimate aspiration? Be more, do more, become more, belong more? Focus on that !

● Your customers´ world. What do they see, say, do, feel?

The not-so-secret sauce of this recipe is etnographic research. The outcome are Personas you can use to write your brand story and validate as long as you activate the brand.

BRAND AUDIT

The job to be done. What your customers want to achieve ? Your product is just the beginning of the story...

Purchase and delivery of the goods bought (or service delivered), that´s relatively unimportant

compared to what customer want to achieve.

What for are you going to buy running shoes: to start with fitness and lose some weght ? Or to outperform your next marathon ? Why as a woman do I want to go solo travelling ? Why do I want to adopt a new helpdesk software ? To save costs, to streamline processes, to better manage multinational customer care ?

The key aspiration of your customers

DO MORE Achieve more practically e.g. Odlo for athletes to be fit for high performancee.g. Velux, "better living"

BE MORE Confirm who you are e.g. Dove, "you´re beautiful" e.g. Always, "like a girl"

BECOME MORE Achieve more emotionally e.g. Red Bull "gives you wings" (attitude to life) e.g. Diesel, "for successful living"

BELONG MORE Connect with others e.g. AirBnb "sense of belonging" e.g. Harley Davidson "a tribe, a brotherhood, a club"

Think your brand as a propeller, an enabler, a shorthand for your customers to pursue their key aspirations.

Deep dive into the life of your customers

CUSTOMER STORY

BRAND AUDIT

BRAND STORY

● WHY The brand purpose ● WHAT Brand as enabler:

the role you play in the life of customers ● HOW The Brand difference:

what makes you special ?● WOW How will the Brand inspire love ?

You have captured the customer story.

For defining a brand story that resonates with the story of your customers, you need to elaborate on few key ideas. These ideas will define the core of your brand concept.

Vision and purpose. This is your "why": is is about dreams, ambition to change the world (for the better of course), the reason your brand to exist.

The role of your brand in the life of your customers as an enabler (propeller, enhancer, facilitator...).... What are you enabling them to do/be/become/achieve more ?

The Brand Difference. This is your "how" and is about how does the brand enable people better then they could otherwise?

The (expected) emotional benefits. How will people feel about the brand as a result ? Why would they recommend our brand to others, what will they say about us ?

The "Why"Vision and

purpose

The "How"

How better do you

enable customers ?

The "

What

"

The e

nable

r job

The "WoW factor".Why will they

recommend us ?

Reframe: what is your job about ? Online survey tools and customer feedback colletion < Voice of

Customer Rooftop windows for family homes < Quality home living. Online travel agent < Lifestyle enabler

Online shoes shop < Delivering happiness

The "Why"Vision and

purposeYour purpose, vision, dream.

Do you have a founder story to share ?What you stand for ?

How to you aim to change the world, by doing what you do ?What do you want to achieve, beyond making profits ?

E.g. Apple vision was to challenge the status quo: producing beautifully designed electronics was a mean to that.

Your role to make the life of your customers better.

What kind of enabler are your ? What is your role in helping people to do more, live more, be more, become

more, connect and belong more with other people ?

The "

What

"

The e

nable

r job

The "How"

How better do you

enable customers ?

What makes your brand special and different.

What makes you special ? Is it about beautiful design ? ...or brutal simplicity ? Is it about the friendliest customer service

? The most intuitive interface ? Extremely flexible pricing scheme? Abundance of choice ? Physical proximity ?

How will people feel about your brand as a result ?

How will your brand go beyond "like" and inspire "love" ?

Key questions / desired outcome

● How will people feel about the brand as a result ?● Why would they recommend us to others ?

The "love factor".Why will they

recommend us ?

CUSTOMER STORY

BRAND AUDIT

BRAND STORY

● What do you need to learn ? ● Develop hypothesis ● How will you measure results● Goal metrics ● Develop artifacts● Test and iterate ● Is there product-brand-fit?

MINIMUMVIABLEBRAND

TEST & ITERATE

Focus the test on what you need to learn and develop hypothesis

"If we change our brand story to X, customers will behave like Y"

"If we engage potential customers with this channels, they will.."

"If we change our brand name like this, existing customers will..."

"If we send this message in X, we will position the brand like Y"

MINIMUMVIABLEBRAND

TEST & ITERATE

Select measures and set goals for testing the brand elements.

"If we engage potential customers with this channels, they will.."

conversion metrics - sentiment metrics - engagement metrics

Develop the minimum set of artifacts needed to run the test.

A test can be an ad campaign targeted at small consumer group - branded content experiment - and/or - A/B testing landing pages -

and/or - pop-up store at selected location - and/or - event, workshop, meetup testing brand experience - and/or - invitation to join selected

group for co-creation ....

MINIMUMVIABLEBRAND

TEST & ITERATE

Check the product-market-brand fit. Key questions

● Does the brand reflect the product value proposition ?

● Does the value proposition fit to the target market ?

● Does the brand emotional values resonate with the target audience ?

CUSTOMER STORY

BRAND STORY

ARTIFACTS Text, visuals, story themes, guidelines, templates, handbooks, mission statements.... focus on what matters.

METRICS Attitude to brand: fromliking to loving, from awareness to active advocacy.

PLAYGROUNDS Where can you connect with customers, how can you foster community and influencers ?

PEOPLE AND CULTURE Make the brand the soul of your company.

MINIMUMVIABLEBRAND

ACTIVATE

BRING THE BRAND TO

LIFE

ARTIFACTS

PEOPLE &CULTURE

METRICS

PLAYGROUNDS

Actionable. Made to be applied. Now.

Focus more on practical artifacts: e.g. key messages and storylines, brand words, content themes and story angles, tagline, sample messages for the customer communication, does and dont´s for imagery and text....

Leave behind self-referential fluff like mission statements. On "Brand Personality" or "Tone of voice" docs, avoid ambiguity: each personality trait must be 100% clear on how it will translate into brand experience.... if they are not crystal clear, better not to write them down.

Versatile and made to evolve.New screens, new surfaces, new channels, new applications.... all visuals need to be easy to adapt and to extend based on each new moment where they will be in front of customers.

Versatile. E.g. dynamic logos, that can live and fit to more and different contexts: Accenture, AirBnB...

Relevant for the organisation.A good brand story can be extraordinary motivational tool: it provides a purpose, a common understanding of why we do our job.

Messages, content, artifacts must be up to applied along the whole customer journey and across all departments consistently.

Any internal communication must come under the same umbrella.

Jeremiah Gardner, The Lean Brand

Brand artifacts

Measuring brand love: attitudes.

Netlölöä

Net Promoter Score

% promoters % detractors �

Netlölöä

Brand PassionScore

X is a Brand for meX is a brand I trust

X is a brand I recommend

NetlölöäLove Index

by Accenture

Five dimensions to measure

attitudes

FUNit entertains me

RELEVANTSpecific and

personal

HELPFULFast,

convenient, intuitive

SOCIALIt lets me to connect with

others

ENGAGINGInstant,

anywhere, anytime

Measuring brand love: social behavior.

Hand raisingLike the page, follow the account

Lowest engagement = liking

ConsumingActually consuming the contentViews, downloads, completion rate..

RespondingTake action, engage with brand

Comment, give feedback, rate....

SharingShare the brand message w/friends

Shares, recommend

CreatingCreating branded content

Brand fan, brand advocate

Playgrounds, communities, movements For millions of years, hman beings have been part of one tribe or the other.

A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate. Seth Godin

A playground is a scene, a community of interest, a group of like-minded people to whom your brand can resonate and for whom it can play a supporting (enabling, promoting) role.

It is not about creating artificial communities around your Brand, but about engaging with people based on common vision and values.

Lego and the community of adult fans

Red Bull and action sports scenes

Airbnb and the hosts meeting at "Airbnb Open"

Adobe´s "CMO.com" and forward thinking marketers

Qualtrics and academic researches

Kickstart and the "Kickstarters"

From community platform to movement

Building a community platformCreating platforms in which people connect with other people like them, trust and support each other, drvien by their vision and values, structures and rules. (In relation with the Brand but not owned by the Brand)

Connections to peersHow to help customers connect with other people like them, to share their passions ?

Connections to brandHow can the brand add value in this community: facilitate, support and enhance it ?

NetworksWhich networks - from social media to physical meetings - are most effective at facilitating connections between people ?

Loyalty to brandHow to evolve support into positive loyalty, builds retention and collaboration ?

Loyalty to peersHow to turm trust and loyalty for each other, into brand advocacy ?

Building a movementInspiring an active movement of people who come together with a common purpose to acheve more (do better, improve themselves, create change)... enabled by the Brand, but not directed by the Brand.

Back to your people. Where the brand starts.

PEOPLE &CULTURE

Start from the frontline.

● call centre● retail stores ● sales force● crm

Review and align each customer touchpoints:

- how to interact ? - how to engage ? - how to outreach ?

Map the customer journey to a brand journey.

Go to your people

● performance management ● behaviors and rituals ● hiring strategy ● employer branding

● Measure long-term goals● Promote self-starters

and brand advocates● Look for like-minded people (but

not fall in the trap of uniformity)● Make your leaders

lead by example

Let´s start a brand conversationvalentina.giannella@com

www.lagiannella.com