Online Branding Education

I have created two new online brand management courses: (1) Positioning Your Brand to Win! and (2) Brand Research. If you have a couple hours to spare and want to dive deeply into these two topics, click on the links to begin your education.

Brand Manager Competencies and Responsibilities

Brand Manager Competencies

• Strong ability to influence behaviors and perceptions without
• formal authority
• Respected throughout the organization
• Strong written and verbal persuasion skills
• Adequate analytical skills
• Customer research experience
• Strong intuition about human behavior and motivation
• Good project management skills

Brand Manager Responsibilities

• Identify, refine, the brand’s “unique value proposition.”
• Monitor, measure, and manage brand equity/strength.
• Increase brand awareness, relevant differentiation, value,
• accessibility, and emotional connection.
• Develop brand plan.
• Monitor progress against brand plan.
• Be responsible for results against brand plan.
• Drive brand understanding and support organization-wide.
• Champion/drive initiatives that support delivery of the brand
• promise.
• Brand messaging—elevator speech, tagline, campaign themes,
• proof points, etc.

Brand Identity Manager Competencies

• Strong ability to influence behaviors and perceptions
• without
• formal authority
• Respected throughout the organization
• Likable
• Assertive
• Ability to say “no” in a nice way
• Some understanding of brand identity standards and systems

Brand Identity Manager Responsibilities

• Manage the brand architecture.
• Establish brand architecture and naming decision rules.
• Establish brand identity standards including co-branding standards.
• Maintain brand identity consistency.
• Chair the brand identity council/team/board.
• Help manage brand identity transitions resulting from mergers
• and acquisitions.
• Help determine identities for new brands/subbrands.
• Anticipate and accommodate new brand identity needs

© 2015 Brad VanAuken

Excerpted from Brand Aid, second edition, available for sale here.

Comprehensive Brand Management Training

Here is what I would want a brand manager in my marketing department to know:

• What a brand is
• The benefits strong brands deliver to organizations
• The brand management process
• What leads to customer brand insistence
• What contributes to brand loyalty
• What helps brands connect emotionally to their customers
• How to conduct a brand audit
• How to measure brand equity
• How to measure the asset value of a brand
• How to read and use point-of-sale (POS) data in managing brands
• Customer segmentation approaches
• Qualitative and quantitative brand research methodologies and approaches
• How to use projective, laddering and guided imagery techniques
• How to align brand values with customer values
• The different types of brand benefits
• How to turn your brand into a “customer badge” (self-expressive benefits)
• How to read brand positioning maps
• How to develop brand essence, promise, archetype and personality
• How to successfully (re)position a brand
• How to differentiate commodities
• How to create a “category of one” brand
• How to successfully extend a brand into new product or service categories
• How to create and manage a strong brand identity
• The various types of brand names and architecture
• Developing a brand identity system and standards
• How to develop a powerful brand tagline
• How to develop a brand “elevator speech”
• How to write a creative brief
• How to evaluate advertising campaigns
• How to develop a successful direct marketing campaign
• How to use publicity and word-of-mouth marketing to a brand’s advantage
• Using blogs and other social media to build brands
• How to build brand proof points into every point of customer contact (customer touch point design)
• How to develop a strong brand marketing plan
• B2B marketing tools and techniques
• How to use internal communication, education and training and organization design to align the organization in support of the brand
• How to develop a brand building organization and transform employees into enthusiastic brand champions
• Key considerations in brand pricing strategy
• Key considerations in brand distribution strategy
• What is important to know about managing global brands
• The primary responsibilities of brand managers
• The primary responsibilities of brand identity managers
• Trends in brand management

We offer comprehensive one- to three-day workshops to teach all of these brand management skills, overall or in-depth on a particular brand management subject. We do this through conference companies in numerous countries in every region of the world. We are also brought in to deliver this as a part of university MBA marketing programs. And, individual companies and organizations hire us to conduct these workshops for their employees. We are happy to customize these workshops for specific industries. For instance, we have customized workshops for the bed & breakfast, digital media, energy, fashion, municipality and restaurant markets. Our workshops include lecture, numerous case studies, individual and team exercises, and many tools, templates and checklists.

Brand Aid, second edition is available here.

50 Things Successful Brand Managers Know

Companies often ask us to deliver brand management training to their marketing teams. As I am developing yet another comprehensive brand management and marketing training session for a company, I thought I would share what I believe needs to be included in that comprehensive training. Successful brand managers have a deep understanding of each of these:

1. Different approaches to market segmentation
2. What factors drive customers to insist upon certain brands
3. The primary drivers of human behavior
4. How to gain deep customer insight
5. The most useful brand, marketing and advertising research techniques
6. How to conduct qualitative research that uncovers customer attitudes, values, hopes, fears and desires
7. How to measure brand equity
8. The most important brand metrics
9. How to interpret and use retail sales performance data
10. How to recognize internal and external brand threats
11. When to position or re-position a brand
12. How to create and evaluate a brand positioning statement
13. The most successful brand positioning approaches
14. How to reframe product categories
15. How to create “category-of-one” brands
16. Strategies to differentiate commodities
17. How to craft compelling brand stories
18. How to evoke an emotional customer response to the brand
19. The key elements of a strong brand identity system
20. Brand naming strategies
21. How to write and or evaluate a compelling brand tagline
22. How to write and or evaluate a compelling brand “elevator speech”
23. How to create optimal brand architecture
24. The most powerful pricing strategies and tactics
25. The most powerful distribution strategies
26. How to establish the right marketing budget
27. How to defend your marketing budget
28. How to measure ROI for different types of marketing programs
29. What should be included in a comprehensive brand plan
30. How to select the best marketing agency partners
31. How to get the best work out of your marketing agencies
32. How to create and evaluate a strong creative brief
33. How to develop and evaluate an advertising campaign
34. The key elements of an integrated marketing plan
35. The strengths and weaknesses of each media type
36. How to build brands through word-of-mouth
37. How to build brands through proactive publicity
38. How to build brands online
39. How to merchandise and market brands at retail
40. How to anticipate and create strategies to address competitive response
41. How to align the organization in support of the brand
42. How to select and implement an effective customer relationship management (CRM) system
43. How to increase customer loyalty
44. How to transform loyal customers into brand champions
45. How to identify, screen and develop successful new products
46. What is required to launch a new brand
47. How to significantly increase the probability of success of a brand extension
48. Brand crisis response and management
49. How to manage brands across national borders
50. How to build global power brands

I hope this helps you to identify the gaps in your organization’s brand management and marketing competencies and training.

What Brand Managers Need to Know

Companies often ask us to deliver brand management training to their marketing employees. As I am developing yet another comprehensive brand management and marketing training session for a company, I thought I would share what I believe needs to be included in that comprehensive training. Brand managers need to know:

• Different approaches to market segmentation
• What factors drive customers to insist upon certain brands
• The primary drivers of human behavior
• How to gain deep customer insight
• The most useful brand, marketing and advertising research techniques
• How to conduct qualitative research that uncovers customer attitudes, values, hopes, fears and desires
• How to measure brand equity
• The most important brand metrics
• How to interpret and use retail sales performance data
• How to create a brand positioning statement
• The most successful brand positioning approaches
• How to reframe product categories
• How to create “category-of-one” brands
• Strategies to differentiate commodities
• How to craft compelling brand stories
• How to evoke an emotional customer response to the brand
• The key elements of a strong brand identity system
• Brand naming strategies
• How to write a compelling brand tagline
• How to write a compelling brand “elevator speech”
• How to create optimal brand architecture
• The most powerful pricing strategies and tactics
• The most powerful distribution strategies
• What should be included in a comprehensive brand plan
• How to get the best work out of your marketing agencies
• How to create a strong creative brief
• How to develop an advertising campaign
• The key elements of an integrated marketing plan
• The strengths and weaknesses of each media type
• How to build brands through word-of-mouth
• How to build brands through proactive publicity
• How to build brands online
• How to merchandise and market brands at retail
• How to anticipate and create strategies to address competitive response
• How to align the organization in support of the brand
• How to increase customer loyalty
• How to transform loyal customers into brand champions
• How to identify, screen and develop successful new products
• What is required to launch a new brand
• How to significantly increase the probability of success of a brand extension
• Brand crisis response and management
• How to manage brands across national borders
• How to build global power brands

I hope this helps you to identify the gaps in your organization’s brand management and marketing skill sets and training.