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March 2009
(Continued)
BRANDFocus
On the local level, the one aspect of the marketing process
that is most overlooked is research. Through more than 15
years of consulting local businesses, I have continually
been asked one question: “What do you think about ‘X’ or ‘Y’
strategy?” My response is an honest: “It doesn’t matter what
I think. What do your customers and prospects think? That is
what matters.”
Very little value and fewer resources are invested in market
research at the local level. It’s dubbed as a waste of time
and/or money. After all, it’s reasoned by many local
business owners that this is why we marketing people exist.
We inherently have all of the answers at our fingertips.
There’s no need to conduct surveys or focus groups. There’s
no need to sit down with the people that truly matter the
most: customers and prospective customers. Unfortunately,
this mindset is similar to taking a trip to an unknown land
with no map and no directions. A huge component to the “Know
Thyself” stage of brand-building is to know thy category and
of equal importance, to know thy customer. It is the latter
two aspects that truly bring “Know Thyself” to life.
Over the years, my first step in developing a brand is a
step known at BrandVision Marketing as: BrandFocus. It
represents the research phase of the process in which we
meet with employees, customers and prospects in order to
identify areas where a brand can most profitably be built.
Every situation is unique, requiring different research
tools. Typically, we conduct a series of focus groups or
personal interviews or some type of consumer survey with
both current and prospective customers alike. Many questions
are answered through the process, but our main purpose is to
discover two key components of the branding effort: 1) what
does the business currently stand for in the mind of the
consumer? And, 2) what expectations are held by the consumer
for that business or category? The former provides a measure
of sorts for where the business stands in the branding
process; while the latter gives us an idea of where we need
to be and what possibilities might be profitably explored
along the journey.
Consider a few BrandFocus examples: an after school daycare;
Foothills Bank & Trust and New South Credit Union.
This way for fun!
One of BrandVision's clients was an after-school day care
provider. The business had recently broken free from a
well-known private school and was in need of its own brand
identity. The private school held a rather stodgy and
expensive image which the new owners of the daycare wanted
to break free from. We conducted a series of focus groups
with current customers to answer those two all-important
questions. What we found was a situation similar to what
BP—formerly British Petroleum now known as Beyond Petroleum,
experienced when changing their name to match their fit with
the worldwide economy. According to Allen Adamson in his
book Brand Simple, with BP it was not the name change
that would make for success in an ever-changing and globally
expansive marketplace. It was simply changing the
associations inside the consumer’s minds and connecting them
to the new name. Adamson states, “BP looked inside the
company and identified the things it needed to bring to the
surface to deliver on the brand’s new vision. It changed the
perception of the brand from the inside out.”
The same scenario existed for this daycare. The foundation
was set for a profitable brand identity. The only thing that
truly needed changing was the connection within the
consumer’s mind. Some qualities already connected to the
company needed to stay. The market already associated the
daycare and with words such as Quality and Safety. This was
certainly a positive, but those connections were
no-brainers. Every daycare needed to inherently stand for
those qualities. What needed to change was the concept of
“stodgy” or “expensive” that had been a bi-product of the
affiliation to the previous ownership. A new connection was
needed. That connection was: Fun.
Through a series of focus groups, BrandVision learned that
parents felt a certain amount of guilt leaving their kids at
an after school care provider. However, that sense of guilt
was very much alleviated if the kid didn’t want to come home
when mom or dad showed up at pick-up time. If the kid was
having so much fun that he or she didn’t want to leave, the
parent could experience a guilt-free conscience and even
feel as if they were doing their kid a favor. Therefore, the
new brand direction was focused on fun. BrandVision created
a mascot to help live a brand identity that was already a
strong undertone at the daycare. Essentially, we just tapped
into a vital quality that already existed at the core of the
business. By honing in on that quality, the opportunity to
build a successful brand became ripe.
(CONTINUED NEXT MONTH with Part IV).
© BrandVision Marketing.
2009. Matthew Scott Trueblood. All rights reserved.
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