Chapter 20

Ten Branding Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

In This Chapter

Establishing the right brand in the right way

Doing what it takes to maintain your brand

Some brands get off to great starts. Some are wobbly from the get-go. Others start well and then lose their way through lack of focus, discipline, and follow-through on brand strategies, brand promises, and reliably consistent brand experiences.

This chapter describes ten branding mistakes to steer clear of, each accompanied by tips to keep your brand moving continuously in the right direction, constantly gaining esteem and equity as a result.

Thinking of Branding as a Quick Fix

The mistake: When business is down, when customer interest ebbs, or when competition surges, the idea of branding masquerades as some miracle cure for transforming perceptions and jump-starting success. In the heat of the moment, otherwise cool-headed professionals begin to believe that a cosmetic fix — a new logo and maybe a new name, tagline, or message — will remedy all that ails the bottom line. It doesn’t work that way, though, because a successful brand has to go all the way to the core of an organization.

The remedy: Before you create or alter the face of your brand, be sure you’re creating an accurate reflection of what’s at the base of your brand. The part of your brand that rises into public view — your name, logo, and marketing materials — must mirror the mission, vision, values, culture, leadership, and management that lies at the heart and soul of your organization. Otherwise, a credibility crisis looms large.

Chapter 6 helps you define the essence of your organization and how it operates and then guides your thinking as you put your brand promise, brand character, and brand identity into words. Then, and only then, are you ready to name your brand, design your logo, and create marketing materials and a brand experience to convey your brand accurately and successfully in your world. The process isn’t quick, but it’s worth it!

Starting with a Weak Brand Identity

The mistake: Weak identities appear in the form of names that limit the scope and success of the brands they represent. Or they’re displayed as logos that at-a-glance convey they were created on shoestring budgets by organizations with little chance of competing with big, established businesses.

As long as the brands represented by weak names and logos are satisfied to remain in the confines that their identities dictate, all’s well. But if they want to expand into more competitive spheres, their weak identities are heavy anchors dragging down their success.

The remedy: Invest the time and money required to develop a strong name and logo when you first establish your brand. Remember these points:

• In most cases, your name will live as long as your business does, so choose, register, and protect a name that your brand can grow with over years and decades. Great brand names travel through time, trends, markets, and even strategic redirections. Settle on a name that conveys your brand promise, supports your brand image, and that’s unique, pleasant to say, and easy to recall — all without confining your brand to a specific product or market area. (Chapter 7 has naming advice.)
• Your logo will become the immediately identifiable face of your brand, so make it a strong, simple, unique design that reproduces well in all forms of communication. Chapter 8 provides a guide to logo design along with the strong recommendation that you seek professional design assistance. When the time’s right to update your look, turn to Chapter 16 for tips on how to revitalize your logo so that it remains a contemporary representation of your brand.

Forgetting the Branding Rule of One

The mistake: Businesses that barely have the budgets and staff required to build one brand try to build two or more. In doing so, they dilute the expertise and funding they can devote to any one brand and build strength for none.

The remedy: Unless you’re sure that you have the marketing budget and expertise required to build and support multiple brands, stick to what we call the Rule of One: Build one brand for your business rather than a business full of many brands. Apply the Rule of One by following this advice:

• Build a single brand that can preside over all your offerings.
• Introduce each new product or service as an offering under your one-and-only brand. This strategy allows each new product to capitalize upon the credibility of your brand while boosting the strength of your brand through the success of each new offering.

Chapter 2 has tips on how to manage a number of products under your one-and-only brand, and Chapter 7 can help you develop a family of names under one brand umbrella. Chapter 15 offers advice for leveraging the power of your brand through new products, cobranded offerings, and licensing opportunities.

If you decide to create separate brands for individual products or services, build a separate business unit for each new brand. Separate business units allow each offering to stand on its own, drawing on its own resources and building independent value that you can spin off or sell in the future.

Failing to Differentiate

The mistake: If you can’t tell customers what you do best, they have no reason to choose your offering and good reason to opt for a different, more distinct solution. Or if they think that all available offerings deliver the same value and quality, they’ll simply buy whatever’s most easily available at the lowest price.

The remedy: Find a distinguishing characteristic that causes your offering to excel over alternatives and build your brand around that point of difference.

Chapter 5 helps you find your brand’s unique position in the marketplace. Chapter 13 guides development of a customer experience that reinforces your point of difference at every point of encounter with your brand.

Failing to Launch Your Brand with Fanfare

The mistake: Even business owners that love groundbreakings, ribbon cuttings, grand openings, and lavish celebrations underestimate the importance of staging a brand launch. If you fail to introduce your brand with a formal launch you lose a great one-time opportunity to make news about your brand identity, point of difference, promise, and message.

The remedy: Launch your brand from the inside out, bringing every aspect of your business into alignment with your brand promise, personality, and character before you raise the curtain and introduce your brand in your marketplace (see Chapter 9). Chapters 10, 11, and 12 are full of information on how to take your brand to public audiences via publicity, advertising, social media, and digital communications.

Failing to Protect and Defend

The mistake: Brand owners get complacent. They fail to obtain or defend trademarks, lock up domain names, write brand usage guidelines, or enforce brand-usage rules. Before long, brand names are in jeopardy, brand consistency is at risk, and brand value plummets.

The remedy: Protect your brand in three important ways:

1. File your name with appropriate government offices and obtain brand trademarks if your sphere of business crosses state or national boundaries.
2. Establish, adopt, and enforce usage guidelines so that those within or outside your organization don’t tamper with your brand identity.
3. Address every brand-usage infraction, without fail.

Check out Chapter 17 for advice to follow in order to defend your brand.

Believing that What You Say Is More Important Than What You Do

The mistake: Even with the best name and logo, the most awesome brand launch, and brand marketing materials that win best-of-show in creative competitions, brands suffer if they don’t live up to their promises.

The remedy: Realize that your brand is either made or broken not by what you say but by what you do. People base their brand impressions upon the caliber and consistency of their own experiences. To establish and maintain the kind of brand experience that builds passion, loyalty, and brand value, follow the advice in Chapter 13 and take these steps:

1. Identify every point of customer contact within your brand experience, including pre-purchase encounters, purchase and product usage, and post-purchase communications and service.
2. Evaluate each point of contact to see that you present your brand message, promise, look, and tone consistently and without fail.
3. Identify and correct any points of contact where the brand experience falls even slightly short of your brand promise.
4. Regularly audit your brand experience to ensure against brand-eroding communication or service lapses.

Losing Brand Consistency

The mistake: Brand owners get bored. They get tired of their looks and messages, so they start improvising. They begin fiddling with their names, revising their logos, or trying out new brand voices or personalities. Just like that, consistency goes out the window. With it goes the ability to convey the brand’s identity and promise with the kind of clarity that had inspired confidence in everyone from employees to consumers to investors and others.

The remedy: Realize that to build and maintain a strong brand, you have to be consistent. Follow this advice:

• Insist on uniform presentation of your logo (see Chapter 8).
• Put your brand promise into words (see Chapter 6) and make sure it’s kept at every point of encounter with your brand, whether with customers, employees, suppliers, associates, or prospects.
• Define and stay true to your brand character, which is the look and voice that conveys the personality of your organization.
• Create brand-usage guidelines to be followed by everyone who produces marketing materials for or speaks on behalf of your business, and then name a brand cop to keep everyone’s efforts in line (see Chapter 17).

If your brand needs updating, don’t do it in a haphazard or ad hoc fashion. Follow the brand revitalization process outlined in Chapter 16.

Asking Your Brand to Stretch Too Far

The mistake: A good brand extends its name to an iffy product or to a product that contradicts the brand message and promise, confusing customers and eroding the brand’s emotional connection with its loyal following.

The remedy: Extending your brand to a new offering is a smart, lucrative action only if you extend within your brand’s reach, either remaining in your established product category or moving into categories that are very compatible with your the offerings for which your brand is known.

As you consider brand extensions, consider these two cautions:

• Be sure that any new products that carry your brand identity match up with consumer expectations of your brand in terms of quality, market position, and brand promise.
• Be careful that your new offering isn’t so similar to an existing offering that customers can’t tell the difference. Unless you’re intentionally trying to phase out the established product, a lack of distinction between the two can confuse customers, causing them to buy the new product instead of the established product (called cannibalization) or creating selection dilemmas that result in no purchase at all.

Leveraging your brand into new product or market categories is one of the most valued perks of brand development. It allows you to capitalize on the reputation you’ve built over time and apply it to new ventures that benefit from instant awareness and competitive advantage. Chapter 15 provides a good overview for how to seize brand extension opportunities without stretching your name to the breaking point.

Ignoring Brand Aging Signs

The mistake: When brands get stuck in times past, brand owners are often the last ones to notice. They’re so busy fending off competitors and working to attract and keep business that they fail to notice when their brand identities no longer reflect the essence of their businesses, or when their brand experiences become out of step with marketplace tastes and trends.

The remedy: On a regular basis, put your brand through the equivalent of a physical to see if its age is starting to affect its health. Chapter 16 outlines symptoms to watch for, including:

• Major ownership or leadership changes that alter your mission, vision, values, or strategic direction
• Major changes to your product line or distribution channels
• Major changes to your market situation, including significantly increased competition or major shifts in customer preferences and behaviors
• A merger or acquisition
• A brand that no longer reflects your changed business and market
• A brand message, experience, or identity that’s become dated and out of sync with cultural trends and customer interests and tastes

Some brands benefit from minor cosmetic repair and message realignment, whereas others require more significant revitalization or even total rebranding. Turn to Chapter 16 for help as you conduct a brand assessment and plan what kind of a brand revision, if any, is in order.