1.3 Workbook

What is a Brand?

A brand is your company image or personality. It is what people think about when they hear your name. It’s what they feel when they see your products. It’s how they describe your company to others. It is the total combination of thoughts, feelings, emotions, opinions, judgments and reactions people have toward your business. In other words, your brand is the emotional attachment – positive or negative – people have with your company, products, services and people – it’s your face to the world.

Strong brands can have tremendous financial value in today’s information economy. During the era of mass production, the value of most businesses was based on physical assets such as equipment, machines, inventory, vehicles, buildings, etc. Today, many companies that lack tangible assets have tremendous valuations due to brand recognition and reputation.

Here is a list of companies you will recognize. To show the power of brands, write down the initial thoughts, feelings and judgments you have about these companies. Notice which ones derive value from physical assets and which ones have value primarily due to brand equity.

Brand development is more important than ever before in building a successful business. Social media allows people to experience your brand and talk about it in real time. Everything you do can impact your reputation – your company name, products, quality, service, strategy, leadership style, how you treat your employees, etc. So brand building in not a one-time activity. You will constantly work on it as you grow your business.

A great brand starts with a good name and various brand expressions (logo, color pallet, slogan, collateral marketing materials, etc.). Many entrepreneurs are so preoccupied with product development, early sales and financing their company that they skip this important first step. Don’t make this mistake! If your brand is too bland, it may go unnoticed in the marketplace. If it is too complicated, people may not remember your name. If it is too edgy, you may appear to be amateur and unproven. So spend as much time in brand development as you will in other critical aspects of launching and growing your new venture.

In this lesson we will review the important steps in creating an initial brand. Obviously, what you do during this lesson is preliminary to what you will do when you actual launch and grow your business. Nonetheless, you will gain some practical experience in the difficult and ongoing process of building a winning brand.

Creating Your Brand

Marketing and branding experts propose a variety of approaches for creating a new brand. Here are some of the important steps for getting started that are widely recommended.

Step 1: Define Your Company Values

An important first step in creating a brand is defining the values you want to convey to the world. In our course on “New Venture Planning” you will develop the Mission, Vision and Values for your company. Your Mission will clarify the purpose or reason for starting your business. Your Vision will describe where you want to be in the future. And your Values will communicate the key principles upon which your company is founded. While these three components are the driving force behind the ongoing planning process, it is your values that you want to capture in your brand. In this lesson, you will start developing your company values statement. When defining your values, ask yourself these questions:

• What are we trying to accomplish?
• What will our company stand for?
• How will we conduct our business?
• What companies do we admire most?
• What values do these companies promote?
• What image do we want to communicate?
• How will we treat team members and customers?
• What kind of company culture are we trying to create?
• What values will help us create the ultimate company?

Step 2: Define Your Customer Persona

Selling is the process of matching up your products or services with the wants and needs of a particular customer group or groups. So after defining who you are as a company, you need to define the relevant characteristics of the people you are trying to reach. We call this creating a “Customer Persona.” You can start with the typical demographic data marketers have been collecting for years: age, gender, education, occupation, ethnicity, family status, values, preferences, etc. You can find this information in many online data bases including the ones you used in our first course, “New Venture Fundamentals.”

A “Customer Persona” however, is much more than demographic information. It involves putting a name, face, personality and life to your buying customer. To get this information, you have to dig a little deeper. If you have worked in your industry or used its products, you probably know a lot about your target customer. If not, you can interview potential buyers, read trade publications, go to conventions, hold focus groups, etc. Ultimately, you need to know your typical customer’s mindset, affiliations, values, worries, fears, hopes, dreams and buying behavior. In the exercise that follows you will be asked to write the most thorough paragraph you can about the characteristics and personality of your potential customer.

Step 3: Define Your Brand Essence

Your brand essence is the heart, soul, core, crux and spirit of your company. It is what you really are and want to be when you grow up. It usually consists of several words, often in the format of “adjective-adjective-noun.” A strong brand essence is concise, captivating, inspirational, attainable, enduring and timeless. Here are examples of well-known companies and the essence of their brands.

In sum, your brand essence completes the statement: Our business is all about ____________________________________________________? A strong brand essence can unite both your team members and customers around a common theme and mission. Perhaps most important, it tells people what you do better than your competitors.

Once you define your brand essence, it is easier to create your company name, logo, slogan, and marketing strategy. However, creating a strong brand essence is not something you do on your own. It requires the thoughts, imagination, and interaction of other passionate people. In this lesson, you will develop some initial thoughts about your brand, but to get it right you will need to engage a group of interested parties in creative brainstorming. Here is the process we recommend:

Step 4: Define Your Brand Personality

Your brand personality is an extension of your brand essence. While your essence is the heart of what you do, your personality is how you do it. Companies develop personalities just like people do. For example, if we asked you to describe the personality of Abraham Lincoln, you would probably use words like methodical, insightful, caring, melancholy, brilliant, funny, great story teller, etc. In like manner, your brand personality lets people know if you are funny, bold, edgy, truthful, blunt, serious, whimsical, real, academic, adventurous, mainstream, new age, etc. The personality you choose to portray will be a huge part of your overall brand success. Follow the same creative brainstorming process outlined above to develop an appealing brand personality.

Step 5: Select and Test Several Names

Once you develop your brand essence and personality, you should be able to generate several possible names and images for your company. Make sure each domain name is available and the probability for gaining a national trademark is high. As detailed in our second course, “New Venture Management,” you can conduct a trademark search at www.uspto.gov.

When you have three names that might work, it is easy to ask a large group of potential customers to rate and rank these names. Create a simple survey and take it to people who may buy your product or service. Ask them to rate each name from 1 to 7 with “1” being “Hate” and “7” being “Love.” Also ask them to rank the three names from most preferred to least preferred. You may find that people like all three names equally, or that they love one and hate one. This information can help you make your final decision.

Step 6: Select Your Final Name

The final name you select should be easy to say, easy to read, easy to spell, and easy to remember. We have worked with companies that have been in business for years with a fairly high percent of customers who still cannot get their name right. Also, as mentioned above, make sure you can get the domain name for a website, and a trademark for the name. We have seen several companies have to change their name because they didn’t file for and secure a federal trademark.

Step 7: Create Your Brand Expressions

Now you are ready to create all the various expressions for your brand. This can include a logo, color pallet, slogan, business cards, stationary, marketing materials, and various applications for the logo (e.g., horizontal, vertical, color, black and white). A slogan or tagline is particularly important because it tells customers what you do for them. A strong slogan will highlight the most attractive benefit you offer. Just for fun, see if you can link the slogans below with the correct company. Write the name of the company next to the slogan.

You have a number of options for developing your brand expressions, and some are much less expensive than others. Here are four approaches you might consider. First, you can find students in graphic design courses who need to create a brand for their class. While these students will be young and less experienced, many are extremely talented and do excellent work.

Second, you can use a logo and brand development web service. Some of these services like www.logogarden.com and www.vistaprint.com help you create your own logo with the tools they provide. They offer a wide variety of images, fonts, and colors and charge a small fee for the service. Other companies like www.logoworks.com, www.logodesignpros.com and www.logobee.com have multiple designers create various logo options and then do a number of revisions until you have a final logo – all for a reasonable fee. These companies will also create business cards, letterhead, and websites for additional costs.

Third, you can find an experienced graphic designer who is independent or working for an agency, but is willing to moonlight during evenings and weekends. This option will be more expensive, but you will get a talented designer with a proven track record. Be sure to get references and examine the work of anyone you may want to use.

Fourth, you can use a well-respected digital media agency. This option will generally produce the best results, but it is also the most expensive. You may want to start with a less costly approach to get your product or service into the market, and then upgrade all of your brand expressions after you prove your business model and begin to scale your company. This strategy usually works well as long as you don’t end up having to change your name – which can be costly, time consuming and distracting. So get your name right from the beginning.

Now it is time to do some initial ground work for your brand. Answer the questions below to see how far along you are at this early stage. Remember, to get your brand right you will have to involve others and take more time than you have in this course.

Maintaining Brand Integrity

Brand integrity means your brand is protected, maintained and applied consistently across all touch points with your customers. A strong brand will demonstrate both internal and external consistency. A product has internal consistency when all of the parts or components communicate the same quality and feeling. A product has external consistency when the various ways it is marketed convey the same image and values. For example, a company building high-end automobiles will not combine a solid and sturdy frame with cheap and inexpensive interior (internal consistency). In addition, this company would not market its elite vehicles using the “slick” approach of used-car salesmen (external consistency).

Harley Davidson has worked very hard to create and maintain a strong world-wide brand. Harley Davidson motorcycles represent freedom, independence, adventure and traditional American values. Harley has developed a host of additional products and services that support and sustain these values: apparel, merchandise, the Harley Owners’ Group (HOG), rallies, reunions, financial services, etc. Harley motorcycles are the ultimate status symbol for bikers. People throughout the world know what Harley Davidson represents.

In the 1998, however, Harley Davidson made a fairly significant branding error. Company executives were concerned that their high-end road bikes were not appealing to younger riders. They acquired Buell Motorcycles to address this concern. Buell was making a lighter weight and much less expensive racing bike. Harley added its engines and components to strengthen the Buell brand and offered a 24-month Harley Davidson warranty.

Combining the high-end Harley parts to a lower-cost bike created a problem with internal consistency. Also, marketing less expensive racing bikes associated with the Harley Davidson brand created a problem with external consistency. Consequently, Buell bikes never sold very well, and Harley was not able to build market share in the lower-cost motorcycle category. Customers did not feel that Buell bikes fit the Harley brand and image. On October 30, 2009, Harley Davidson shut down the Buell Motorcycle Company.

In sum, building a strong brand is a difficult and ongoing process. You first need to create an attractive brand, and then maintain consistency within each product, across your product line, and in how you communicate your image and values in the marketplace. To succeed in the long run, you need to spend as much time building and maintaining your brand as you do developing other critical components of your enterprise. Good luck with the branding process!