Clarifying Strategy

Today I took a look at the second phase of the brand identity process, clarifying strategy. This phase builds upon our previously conducted research and culminates into both the brand brief and the creative brief.

At the conclusion of the research phase, there is a wealth of data available. Developing a strategy takes this research and puts the data into action. Strategy should narrow the focus but also look at the big picture. In many ways, strategy is an exercise of rational thinking and creativity.

On a practical level, the flow of the process should:

1. Provide an understanding of the vision, values, mission, value proposition, culture, target markets, segments, shareholder perceptions, services, products, infrastructure, marketing strategy, competition, trends, pricing, distribution, research, environment, economic, sociopolitical and SWOT.

2. Take the understanding and clarify core values, brand attributes, competitive advantages and brand strategy.

3. Determine the positioning based upon differentiation, the value proposition and business category.

4. Determine the brand essence. What is the central idea? The unifying concept? Key messages? Voice and tone?

5. Develop the big idea - a statement that conveys the essence of a brand.

6. Lead to the creation of a brand brief and a creative brief. The brand brief takes the information and ideas from the above process and puts them into written form so that senior management can sign off on a unified vision of the brand essence and its attributes. The creative brief provides an overview for the creative team, conveys the brand essence and provides goals and deliverables.

Lastly and for a little fun, what are some well known big ideas?

GE - Imagination at work.
Apple - Think Different.
Target - Expect more. Pay less.

Conducting Research

Today's reading was actually very impressive. The topic was the first phase in the brand identity process - conducting research.

The main activities associated with conducting research are:

1. Understanding the business. Requesting baseline information from the client and following up by interviewing key stakeholders.

2. Market research. Gathering, evaluation and interpretation of data affecting customer preferences for products, services and brands. Research includes activities like usability testing, surveys, focus groups, mystery shopping, etc.

3. Marketing audit. Examining the client's communications and marketing tools. This involves getting your hands on all marketing communication and collateral.

4. Competitive audit. Examining the competition's brands, messages and identity.

5. Stakeholder audit. This was an interesting aspect. The stakeholder audit recognizes that the client's brand reaches beyond the client. The brand should reach all stakeholders. As such, a stakeholder audit targets key stakeholders to gain their insight into the brand, their needs, perceptions, etc.

6. Language audit. The book was sort of vague here and dismissed the language audit by saying "every organization aspires to conduct a language audit, but very few accomplish it." My understanding was that the language audit was a method to analyze what was the most desirable content.

7. Producing the audit readout. The audit readout is the formal presentation that helps the client take inventory and helps the agency have a baseline to build from.

One of the things that stuck out to me was the ACLU example cited. As part of conducting research, the ACLU was astonished to find out that over 50 different logos were being used at the national and affiliate level. There was no system in place to account for the use of their brandmarks and these different logos were causing serious brand confusion.

The ACLU example sounds so familiar. From 2001 to November 2004, my firm worked as the sole search engine marketing provider for one of the three approved lead agencies on the University of Phoenix account. We did an awesome job and worked seamlessly with their existing brand and message. However, one of the other lead agencies took a different route. Instead of doing the work in-house, this agency outsourced all of their search engine marketing to multiple rather unscrupulous vendors (quite literally anyone and everyone). As a result, lead quality and more importantly the University of Phoenix brand and the message were often seriously compromised. The University of Phoenix is ultimately responsible for the brand confusion. They entered into relationships with multiple agencies and provided little oversight. The University of Phoenix was only focused on their lead generation and neglected their brand in the process. The sad thing is that they still haven't learned their lesson. Just do a search on Google for "university of phoenix" and tell me what site is the official site. There are no less that 15 to 20 sites that appear official. University of Phoenix doesn't own these sites. Do you think they can control the message on all of these third party sites and third party advertisements? Nope. They didn't back in 2004 and I'm sure they don't today.

Brand Identity Process & Beyond Analytics

In moving into the second third of the book, we're now taking a look at what makes a good brand identity process. The book proposes five phases:

1. Conducting Research.
2. Clarifying Strategy.
3. Designing identity.
4. Creating touchpoints.
5. Managing assets.

Over the course of the next several reading, we'll look at each phase in more detail. Tomorrow I'll be reading about conducting research.

Otherwise, something that I found very interesting was this quote:

"Analytics are important, providing the data that allows marketers to stay focused and pragmatic, while also serving to set boundaries and provide the underlying rationale for making decisions. But analytics shouldn't be allowed to overwhelm the intuition that characterizes great marketers. It's the insight that the data leads to that results in breakthrough products and compelling new customer experiences." - Micheal Dunn

I've always been of the opinion that using your intuition gets you going in the right direction but I'd rather leverage the insight offered directly from the market. The beauty about online marketing is the real time analytics.

However, Dunn makes a good point. Analytics are only one tool of the marketer. The ability to understand, interpret and act on your analytics is just as important as the data itself.