Imagine you are a sportswear brand. You have just stepped foot in the market and now you are starting to learn the market and how to sell. Your audience is new, your name is new and so are your products. You won’t be the only person who is in this business right? There are already brands who have set up shop before you, there are brands who would be there with you and there can be such brands that will come after you.
- The question is how do you make the people understand and buy from your brand?
This is where brand strategy comes in handy. What makes you different from others is your purpose, your values and how you want people to perceive your brand. It’s all in the details, the colours you choose, the logo you choose, the way you present yourself; online and offline. Everything matters, whether you like it or not.
“Every brand makes a promise. But in a marketplace in which consumer confidence is low and budgetary vigilance is high, it’s not just making a promise that separates one brand from another, but having a defining purpose,” explains Allen Adamson, chairman of the North America region of brand consulting and design firm Landor Associates.
There are two types of things which you need to keep in mind when you are opening yourself for the customer. One is the commercial aspect and one is the experience aspect. Some things you have to do just because you know people will like it and someday that one little thing can define your whole brand. Ikea, when selling food, goes under tremendous losses every year. But all that is covered up because people go for that experience. They end up buying some of the other commodities, even if their intention is going only for food. They call this Cost Of Customer Acquisition.
Here your strategy is what is going to allow you to see what loopholes you can cover in your branding experience. What you can play with and what you cannot gamble in. A clear path is caved and you know where you are and where you want to reach.
- Consistent branding across all channels increases revenue by 23%.
- 60% of millennial consumers expect a consistent brand across all channels.
- 82% of investors want the companies they invest in to have a strong brand.
- 94% of consumers will be loyal to companies that are transparent with their practices.
From all these statistics, we can conclude that consistency is the key. When you bombard something about your brand to the consumers a thousand times, they are bound to see your brand through that element itself. A simple example can be of the Airtel girl. Everyone knows she’s annoying, everyone is fed up when that Airtel girl comes up on the TV screen in the middle of a movie but that bombarding of the same girl and the same dialogues has affected the consumers so much that now we know her as the ‘Airtel girl’ itself. She has become the brand, on behalf of the brand.
This is the power of strategy and can change the game very quickly.
