Brand Development
A product/service, however new and innovative, is just a commodity until it becomes a brand. A brand makes promises about what it is like to use, and about what important benefits will be uniquely realized from that experience. That means brands satisfy the needs and wants that are created by specific decision contexts and that motivate people to decide and to act.
Brand issues defy easy categorization or simple formula solutions. For starters, a brand question could involve a company, a product/service, or an issue. And the questions could be the broadest - how do we reposition or build our brand reputation? It could be driven by events - acquisition, going public. It could be stimulated by something positive - new capabilities. Or something negative - a crisis. It might be stimulated by a sustainability trust or a social responsibility initiative. Or your organization's mission might be to communicate more effectively on a policy issue by creating a branded position.
Our brand strengthening services begin with solid knowledge and ideation tools. Our core service is to build brand positioning platforms, whether based on existing research or developed through our own motivation-based brand research methods, with processes to aid strategy applications. Internal workshops help build skills, focus and consensus. We bring a range of strategic and tactical research approaches to such assignments, applied as the situation merits.
We also recognize that brand building is a process that requires management and collaboration among several groups. Your needs may include building brand knowledge among an internal community, in which case we would recommend drawing on the expertise of our partner brand and innovation consultancy, VivaldiPartners (www.VivaldiPartners.com). In some issue areas, we like to draw on the strategic thinking and communications skills of our colleagues at Neimand Collaborative (www.neimandcollaborative.com).
If you have a brand question we can provide ideas and structure to help you think through and implement your strategy for addressing it.