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.
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