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The Branding Process - Refresh, Revitalize & Re-Invent!

#3 in a series [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [

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By Roger Griffin, Associate Partner
FOCUS Business Marketing Intelligence

Building a Winning Brand is an 8-Step process - one that allows our clients to achieve clarity and perspective that really make it easy to choose from alternative business options.

As we saw last month, we need to start with the facts, by getting a clear picture of where you are in the customers’ and stakeholders’ perception. The next step is to establish your branding needs and priorities - and if necessary, refresh, revitalize, and even re-invent your brand to meet these new needs and priorities.

If you’re a retailer:
Your needs may be relatively simple. A few examples include:

To differentiate your brand from core competitors;
To refresh your brand’s packaging
and/or
To revitalize your store
or
your needs may be more complex, e.g. to totally reinvent and reposition your brand to reflect a new customer focus and new global competition.

For example, what happens if a Wal-Mart, Home Depot or Gap comes into your trade area? If you’re in the same business, how do you compete? The answer is reposition!

If you’re a business-to-business brand:
Let’s now assume that you’re a business-to-business brand, challenged to create differentiation: e.g., financial services.

Business-to-business services have their own set of unique branding challenges, such as:

A broad range of purchasing decision makers;
Longer sell-in time periods;
More emphasis on rational benefits; and
Corporate brand that’s often more important than the product brands.

In these highly specialized circumstances, your best approach may be to focus on some of your product’s / brand’s less tangible and more emotional benefits.

Remember, the branding process works equally well for many types of branding programs. Whether you’re talking Retail Branding, Service Branding, Techno-Branding or Business-to-Business Branding, your objective should be to develop a Whole Branding Program.

The past decade has produced many examples of companies going through a ‘Refresh, Revitalize or Reinvent’ phase and emerging more powerful and relevant.

Look at McDonald’s, who is currently repositioning itself to ensure that it remains relevant to a growing set of customers - beyond kids. From veggie burgers (made in B.C. and just introduced to the California market) to wraps to salad meals, the focus is repositioning McDonalds to embrace families who are seeking healthy eating options.

Some Tips

Select options that support your vision and are in line with the competitive advantages that you can maintain over time.
Strive for the evolution of the brand. If things are so seriously amiss that a total re-branding is needed, then it may be better to approach the opportunity as if it were a new product. Changing old beliefs may be more difficult than creating anew.

N.B. ‘The End Deliverable’ is:

To determine your branding need: refresh, revitalize, and/or re-invent;
To establish areas of focus, e.g.: name, logo, graphics, merchandise, store, staff, marketing, etc.

Special thanks to John Torella of the J.C.Williams Group for his pioneering work in the art of retail branding.

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Roy McClean, FOCUS Business Intelligence; Vancouver & Whistler.