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September 2008
Good art has it. Some
fashion has it. There's even a magazine that bears its name:
Distinction. Distinction is a vital component of the brand
building process. Without it, you're simply wasting your
time. A dry cleaner might tout that their claim to fame is
service: "We offer great customer service!" However, that is
not a distinct claim. Every company out there will
tell you that they offer the same exceptional service. On the other hand, consider a
dry cleaner making the following claim: "Same Day Service...right to your doorstep!"
That's distinction. That is branding.
In today's cluttered
marketplace, the world of brand building is exceptionally
challenging. Meeting that challenge and building a
profitable brand identity relies greatly upon creating a sense of distinction
among
consumers. A key component of creating distinction is
creating relevance. This is vital to
establishing a distinct brand identity. Regardless of the thousands of
commercial messages that over inundate today's consumer,
people will pay attention to what matters to them. Consumers
will respond to what is relevant, or meaningful to their
lives.
In his book,
BrandSimple, Allen Adamson discusses the mental process
consumers experience in regards to branding. Adamson creates
the following metaphor: a consumer's mind is like a computer
desktop. Inside this desktop are files in which information
is stored about the various brands that a consumer interacts
with...every interaction adds information to the file. The more information gathered by the consumer, the
bigger the file. He goes on to state, "To become a permanent
mental file filled with positive associations, a brand has
to establish that it's different in some way. A good brand
establishes that it is worth 'saving as'."*1
Relevance is key on that front.
Throughout our BrandFocus
exercises, we constantly are in search of relevance that
will uncover distinction. "How can we be different in a way
that matters to our customer's lives?" That is the question
we seek to answer during the research process that we call
BrandFocus. Relevance
that marks Distinction builds brands.
During the BrandFocus
process for a bank client recently in which we conducted a
series of focus groups, we were facing some steep
challenges. An extremely competitive marketplace was of
chief concern. There was seemingly a bank on every corner.
This was not a large market, but it appeared to be the
Starbucks of the financial world. There were complex
challenges, but our job was simple: 1) Find out what
mattered to people; 2) Find out what qualities the current
customers had found in the institution that sparked their
loyalty; and finally, 3) Discover where 1 and 2 intersect in
a way that establishes relevance and creates distinction to
a market segment.
The end result was simple.
What mattered to people...what was truly relevant in their
lives...is what gave BrandVision the opportunity to create a
meaningful distinction and begin what will be a very
successful brand. The early returns are certainly positive.
Creating relevance that
marks distinction is really step one. After all, examining a definition of
distinction we find the term described as "a marking off or distinguishing as different."
If you
can create a sense of uniqueness with your brand in a way
that truly is culturally relevant--that truly impacts
people's lives, you're going to have a successful brand
identity for many years to come.
© BrandVision Marketing.
2008. Matthew Scott Trueblood. All rights reserved.
*1 BrandSimple. Palgrave Macmillan, New York,
New York. 2006. pages 3-4.
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