How to build a powerful brand that fuels growth

To kick things off, we are going back to the basics starting with understanding what is a brand-led business and why they are so important. It is proven that the more brand-led a business is, the higher its chances of success in the market, hence creating value for consumers and shareholders. The question is, how does a company become brand-led? How can the business get a share of that success?

Now that you have an understanding of what a brand-led business is, we will next learn that brand-led businesses are automatically consumer-centric at heart as they anchor their brand strategy on a deep-rooted consumer understanding. They are guided by the vision, mission, values and positioning of their brand in everything they do, driving growth and equity for both the short and long term.

Here is our introduction to positioning, which is all about what we want to stand for in consumers’ mind. It is also rooted in consumer understanding, and in brand and market knowledge. Although a strong positioning takes time and rigor to craft, it will lead to strategic choices that ensure brands act consistently over time.

We live in a branded world and we all have our own opinions of which brands we love and which we don't. But if we take away our preferences, what is it specifically that makes a group of consumers like a particular brand?

When I’ve audited brands that I consider to be great, I always identify 3 principles that underpin their success. These principles you will learn in in this video. These 3 characteristics help build brands to be consistent, engaging, and easily recognizable by consumers.

I’ve always valued how a positioning can guide brands in everything they do, acting as their North Star. Marketers make intentional choices to ensure sure they build equity and drive growth for the short and long term. Making choices is hard and brands don’t always get it right; wrong choices can sometimes be fatal to a business. However during this module, I will take you through the tools I’ve have use to try and avoid this type of situation, and to enable you to make sound and strategic choices for the business.

A brand guardian’s role is to drive growth and equity, but that is easier said than done. You need to take care and nurture your brand for the short term and leave a legacy for the long term…long after you have left the brand. Your priority is to understand your consumer, your market and your brand. You will need to be aware how consumer understanding and the changing context, in which they are living, may affect your execution. In some cases, it may even require fine-tuning the positioning in order to make sure you stay up-to-date and relevant.

In this next video, you will learn about executing with consistency - the last principle of great brands. As a marketer or brand owner you will need to build your brand in a coherent and freshly consistent way, building mental availability along the way. Whenever the brand expresses itself, or shows up, it will need to be recognized as “your brand”. For that, you will need to be clear what your brand’s core assets are and the role they play, so you can gauge which one you may need to keep, lose or even change as it could be holding the brand back given the changing context.

This video is just one of a few that focuses on consumer understanding. The reason is because it is vital to continuously understand, review and articulate what consumers are doing and why they are doing it. You should also consider the cultural context that somehow influences their habits, attitudes and behaviors in relations to the category of your brand (or the need).  We go more into consumer understanding later in Module 4.

The quality of your brand’s positioning (and subsequent strategy) relies on the sharp articulation of your brand foundations; they are important because they build up to a brand positioning. If one isn’t as strong as the others, it will weaken the positioning. It takes more time than you would expect to craft these articulations because time is required for consumer research and insight creation.

The first foundational pillar we are going to look at is a brand's root strengths. By knowing your brand’s root strengths, you will understand the historic strengths that represent your brand.It is important to know what the brand was in the past, but we will also discuss how and why roots strengths evolve over time due to changing contexts.

In this next video, we will also take you through the process of establishing when and where your brand could compete as this helps defining your core and can inform future opportunities for growth. Knowing this will help you understand and strategise where you can dominate in the category playing field.

When creating the teaching content on the target consumer and digging for insights, I made this into two separate videos because I feel these are the most critical parts of the brand foundations. The deep-rooted consumer understanding and potential insights that may arise should drive all your actions and decisions for your brand, so take your time when developing these.

Now that you know who your target is, now let's dig deeper on finding that insight!

Instead of the “typical” recommended readings and videos this week, we have included an optional bonus module around getting deeper consumer understanding. This is highly recommended for those who want to learn more about how to move from consumer research and observations to formulating insights.

Brand purpose is at the heart of brand positioning, therefore at heart of any brand. This is a powerful part of a brand strategy because it responds to the existential question of what is the brand’s reason to exist? It is asking what does a brand have to offer to consumers beyond a product or service that will improve their lives one way or another? How can the brand help people? How can the brand contribute to an issue that matters? We will explore what “purpose” is and why it matters for a brand in today’s world.

Purpose ensures your brand is meaningful to your target consumer. Consumers now hold brands to a higher regard, expecting them to go beyond and solve (or at least have an influential and persuasive stance on) societal issues, or contribute regularly to a charitable cause. There is a lot of evidence that suggests brands with authentic purposes drive growth and positive sentiment. It is not a surprise to see more and more bands live and work by their purpose.

Benefits, Reasons-to-Believe, Personality, and Tone of Voice are vital to a brand as they will be the first points of contact with the public.

A sharp expression of your brand benefit, expressed through the lens of your brand positioning, will capture the attention of consumers as it responds to the needs, problems or desires the target consumer is encountering.  Benefits are supported by reasons-to-believe (RTB) to help drive credibility, which will help the conversion process. For well established brands, their recognizable brand name and strong reputation may be enough to convert potential new consumers and hence will work as a reason to believe in itself; a reason to trust.

A brand has a chosen personality and tone of voice that resonates and builds trust with its target consumer. They describe how the brand behaves and expresses itself in all aspects of execution, which in return will help the brand get recognized and experienced.

A brand with a recognizable identity will increase its mental availability over time, hereby increasing the chance of consideration and conversion when a need arises. When this is done really well, the brand is just like a person: consistent and always recognisable in every situation.

I cannot believe we are at the last module! It is exciting to see how far you have come through this bootcamp.

Now that you know how to build a brand positioning and how to express it, you need to think about the strategic choices you need to make for your brand to grow in a sustainable way.  Brand strategy is about making choices that will help drive growth and equity for the long term. Identifying your strategic role in the market and brand architecture, through which you will deploy your portfolio, will help sharpen your brand strategy and subsequent execution in the market.

By identifying your business' brand architecture, you will know how to deploy the brands within your portfolio.  The ideal portfolio should consider optimum growth and profitability for your brand or your business, but in a world of mergers and acquisitions, this is not always that simple.

In this section we will spend time talking about how to grow your core, which is a topic close to my heart. The core is your main source of revenue, profit and equity, and is generally the carrier of your mental availability. I know that renovating your core is challenging, but hopefully the examples in this module will inspire you in looking for new opportunities. If done well, it will become a key enabler for you to grow in a freshly consistent way.

Bringing "New News" through extensions or stretches is easier and often more exciting. In this section we will go through the different ways a brand could explore extending or stretching the business in order to create new revenue sources.

But be aware…over-relying on them risks neglecting or diluting your core. Always remember, when your core is in trouble, your brand will be in trouble.