Brandeo is an online marketing resource that cuts through the clutter to update you on the need-to-know marketing ideas and insights that help build brands and increase sales.
Writing a successful creative strategy is tough because there are often many directions it can take. So, part of the job of the strategist is to provide focus to the strategy by making decisions about what information is relevant based on the advertising objective and their analysis of the information available.
If a creative strategy cannot be expressed in a single, focused sentence, then it’s not an effective strategy. And the result could be a creative execution that fails because it tries to do too much, as depicted in this painfully funny video.
One of the reasons this blog focuses on brand positioning strategy is that an effective brand strategy is at the heart of a successful business plan.
The brand strategy identifies the target, the target’s ‘pain point’, the product, the product’s differentiated benefits, and what the company must do to ‘prove’ the differentiated benefits to the customer. A well constructed strategy provides guidelines on all aspects of the business plan, including how the product is formulated, distributed, and priced, and, yes, how the product is marketed. Advertising, of course, is just one element of a marketing plan.
The presentation below was created by a former agency planner to illustrate why an effective marketing plan is about more than good advertising. He illustrates how the development of an effective positioning strategy guided the planner’s clients to make business decisions about their product. It also, ironically, resulted in the loss of the agency’s advertising business because the strategy the agency developed helped their clients identify the actions beyond advertising they needed to employ to be successful.
Take a look – it will make you think about your role as a marketer and how that relates to your brands’ success. Via Servant of Chaos.
Economic Recession Creates Opportunities As Well As Challenges
Brand Guru Kevin Lane Keller, author of Strategic Brand Management (3rd Edition), and Professor of Marketing at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, spoke with Nielsen about the challenges and opportunities for brand marketers during the current economic crisis.
What’s key for brand success?
”Perhaps the most important branding consideration in tough economic times is to establish perceptions of good value. Being seen as low priced or less expensive is not necessarily the answer, the more important consideration is that consumers feel that they are getting appropriate value from a product or service.”
Also critical is marketing investment: “Research has shown that in past recessions those firms that have been willing to invest in their marketing have emerged in a stronger position than those firms that have cut back spending and reduced their marketing investments.”
Read PDF of Nielsen’s full interview with Kevin Lane Keller.
The New York Times asks, “Can Bulgari Sell Glamour While Cutting Costs?” Wary of damaging the brand’s image of “opulence and exclusivity,” Bulgari is trying to “cut costs and diminish expenses without negatively affecting the image of the brand or the quality.” New York Tmes 12/08/08.
According to Chain Store AgeTarget (TGT) is one of the first retail brands to build an iPhone application. The application is a virtual snow globe that enables digital snow to fall and a gift idea from Target to appear. Chain Store Age 12/04/08
Discounters including eBay (EBAY)and Costco (COST)are fighting a 2007 Supreme Court ruling which allows manufacturers of brands such as Sony (SNE), Black & Decker (BDK) and others to prevent retailers from selling their products beneath minimum advertised price (MAP). Manufacturers say MAPs protect profit and brand image; opponents say they keep prices high and diminish consumer choice. Wall Street Journal 12/04/08
J.M. Smucker Co. (SJM), is reducing prices on its Folgers brand coffees from 3.5% to 7.8% and on its Dunkin’ Donuts retail coffees by 35 cents because of decreases in the costs of green coffee used in the products’ forumulations. The MediaPost article also notes that Starbuck’s (SBUX) plans to close stores and provide consumers with added value through loyalty cards to manage costs and build sales without undermining its premium brand position. MediaPost 12/08/08.
A “large-scale, one-day Web campaign” via display ads on the Google Content Network across entertainment, food, news and sports sites, enabled Papa John’s (PZZA) to reach large numbers of people and boosted online weekend sales 15% - 20% versus a typical weekend. The ad offered a free medium cheese pizza to people who signed up for Papa John’s emails. MediaPost 12/09/08.
Frequent price promotions that reduce the perceived average price of a brand damage brand equity, says a study published in a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®). Because price is the most important signal of brand quality, a temporary price cut can result in increased sales short term, but reduced future sales. Science Daily 12/8/08
Brand prestige will be driven less by premium price in 2009 according to Nielsen’s 2009 Industry Outlook, but the report cautions that focusing on low price won’t provide the results marketers desire. “Marketers should look to emphasize a brand’s value proposition in new and unique ways by linking the value message to the consumer benefit.” In other words, if your brand positioning strategy has gotten a little hazy, this is a good time to re-focus on brand strategy basics.
Nielsen’s 2009 Industry Outlook also predicts that national brands will aggressively fight private label growth with “innovative packaging, unique flavors and additional health and wellness claims.” Nielsen Consumer Insight
New brand positioning from P&G (PG-W) for its troubled Pantene brand touts it “a value buy that's just as good as salon brands, but less expensive.” Adweek 12/01/08.
Campbell Soup Co. (CPB)will sell its V8 juices in more than 15,000 vending machines for the first time in a new 12-ounce bottle as part of a deal with Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. (CCE) Atlanta Business Chronicle 12/03/08.
Nestlé S.A., whose tagline is “Good Food, Good Life,”and positions itself as “the leading nutrition, health and wellness company,” has announced a sports nutrition research program studying the needs of athletes across a wide range of sports. Data from the program will help create “a new generation of sports nutrition products for leading athletes.” The program is under the auspices of Nestlé Nutrition, an independent entity within the Nestlé Group that studies infant nutrition, healthcare nutrition and performance nutrition. From:Nestlé S.A.
Quepasa Corporation (Nasdaq: QPSA) owner of Quepasa.com, says the unique audience for the site grew by 33% from October to more than 1.6 million, according to Alexa traffic data, making it the #2 U.S. based online social community for young Latinos.” Source: Quepasa.com 12/05/08.
Substitution refers to the degree of likelihood that the customer will purchase another brand if their preferred brand is not available. When the substitution is low or nonexistent, a customer would leave the store without making the purchase if ther preferred brand is not available.
A high substitution rate can mean the category is commoditized, and/or the brand isn't differentiable from competing brands.
Xerox (XRX), known for selling printers, copiers, inks, toners and paper, is reinventing itself as a company that helps customers to use less of these products. The company hopes the approach will position them competitively and appeal to customers who are attracted to green solutions to reduce costs and their carbon footprints. Newsweek 11/21/08.
Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps recently signed an exclusive deal to promote Subway’s healthy fresh brand positioning. Brandweek 11/21/08.
Pentax is launching a new brand positioning “intended to appeal to “independent spirits who see the world through a different lens,” and to challenge and encourage the independent spirit of photographers who are considering Pentax cameras.” The new tagline: “Be interesting.” MediaPost 11/17/08, Businesswire 11/17/08
Brands "that represent good quality, no-nonsense and excellent value for money” such as Campbell’s (CPB) will prosper in 2009. Green brands, those based on corporate social responsibility, as well as status and luxury brands, will struggle says The Economist 11/19/08.
Say buh-bye to PC Magazine; after 27 years the monthly will be printed for the last time in January 2009, but will continue online. Adage 11/24/08.
Holiday messaging from many retailers this year is downright pragmatic: Best Buy (BBY) touts reliability and trust, Kohl’s (KSS) talks pricing, Sears (SHLD) and Kmart promote layaway and JCPenney (JCP) advertises price points instead of percentage off. Via AdAge.
Tic Tac hopes their new sugar-free Tic Tac CHILLs will “personalize” and “modernize” the brand, make it stand out in the adult mint category, and appeal to harried Gen Xers looking for a “fresh way to CHILL”. Photo: tictacplaychill.com
Mercedes-Benz USA says the private, online Generation Y-centric community they launched six months ago – Generationbenz.com - has been so successful at generating feedback from members that they plan to launch a site for boomers. Via Brandweek.
Welch’s antioxidant repositioning as the “original SuperFruit” helped the brand to reverse four years of sales declines according to the company. “Super Fruits” are characterized as having high antioxidant levels, such as pomegranates, goji berry, noni, and acai. Via Brandweek.
This free marketing calendar template for 2009 helps you plan and display the key components of your marketing program on a weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual basis.
Created in Excel, the template is easy to use.
Weeks begin on Mondays. Substitute your marketing categories and tactics for those shown. January tactics are provided as an example of how the calendar can be used and are not provided as a recommendation.
To download: Click below, on the file underneath "Attachment"
This template is made available under a Creative Commons License and is subject to Brandeo Terms and Conditions.
Subscribe to Brandeo’s free weekly newsletter or RSS feed
If you’ve been keeping up with news coverage of the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign you’ve likely heard the words ‘maverick,’ and ‘change’ being used to describe the respective candidates.
The McCain and Obama campaigns know that the cacophony of assertions and rebuttals, facts and misinformation, can make it difficult to get their message heard. So they boiled down all the positive points about their candidates into the one word or phrase (i.e. brand essence) they believe represents their candidate’s brand and most resonates with American voters.
The Obama campaign promotes change as the essence of the Obama brand, while the McCain campaign asserts McCain’s essence is about independent thought and action, i.e., being a maverick. To prove that the McCain brand is truly maverick or that the Obama brand really can bring about change, each campaign created a narrative, a brand story, told through videos and speeches, to prove the essence has been present throughout their candidate’s life. If the brand story is effective in persuading the target audience to believe the brand essence is authentic and truthful, they are likely to trust that the brand will deliver on its promises, a critical step in getting voters to ‘buy into’ the candidate’s brand.
The brand stories also seek to build an emotional connection with voters by sharing personal, even painful details of the candidate’s lives, e.g. Obama’s desire to excel despite being born to a single mother and his concern for less fortunate people, by showing that he earned a law degree at Harvard and then turned down prestigious job offers to advocate for the impoverished. McCain’s brand story illustrates his courage amid the torture and despair of a North Vietnamese POW camp, and his reputation for bipartisanship.
McCain’s and Obama’s brand stories provide great examples of how to create effective narratives for your brand. First, identify the essence of your brand by examining the themes and the core values that are present from the beginning of the brand, throughout communications, as well as the vision of the brand’s founders. Make sure to confirm that your view of the essence is consistent with your target audience’s view of the essence, and that the particular essence is important, as well as emotionally resonant, to them. Build your brand story on the points that prove the authenticity of your brand’s essence, and remember that consistency and clarity are key to making your story compelling and convincing.
One of the reasons this blog focuses on brand positioning strategy is that an effective brand strategy is at the heart of a successful business plan.
, and Professor of Marketing at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, spoke with 
Brand prestige will be driven less by premium price in 2009 according to Nielsen’s 2009 Industry Outlook, but the report cautions that focusing on low price won’t provide the results marketers desire. “Marketers should look to emphasize a brand’s value proposition in new and unique ways by linking the value message to the consumer benefit.” In other words, if your brand positioning strategy has gotten a little hazy, this is a good time to re-focus on 
Tic Tac hopes their 
If you’ve been keeping up with news coverage of the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign you’ve likely heard the words ‘maverick,’ and ‘change’ being used to describe the respective candidates.
