The Four Layers of Brand

Every company has brand. But not every company enjoys brand recognition or brand equity.

Brand Identity. It all starts with a logo, colors, words, phrases, and sounds that are associated with a company or product. In this sense alone, every company has brand because every company at any point in time uses a name, a typeface or logo, and a tagline or phrase. Big companies like Hilton and Walmart have brand identity and so does your local barber shop and convenience store. What constitutes a great brand identity is subjective, but one thing is sure, changing your identity makes it difficult for customers to recognize you. Con Surf Boards was established in 1959 and is the second oldest surf board maker in the world, but few surfers recognize the Con name because it changed its brand identity more than 20 times. The first step to building brand is using a consistent identity.

Brand Recognition. Customers recognize a brand when the identity is consistent and when they are exposed to it repeatedly, But recognition has nothing to do with knowledge. We may recognize brands and still not know what they mean. Cisco and SAP are on BusinessWeeks list of the world's 100 most valuable brands, and consumers obviously recognize these B2B companies, although few consumers can explain what they do. Not all companies enjoy brand recognition. One mistake many start-up companies make is spending too much money to design a corporate-like branding package, and having little money left over for advertising. There are thousands of companies that have exciting products that we want, really cool logos and tag lines, and fancy websites, but no one recognizes these brands because they do not invest in advertising. Building brand recognition costs money, so we're only keen on building recognition in our industry and among our target customers.

Brand Strength. Combine consistent identity, with effective advertising, and consistently rewarding customer experiences and you get brand equity. Starbucks has enormous brand equity. We see the logo from a block away and we know exactly what to expect. We know how the stores are decorated, what's on the menu, how to order, what level of service to expect, how much to pay, and where to pick up our hot steamy cup of coffee. There are many benefits of brand equity, but the most important is a shorter decision-making process. Imagine you're in a different city standing at the corner of a major intersection, you have 5 minutes to get to your customer meeting and you suddenly get the craving for a tall, double shot, no foam, soy peppermint latte. You see a row of four cafes and recognize the Starbucks logo. Do you risk trying to satisfy your craving at a different cafe or do you trust Starbucks? Red Cross also enjoys incredible brand equity. During the weeks following the earth quake in Haiti, the Red Cross raised six times the amount raised by all other aid agencies using only a short t.v. ad and a txt-to-donate call-to-action. Viewers did not have to visit the Red Cross website to learn what it does or if Haiti really needs help. They didn't visit Charity Navigator to see if the Red Cross is a trusted or effective nonprofit organization. Viewers didn't call friends to ask, "who's this Red Cross group?" Red Cross said "we need your help" and 500,000 football viewers trusted them. Without researching and evaluating the Red Cross, football fans simply picked up their cell phones and donated $10.

Brand equity is not always positive. There are companies that established a consistent brand identity, developed strong brand recognition, but are so famous for their bad customer experiences that they have negative brand equity. Kirby and Enron may be globally recognized brands, but I don't know anyone who would be proud to be associated with these companies. Toyota built incredible brand equity and surpassed GM in 2009 as the world's largest auto-maker only to lose its top position quickly due to serious technical and marketing missteps. Recently, thousands of customers filed class action law suits, not because their vehicles are defective, but because they lost resell value.

Our goal as marketers is to establish a consistent brand identity, advertise effectively to build brand recognition, and deliver consistently rewarding experiences to garner positive brand equity so we can shrink the decision-making process. See my other postings about "Brand Strength Criteria" and "Alternative Brand Measurement Tools" to learn more about branding.

Experience Management. A new appreciation for nonprofit marketing.

In my others posts "Why do people hate marketers?" and "What do marketers really do?" I discuss the abuse and misuse of the word "marketing." Every organization and corporation partakes in marketing although some do not like to think they do. The nonprofit sector is one of the industries that has a strong aversion to the idea of marketing, because, as I explained, there is alot of confusion about what marketing really is. The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines marketing as an organizational function and set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value and managing customers in a manner that creates benefits for stakeholders and community. Based on this definition of marketing, it's easy to understand why most nonprofits do not think marketing is relevant to them, after all, most don't have customers per se, nonprofits aren't concerned with creating value for their investors, and benefitting the community is their primary mission, not a bi-product or means to an end.

Let's ignore the word marketing and the AMA definition for now and focus instead on the tasks and requisite skill set of a new professional we'll call the Experience Manager. This Experience Manager is responsible for designing, executing, and optimizing consistent constituent experiences. Constituents is an umbrella term we use to refer to every one whose behavior we want to influence including donors, volunteers, sponsors, and customers. Experiences refers to the processes these various constituents follow to make their decisions to volunteer, donate, sponsor, and purchase merchandise or memberships. These concurrent processes are different because our goal for each constituent is different.

Managing these experiences is important because they shape consumer's perception of the organization, also know as brand. When constituents have consistently rewarding experiences with an organization, the positive perception of that organization grows. The brand becomes strong. Inconsistent or consistently poor experiences contribute to the negative perception of an organization and a weak brand. In other words, brand is the result of consistent experiences - good or bad. We can create brand identity (or recognition) by using the same logo, colors, jingle, and tagline, and we can build brand awareness through effective advertising and celebrity endorsements, but brand strength is not something we can create. Brand strength is something that is earned though the execution of consistently rewarding experiences.

So, this new Experience Manager we introduced above is responsible for identifying constituents and then designing, executing, and optimizing their experiences.

• Designing experiences involves mapping out a step-by-step process for converting target constituents into brand ambassadors. This conversion process is complex, time-consuming, and expensive. It requires an understanding of research methodologies, psychology, economics, pop culture, accounting, art and media.
• Executing experiences involves procuring the resources required to support the intended experience. Successful execution requires planning, project management, procurement, logistics, communication, leadership, and collaboration skills.
• Optimizing experiences involves tracking and analyzing constituent behavior to identify success and failure points. This requires an understanding of technology, analytics, statistics, and accounting.

To what end is the Experience Manager engaged in these activities? Building brand strength is one goal, albeit an intermediate objective or a means to the end. Another word for brand strength is trust. Trust is certainly something every nonprofit organization is keen on building, because trust is a precondition for loyalty. Fund-raising executives, program managers, and membership directors all rely on constituent trust to procure donations, recruit volunteers, and grow revenue. If they acted independently of each other, the experiences they would deliver would be expensive and incomplete. It would be difficult turning a volunteer into a donor and turning a customer into a volunteer. The hand-offs would be clumbsy, untimely, and probably improvised.

The Experience Manager is responsible for designing, executing, and optimizing consistent experiences in order to build trust with constituents so that the organization can maximize its relationships with them. Naturally, because we're dealing with charitable organizations, the Experience Manager performs these activities in a manner that is socially responsible and beneficial. Now, simply replace the fictitious title Experience Manager with the real title Nonprofit Marketer.

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Gap Analysis. Using functional roles to identify and resolve marketing dilemmas.

In a prior post titled "What do marketers really do? The functional roles of marketing" I outlined the 4 functional and strategic roles of marketing. You will see that every organization's success is dependent on the satisfactory execution of all four roles. In addition to using these roles to understand the differences between a real marketer and a guerilla marketer or a telemarketer, we use these roles to guide our daily activities, and we also use these roles to understand the reasons for missed opportunities or customer dissatisfaction. The practical application of the 4 functional roles of marketing is called Gap Analysis. There are several gaps, some are simply academic, but the three basic marketing gaps are defined as

• Gap 1. A disconnect between research and advertising.
• Gap 2. A disconnect between advertising and delivery.
• Gap 3. A disconnect between delivery and support.

Because a gap is always a disconnect between 2 functional roles, this means there are always 2 probable causes of every missed opportunity or customer dissatisfaction and, therefore, at least 2 solutions for these, too. Let's look at some examples of each gap.

Pretend you work for Starbucks and you just received a memo from the corporate office: "Our store in Louisville has been open 4 months and we haven't broken even yet. As a matter of fact, our daily traffic is sometimes single-digit. What's wrong there?" When traffic is the problem, then it's a Gap 1 scenario, which means something was wrong with research or advertising. Research may have wrongly indicated that the consumers in the area could afford Starbucks, that competition was weak, that the prices were acceptable, or that consumers didn't have adverse opinions about corporate chain stores. Maybe the wrong consumers were interviewed. Is it possible no one conducted research and someone just assumed Starbucks would succeed on very corner? In any case, you are promoting something that customers may not want. As you can see, a lot can go wrong with research. The marketer has to review the research methodology to see if the data is valid or if false conclusions were made. On the other hand, research may be solid, but advertising was not executed well. You may have something customers really want, they just don't know that you have it. Maybe the outdoor signs haven't been installed yet, were installed improperly, are too small, or are always being stolen. Maybe the logo is offensive to locals. Maybe the advertisements are in the wrong magazines, in the wrong language, or have the wrong address on them. A lot can go wrong with advertising, too. A seemingly simple case of low traffic can have many causes and also many solutions.

Pretend you work for an online retailer and you are standing behind one your webmaster viewing site logs that show incredible traffic to your website. At first you're giddy about the number of page views and unique visitors, but then you notice that the number of orders is flat and sales are stagnant. When traffic is not the problem, but orders and revenue are, then you are dealing with a Gap 2 scenario, which means something is wrong with advertising and/or delivery. This advertising issue is different than the one described in the Starbucks example above, because customers are responding to your advertisements which indicates they probably understand your message and want your product. When traffic is not the problem, but sales are, it could be that your advertisements promise something customers want, but you don't have. The marketer has to review the advertisements to make sure that what is being promised matches with what can be delivered. On the other hand, your advertisements may reflect accurately what you're supposed to have, but customers may have a hard time finding the product they seek, the product may be sold out, your site may have too many errors, the online shopping experience may be confusing, the price may be wrong, you may not accept a certain credit card type, or you may not provide enough product information to help customers feel comfortable about making a final purchasing decision. The marketer has to review the experience to identify and resolve the reason(s) customers are exiting. Again, you see that a simple problem of traffic but little or no revenue can have 2 causes and 2 or more solutions.

Pretend you work for Ford. Like all automakers, service accounts for more than 30% of your profit. You are reviewing a report from the National Auto Dealers Association (NADA) that shows more than 50% of new Ford owners do not have their cars serviced by the Ford dealer where they bought their new car. Instead, they are bringing their new Ford to a local mechanic. This is a bad trend, but no mystery. You are an experienced marketer and you know that when traffic or sales are not the problem and frequency is, then you're dealing with a Gap 3 scenario. Something is wrong with delivery or management. Something may have happened during delivery, i.e. during the the customer's purchasing experience. Maybe an employee was not nice or your dealership was not clean, but the price was right so the customer purchased his new car vowing never to return. Maybe the sales person forgot to tell the customer about your professionally-staffed service bay. Maybe the customer visited your service bay and your mechanics were slovenly, misbehaving, or confrontational with another customer. Much can go wrong during the delivery phase that impacts a customers attitudes about your company. The marketer needs to assess the customer experience and resolve the issues that may lead to lost sales. On the other hand, everything can go perfectly during the sales process, but you can misstep on the customer management side. Maybe you simply forgot to thank the customer for being a new customer, maybe you forgot to send the customer a service reminder, or maybe you sent a service reminder but the phone number was wrong or busy and the customer couldn't make an appointment. Maybe the customer wanted to make an appointment, but you don't offer a free courtesy car and a competitor does. Again, much can go wrong post-purchase that the marketer has to address in order to appease the customer and maximize revenue.

In each of the examples above, we showed how lost revenue and customer dissatisfaction are linked to a disconnect between 2 functional marketing roles. There are always 2 probable reasons for a marketing dilemma and, therefore, always at least 2 solutions.

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Where's the marketer? The organizational role of marketing.

Check out the management team of any publicly traded corporation on Yahoo Finance and you'll see that every corporation has a team of executives that typically includes a CEO, CFO, COO, CTO, EVP of HR, and a General Counsel. These executives manage the corporation's assets.

• CFO manages capital
• COO manages facilities
• CTO manages technology
• HR manages people
• GC manages intellectual property and contracts
• CIO manages data

Where's the marketing executive? Only seven Fortune 100 companies have a CMO on their executive teams because marketers manage customer relationships and most companies have not yet recognized customers as an asset (they only recently recognized data as an asset).

Although marketers have not yet broken into the C-Level ranks yet, the role of marketing is absolutely critical to the success of every organization. The marketer is responsible for understanding what is taking place outside the organization, identifying profitable opportunities, and providing the Chiefs listed above with information that helps them to align the company's resources to capture those opportunities. Marketing is, therefore strategic (marketing activities that erroneously include the word marketing like telemarketing, guerilla marketing, and punk marketing are tactical).

The Chiefs seldom have to leave their offices. Without a marketer, the CFO would not know what type of financing customers expect or prefer, the COO would not know what to manufacture, what to procure, how many of a product to make or where to ship them, the CTO would not know what kind of systems are required to service and support customers, and HR would not know what kind of skills employees need to have.

Companies like Apple grow during a recession because they have a strong marketing function that understands the marketplace and provides the Chiefs with timely and accurate information that helps them to optimize the alignment of the corporations resources with profitable opportunities. Companies like GM fail because they have a weak marketing function that is not connected with the customer. Instead of building more electric cars, GM scrapped the EV-1 to launch Hummer, a gas guzzling SUV that it sold off in 2009 to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company of China.

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What do marketers really do? The functional roles of marketing.

Your laptop contains a computer with a built-in keyboard and display (among other parts). If your friend held out a keyboard and said "hey, look at my new laptop," you'd reply "that's not a laptop." A keyboard is part of a laptop, but it's not a laptop.

Although it's obvious that a keyboard is not a laptop, it's not so obvious to most people what marketing really is or isn't. I've met confessed professional marketers whose activities were limited to writing press releases or spending their days attending trade shows or answering customers' phone calls. Watch the movie "What Women Want" or television series like "Trust Me" and "Mad Men" and you will get a very sexy albeit limited picture of marketing. Go to Barnes & Nobles and you'll find dozens of books by marketing gurus with titles like "Pain Killer Marketing," "Guerilla Marketing" and "Punk Marketing." We see signs on benches and billboards that say "See this sign? Outdoor marketing works." All these are examples of parts of marketing, and none is really marketing. A keyboard is part of a laptop, but not a laptop. Advertising is part of marketing, but not marketing.

The word M-A-R-K-E-T-I-N-G in practice is sadly misused and over-used. Many business people call themselves professional marketers, when they are really only responsible for part of marketing. The marketing executive is really responsible for designing and managing the entire customer experience. Professional marketers

1. identify customer needs, preferences and expectations,
2. communicate to target customers,
3. manage the delivery of products to customers, and
4. support and manage customer relationships.

These roles are often departmentalized in four functional areas: research, advertising and promotions, sales and service, support and management.

1. The research department is constantly studying the industry and marketplace in order to understand customers' changing needs, expectations, and preferences and to identify the most profitable opportunities. The result of good research is a line of products that customers want.
2. The advertising department is responsible for communicating features and benefits to customers. The result of good advertising is demand for products and traffic.
3. The delivery team is tasked with helping customers to understand features and benefits, evaluate and purchase products. The result of successful delivery is revenue and customer delight.
4. The support team makes sure customers use products correctly and remain loyal patrons. The result of good customer management is low buyers remorse and frequent loyalty.

Coordinating all these tasks so that customers have consistent experiences with the company requires know-how, skill, resources, and time. Good marketers have an understanding of research, statistics, sociology, economics, psychology, design, pop culture, media, current affairs, communication, and technology.

In order to call yourself a marketer, you have to manage all 4 roles: research, advertising, service, and support. If you are involved in only part of the customer experience, then you are on one of four different marketing teams. Now that you know the full scope of a marketer's activities, you may understand why someone who calls himself a "telemarketer" is not really a marketer, but simply a member of the sales and service team. Someone who says they are a guerilla marketer is really a guerilla advertiser. And someone who says they are an event marketer is really a promoter.

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