Strategy Alignment in Support of Brand Quality Perceptions

Recently, I have been helping owners of a luxury watch brand rethink their pricing strategy as it relates to their brand strategy. One of the exercises I engaged them in was to explore a wide variety of their strategies to determine to what degree they supported their intended brand image. In particular, I wanted them to think about all of the things that could enhance or detract from brand quality perceptions.

This is something every brand manager needs to think about whether working on a luxury brand or some other type of brand. Each of these is a signal to a brand's quality.

• Craftsmanship
• Design/Styling
• Look/feel
• Durability
• Reliability
• Awareness
• Brand cache
• Pricing 
• Country of Origin
• Scarcity
• Outlets at which they are sold
• Where they are advertised
• Service and support
• Reviews
• Word of mouth
• Brand story

It is surprising how many times we discover disconnects between the brand's intended image and the image that some of its strategies convey.

Assume you are a luxury brand. You should not sell in Wal-Mart. Depending how "high end" you are, you might not even want to sell in Target or Macy's. Luxury brands need controlled prices. The brand owner does not want to see them deeply discounted throughout the marketplace. You wouldn't expect to find a great watch brand produced in Mexico using Chinese movements. Nor would you expect to find a great wine brand produced in Siberia or Yemen. Luxury brands shouldn't seem to be ubiquitous in massive quantities. Even worse, the excess inventories should not show up on every discount website. A luxury brand should not show up on Amazon.com for $2.99 no matter how old, ragged or used. Some brands are only sold in their own stores on Rodeo Drive, Fifth Avenue and similar shopping districts in a handful of upscale communities worldwide. Rolex advertises at elite sporting events (maxi yacht races, polo matches, equestrian events and other similar events), not football games or bowling tournaments. 

It is amazing how many times one finds one or more of these out of alignment with what the brand is trying to communicate. I encourage you to to assess your brand's alignment against each of these. 

The Donald Trump Brand - Our Research Results

Donald Trump has estimated his net worth to be in the billions of dollars, mostly based on the brand value of his last name. Prior to Donald Trump’s run for president of the United States, the Trump brand stood for luxury, success, risk taking and fearlessness.

Now that Donald Trump is the Republican nominee for president, we wanted to determine if his campaigning has changed his brand perceptions. To that end, we conducted a nationwide online survey between June 24 and July 4 to better understand Donald Trump’s brand perceptions. We asked 300 people how well each of 115 personality attributes described him. We compiled these attributes from articles written about Donald Trump combined with our battery of standard brand personality attributes. Here is what we found:

• No one perceives him to be shy
• Few view him to be subtle and very few perceive him to be politically correct
• Most everyone perceives him to be confident and outspoken
• Almost everyone identifies him as ambitious and a businessman
• Most identify him as rich and a billionaire

This is where the agreement ends. We found significant differences in brand personality perceptions by political party affinity, educational attainment and, to a lessor extent, household income level.  We also found that people who were unemployed and looking for work and those disabled and unable to work had much more positive perceptions of Donald Trump than people who were employed and those who were unemployed by choice. Interestingly, there were very few differences in perceptions by gender.

Republicans primarily described him using these words (in decreasing order):

• Businessman
• Hard working
• Successful
• Confident
• Leader
• Strong
• Real
• Entrepreneurial
• Competent
• Ambitious
• Rich
• Positive
• Energetic
• Passionate
• Professional
• Loyal
• Billionaire
• Interesting
• Good
• Smart
• Responsible
• Brave
• Honest
• Reliable
• Inspiring
• Outspoken
• Trustworthy
• Dependable

And they used many more positive words and almost no negative words to describe him.

While Democrats primarily described him as (in decreasing order):

• Outspoken
• Egotistical
• Narcissist
• Loud
• Bully
• Rude
• Greedy
• Sexist
• Bigoted
• Dangerous
• Intolerant
• Superficial
• Selfish
• Pretentious
• Narrow-minded
• Ambitious
• Crass
• Ill-mannered
• Angry
• Boorish
• Impulsive
• Confident
• Huckster
• Elitist
• Fraud

 People with less than a college bachelor’s degree described him as:

• Businessman
• Ambitious
• Hard working
• Confident
• Successful
• Outspoken
• Rich
• Entrepreneurial
• Billionaire
• Leader
• Real

 While people with a bachelor’s degree or greater described him as:

• Outspoken
• Egotistical
• Ambitious
• Confident
• Loud
• Crass
• Narcissist
• Impulsive
• Rude

 People with household incomes of $74,999 or less described him as:

• Outspoken
• Ambitious
• Confident
• Businessman
• Rich
• Successful
• Hard working
• Entrepreneurial
• Billionaire
• Passionate

 While people with household incomes of $175,000 or more described him as:

• Confident
• Ambitious
• Outspoken
• Egotistical
• Businessman
• Loud
• Flashy
• Entrepreneurial
• Rich
• Authoritarian
• Crass
• Energetic

In summary, those who (a) are Republican, (b) have less than a college bachelor’s degree and (c) more modest household incomes and (d) are unemployed looking for work view Donald Trump as a rich, successful, outspoken businessman who has many positive traits. Put another way, Republicans and those who are less successful have positive perceptions of Donald Trump. Those who are Democratic, and are fully employed with higher educational attainment and income view Donald Trump in a very negative light. The first groups would view the Trump brand similar to historical brand associations, while the latter groups have mostly negative perceptions of the Trump brand.

The data would indicate that his style and demeanor appeal more to people who are less well educated and who have more modest incomes. For instance, more highly educated people and people with higher incomes perceive him to be loud, while people with less education and lower incomes do not. Crass and other negative adjectives follow the same pattern, while likeable and other positive adjectives follow the opposite pattern.

If I were a Republican brand strategist, I would focus on Donald Trump’s bulldog qualities and his ability to “get the job done” on behalf of those who are fed up with the status quo.  If I were a Democratic brand strategist, I would focus on Donald Trump’s narcissism and propensity to operate only in his own self-interest and I would present evidence that he is not nearly as competent and successful as he portrays himself to be.

Interesting branding questions that emerge from this study are:

• Is all publicity good publicity?
• Does the extremely high awareness of the Trump name mostly help Trump, even if recent polls show that approximately 60% of US citizens have negative perceptions of Donald Trump? Which is more important, brand awareness or brand perceptions?
• Will these negative perceptions of Donald Trump affect his ability to license his name for royalty income?
• How does this affect the asset value of the Trump brand?
• Does this affect the Ivanka Trump brand, and if so, in what ways?

For more information regarding the results of this survey, contact Brad VanAuken, president of BrandForward, Inc. at vanauken@brandforward.com.

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Changing Brand Perceptions

Brand perceptions are much more often created by the product or service experience itself than from marketing communication. Marketing communication is much more effective in building brand awareness than it is in creating or changing brand perceptions.  That is not to say that marketing communication cannot be used to help change perceptions, but it can’t do it alone and it can’t do it in the absence of real changes in the brand experience. So, when a brand perception is negative and requires a change, that change is likely to include one or more of the following:

• Competitive strategy
• Business model
• Vertical or horizontal integration
• Product functions, features and styling
• Product line breadth and depth
• Customer service, including problem handling
• Bundling/unbundling of products and services
• Product/service customization
• Amenities
• Technical support
• Availability
• Responsiveness
• Pricing strategy
• Distribution strategy
• Internal culture
• Employee hiring criteria
• Employee training
• Performance metrics
• Common measures
• Internal systems and procedures
• Capital investments

These all require the support of the organization’s CEO and his or her leadership team. So the main point in this post is that brand repositioning is not just a marketing activity. It goes well beyond marketing communication and requires real changes in product/service delivery across multiple functions. This is an enterprise-wide activity that must be driven from the top to be successful.