Mindshare Before Market Share

It is very important for brands to build mindshare as a first step toward market share. I will begin with a personal example of this. The majority of my clients approach me in the following manner: "I heard you speak at the XYZ conference. After that, I bought your Brand Aid book. I refer to it so often that many of its pages are dog-eared. I have been following your blog for X number of years. And now I have this brand problem. I like the way you think. I knew you could help me with this." That is called mindshare. When your brand is top-of-mind associated with a specific need, benefit or category, or better yet, when it has totally consumed someone's thoughts regarding that need, benefit or category, that is called mindshare. 

Here are some other examples. Remember when Amazon.com was first introduced? Everyone was talking about it. Jeff Bezos was on the front cover of numerous magazines and you could not pick up a periodical without reading something about Amazon.com. Consider Tesla Motors today. The Tesla Model S earned a perfect 100 rating by Consumer Reports and has been the buzz of almost every other automotive magazine. Elon Musk has achieved celebrity status and has been interviewed by dozens of periodicals. Or, how about Donald Trump? Watch any news network, Democratic or Republican leaning, and the presidential candidate that dominates the news is Donald Trump. He seems to be sucking up every other GOP presidential candidate's oxygen. 

Strong brands must develop mindshare. This typically requires a superior product with a great story to tell but equally as important is the daily blocking and tackling of being in front of people, communicating with them, interacting with them, entertaining them and giving them something of value. The old saying "familiarity breeds contempt" is not generally true. In fact, familiarity usually leads to mindshare and liking. Find as many ways as possible to keep your brand in front of its customers and potential customers day after day.

Ivanka Trump

I had an interesting conversation with someone yesterday. She had tried on a dress at a women’s clothing store and really liked the way it looked on her. Curious about the brand, she looked at the label and discovered that it was labeled Ivanka Trump. She told me that she just couldn’t bear wearing something with the Trump name on it so she put it back and left the store without buying it.

As a brand consultant, this was interesting to me. Ivanka Trump deliberately chose a label that featured the Trump name so that it could draw from and contribute to the Trump brand equity.  As the Trump name is becoming more well known with Donald Trump’s run for the GOP presidential nomination, awareness of the Trump name is increasing but the Trump name is also taking on more positive and negative associations, depending on one’s view of Donald Trump, his values, his personality and his position on issues.

So, extending the Trump brand into politics has perhaps made the brand more interesting for some and less palatable for others. The woman with whom I had this conversation really liked the dress itself (the product) but couldn’t stand being associated with Trump (the brand). This is a clear example of how a brand can add to or subtract from the appeal of products or services. In this case, a sale was lost due to the brand name. I suspect that the Ivanka Trump name helps more than it hurts sales as it creates immediate recognition. Having said that, it clearly stands for something other than quality for some people.

Any time one extends a brand into a new category (in this case, politics), the brand's associations in that category can have an impact on the brand’s perceptions in other categories.

Did you know?

• There is a direct correlation between advertising spending, brand awareness, and market share (given that the brand’s distribution is equal to that of other brands in the category and consumers like the brand’s point of difference). In fact, James Gregory and the Corporate Branding Partnership (and others) have linked advertising spending to increases in sales, earnings, market share, and stock price.
• A brand’s perceived quality increases with increases in advertising impressions, regardless of message.
• The more extended a brand becomes, the more it needs sub-brands to aid with its extensions.
• “Purchase intent” tends to be inflated for declining brands and understated for emerging brands.
• Advertising is often most effective in increasing share of market when brands are so similar that the advertising message is the primary source of differentiation.

Excepted from Brand Aid, second edition, available here.

How to Tell if a Company is Marketing-Driven

I recently advised an MBA student who wanted to work in marketing that she should seek out marketing-driven companies for her first job out of business school, especially if she wanted to learn more marketing skills on the job. Obviously, P&G, Unilever, L’Oreal, Colgate-Palmolive and other large consumer packaged goods companies fit into this category, but what would indicate that other companies are marketing-driven or not?

• Have you seen national advertising for the brand? Or, if it is a B2B brand, if you have worked in that industry before, have you seen B2B advertising for that brand?
• Have you heard of their brand(s)?
• Does the company’s CEO have a marketing background?
• If it is a B2B company, does it spend at least 4 or 5 percent of its revenues on marketing? If it is a B2C company, does it spend at least 8 to 10 percent of its revenues on marketing?
• Does the head of marketing in the organization report to the CEO or someone else?
• Is the organization’s head marketing person a C-level executive?
• How much does the organization spend on marketing research each year?
• How many focus groups does the organization conduct each year?
• Is someone in the organization responsible for brand management?
• Do they measure the equity of their brand each year? Is this through simple third-party brand tracking or a more comprehensive brand equity measurement system?
• Are brand metrics a part of their balanced scorecard?
• Ask to see copies of their marketing and brand plans.
• Do they have an agency of record or at least agency partners? That is, can they name at least one marketing agency with whom they are currently working?
• Do your interviewers know the difference between sales and marketing?
• Do they describe brands as something different from either logos/brand identity or marketing communications?
• If they refer to marketing as “sales support” be very concerned.
• Are they looking specifically for MBAs with marketing concentrations?
• Has someone from that company spoken to your school’s marketing club/association?
• Do they recruit from top marketing MBA programs, such as Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, Harvard, Stanford or The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania?

As a young professional in marketing, you will learn the most from companies that are marketing-driven. Taking your first job out of business school at one of those companies will put your career on solid footing and provide you with solid skills that you will be able to use throughout your career.

Brand Value

I have written many times about the five drivers of customerbrand insistence – awareness, relevant differentiation, value, accessibility and emotional connection. Today, I will focus on brand value.

Value has a numerator and a denominator. The numerator is the bundle of benefits that the brand delivers to the customer. The benefits could be functional, emotional, experiential, self-expressive or even take the form of shared values. And it is often some combination of these. The denominator recognizes that there is some cost to acquiring these benefits. Maybe the cost is monetary but it could also be in terms of time. Time and money generally are the two scarce commodities in people’s lives.

So brand value is the ratio of benefits to costs. A brand can deliver an outstanding value, a good value, an adequate value, a poor value or a value somewhere else along this continuum. Ultimately, brand value is a perception. It is a perception of the ratio between benefits and cost.

Obviously, the more valuable the benefit, the more one will overlook the cost. Consider the time-constrained person who is always complaining about being too busy and not having enough time. Even that person will take time out to do something that she enjoys. In fact, the more engaging the experience, the more she loses track of time.

Let’s take one example of a brand that delivers a good value – Amazon.com. What are some of its benefits?

• 24/7 access
• Much larger inventories than most brink and mortar retailers, including products offered through third-party retailers
• Customer reviews that are rated by other customers for their usefulness
• Recommended related products
• Recommendations based on past purchases
• You can browse or listen to content
• For books, you can search the content for specific words and phrases
• Sophisticated search and browsing options

How does Amazon.com fare on the cost side? First, let’s consider its time saving tactics.

• As mentioned under benefits, 24/7 access from any Internet enabled device including smart phones
• Amazon stores your payment/credit card and shipping address information
• One-click ordering option
• Overnight shipping option

And on the monetary cost side:

• All products have discounted prices, often offering the best prices available on those items
• If you reach a minimum purchase amount ($35 for books and many other items), there is a free shipping option
• With Amazon PRIME, you can get unlimited two-day shipping for free

So, compared with many other shopping options, Amazon.com delivers superior value. Interestingly, it also delivers well on the other four drivers of customer brand insistence – awareness, relevant differentiation, accessibility and emotional connection. I have outlined this in an Entrepreneur magazine article and my Brand Aid book.

While most brand managers focus on creating brand differentiation, establishing a consistent brand identity and building brand awareness, they should not lose sight of the importance of delivering a good brand value. I hope this article has helped you think though how to better do that.

Brands and Emotional Connection

Emotional connection is one of the five drivers of customer brand insistence as outlined in my BrandInsistence brand equity system. (The other four drivers are awareness, relevant differentiation, value and accessibility.) The consumer must first know your brand, then like your brand, and finally trust your brand and feel an emotional connection to it.

People become emotionally connected to a brand for a number of reasons:

• The brand stands for something important to them. It shares values with them.
• The brand is intense and vibrant. It connects with people on multiple levels across several senses.
• The brand is unique.
• The brand is admirable.
• The brand consistently interacts with them. It never disappoints them.
• The brand makes them feel good.

There are many innovative ways to achieve this emotional connection— from advertising and the quality of frontline consumer contact, to consumer membership organizations and company-sponsored consumer events.

Emotional connection can take your customers beyond brand loyalty to the ultimate measure of a compelling brand: brand advocacy.

It is especially important to ensure that all of your employees with frontline customer contact are like Boy Scouts—that is, that they are trustworthy, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, and cheerful. Add to that list empathetic, good listeners, and reassuring. To have a quality workforce you need to establish

the appropriate hiring criteria, training, and organization culture. Remember, good service is all about creating positive feelings, treating people well, and solving people’s problems. Ultimately, emotional connection will come from positive shared experiences with the brand over time. While this trust is built over time, offering an unconditional guarantee is a quick way to reduce the risk posed by a new,

unknown brand and to generate some minimum level of trust immediately.

PEDIGREE DOG FOOD: MOVING FROM FUNCTIONAL TO EMOTIONAL MESSAGING

In 2004, Pedigree was the share leader in its category; however, it was losing share to the competition at both the high and low ends of the market. At the time, Pedigree focused its messaging on product attributes. In 2005, Pedigree’s advertising agency (TBWA) recommended changing the emphasis from functional attributes to the “love of dogs,” appealing to the customer’s hearts instead of their heads. TBWA’s chairman and chief creative officer, Lee Clow,

asked Pedigree to embrace this statement as its new brand mantra: “If you convince me you love dogs, I’ll let you feed mine.”

Today, Pedigree offers its customers a breed gallery, dog age calculator, breed match questionnaire, “adopt a dog” search, free puppy guide, “Dogs Rule” apparel, and an opportunity to donate to the PEDIGREE Foundation, which is dedicated to helping dogs find loving homes.

There are other loyalty-inducing approaches, too. For instance:

• The brand encourages frequent, habit-forming interaction (as long as the interaction is pleasant or beneficial and not against people’s wills).
• The brand finds ways to build cumulative value for customers over time, especially if the value is not transferable to the use of competitive products and services.

In his book The Dream Society, Rolf Jensen makes the case for a shift from an information society to a dream society in which imagination and storytelling become the primary drivers of value. He identifies six emerging emotion-based markets:

1. Adventure
2. Community (togetherness, friendship, and love)
3. Providing and receiving care
4. Self-expression (“Who am I?”)
5. Peace of mind
6. Standing for something (convictions)

Any brand that seeks to create emotional connection should find ways to tap into these and other underlying human motives.

© 2015 by Brad VanAuken; excerpted from Brand Aid, second edition, available here.

Creative Marketing Approaches

In my Brand Aid book, I provide examples of more than 50 different creative approaches to marketing brands and their products and services. Some are designed for small businesses with limited marketing budgets. Others are intended to be outrageous to break through communications clutter. While others are intended for B2B brands. Many are types of guerrilla marketing and several involve some form of publicity. Here are some of the ideas that I outline:

• Conduct classes that lead to product knowledge and usage
• Create a brand magazine or newsletter
• Create a brand museum
• Hold contests
• Offer free product trial
• Create artificial product scarsity
• Devise publicity stunts
• Beta test products with select customers
• Hold product preview parities for some of your best customers
• Create a brand membership organization
• Hold special events for your best customers
• Start a blog
• Write a book
• Write articles and submit them to appropriate publications
• Hire people to use your brand's products in front of large groups of people
• Advertise where people need to wait (bus stops, subway cars, above urinals, etc.)
• Advertise on the sides of vehicles
• Include brand messages in the signature lines of email messages
• Create a brand speaker's bureau
• Start a YouTube channel for your brand
• Advertise on rooftops

Very few organizations have unlimited marketing budgets and many organizations have just the opposite, very limited marketing budgets. There are many ways to build brands with limited funds. I recommend that you explore as many of these as possible regardless of the size of your marketing budget.