We all know that brand building is important.
However, most companies pay almost all their attention
It’s understandable as every company is in the business to make money. It’s just that sometimes, brands may lose track if they are not carefully taken care.
Not to forget, brand is intangible. It is built in people’s mind. It’s an idea or a perception that builds on people’s emotions, experiences and memories.
Hence, building a brand is not simple. And growing one to become a strong brand is complex. It is beyond an aspiring tagline, a beautiful logo or a compelling story.
So the question here is, what are the attributors to a strong brand?
A strong brand acts to build trust
Even though we always make logical comparisons between brands and products, 95% of our purchase decisions take place unconsciously [1].
But it does not mean that our brain does not process at all.
In fact, we continually compare every sensory information, current experiences against our previous experiences and memories to predict what will come next. [2]
All these accumulations are built in everyday actions and interactions. That is how perception is built in people’s mind, including brands.
Amazon, for example. It focuses on its daily execution to show its commitment to be earth’s most customer-centric company. Started from an online bookstore, it acquired retailers and launched its own product lines. It enables users to submit their personal product reviews and offers are shipping by working with independent shipping companies to change customer expectation on e-commerce service. [3]
All these are actions and interactions that Amazon builds to gain people’s trust.
So a strong brand acts. It doesn’t stop at setting its goal, mission or vision. And its actions reflect what it promises.
A strong brand never stops building momentum
The greatest challenge that most companies are facing is to keep its business operations align with its purpose and vision while growing.
It’s because growth creates complexity. More people to manage, more resources are involved, more processes to be implemented and more costly decisions to make.
Again, Jeff Bezos’ vision of wanting to dominate e-commerce with Amazon, to become an everything store when it was founded in 1994, does not change much over the last decades. Instead, the business grows and the brand evolves, from offering one range of products to almost everything that people look for. Whether AmazonFresh, Amazon Prime or Amazon Echos, it is all built with one purpose – to satisfy customers’ demands at all possible ways and at the lowest possible prices. [4]
This evolution did not happen overnight. It never stops building and evolving over time.
To keep a brand in momentum, it requires clarity, consistency and determination.
When a company is clear on the inside, it translates to the outside. And it has to be expressed, executed and delivered consistently. Processes may change, decisions may be tough, products or services may be different from the day it started; but always stay intact with the purpose – why the brand exists.
A strong brand creates value in the long term
Despite the points discussed above, effectiveness is the goal that every business owner and marketer want to achieve from their marketing strategies.
But the thing is, not all marketing activities bring value to their brands in the long term. Especially in this oversaturated media space, more strategies and tactics are designed to generate demands to meet their KPIs. All this does not always contribute to building a strong brand. [5]
Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), which analysed 500 effectiveness case studies over 20 years, showed that long-term campaigns were three times more efficient than short-term campaigns, three times more likely to drive market-share improvement, and 60 per cent more likely to deliver profit improvement. [6]
Looking back at Amazon’s consistent brand building, it does not focus on generating customer demand only. It started from inside – how to attract a broader range of retailers, how to target and attract different segments of customers, how to build its unique selling propositions to its core marketing communication messages, how to integrate its marketing communication channels.
In other words, effectiveness should not be measured by demand or sales generations only, but also whether the strategies will create value to the brand in the long run. [7]
Brand value grows with brand strength, which is how a strong brand is measured.
Amazon overtook Google and became the world’s most valuable brand in 2018. [8]
And its sales increased by nearly 20% in 2018. [9]
So yes, brand is powerful if companies pay attention to it.
It will drive revenue and growth to the business in the long term. It is because a strong brand creates a barrier of entry. It has bargaining power and more importantly, it has pricing power. It attracts the most important asset – people, to want to work and grow with the brand. It builds loyalty as it motivates and inspires people.
References:
[1] Harvard Business Review: When to sell with facts and figures, and when to appeal to emotions
[2] The Conversation: Is it rational to trust your
[3] The Balance Small Business: Amazon’s Mission Statement
[4] Channel Advisor: From Bookstore to Superstore: The Evolution of Amazon
[5] Marketing Week: Why the focus on short term marketing effectiveness is bad for brands
[6] ADMA: Long-Term vs Short-Term Marketing Campaigns
[7] BBH-Labs: Fwd to CEO the most valuable business tool ever invented
[8] Brand Finance Global 500 Report
[9] Digital Commerce 360: Amazon’s product sales climb nearly 20% in 2018, but only 8% in Q4
Photo by Andres Urena on Unsplash