In my latest article for Entrepreneur, I challenge entrepreneurs to articulate what they intend to disrupt. As per the article, “if you are not entering a sector to turn it upside down, then chances are you are dooming yourself to being just another participant”. Hope you like. If you do, please share.
Franchising can be a very powerful way to grow your brand, but it is a way of branding a business that has very specific characteristics and challenges.
Everywhere you look today it seems, there are people and brands only too keen to spell out exactly what they think and what they want you to know, in the loudest terms possible. As the volume continues to climb, can you even be a quiet brand today?
One for my States-side friends. (It’s a little early for most in my part of the world.) Please join Pete Canalichio, Managing Partner at Licensing Brands Inc, and me for a LIMA webinar on May 5 (EST) as we use several case studies to show how top licensors are utilising brand expansion through licensing to help maximize shareholder value and meet their long-term business objectives. Find out more at: http://www.licensing.org/news/new-webinar-420-risk-assessment-management/#sthash.ivAfOiYj.dpuf
Recent conversations have served as a reminder that not all senior leaders regard brands as something they should be involved with. If you’re struggling to get your senior team to put important brand matters on the executive agenda, here’s some reminders by way of making the case for greater consideration.
Brand equity is the added value element of your brand. I often refer to as “emotional margin”. It’s frequently measured as the gap between the price your brand can command through its very presence compared with how consumers value non-branded products in your category.
Much is made of the idea that your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room. However, brands are defined by more than reputation and stories are told and spread by more than just consumers. Some stories you control. Many you can’t.
In a world besotted with the new, sometimes the most powerful thing a brand can do is take people back to a time and a sentiment that feels comfortable and familiar.
The choice of values and the nature of those values comes up a lot in any team looking to change what it stands for. Sometimes it comes up overtly. More often, it comes out in a reluctance by some to ‘move on’ from what they know because they are concerned that leadership is not up to the task or they will end up compromising their professional integrity.
Apple’s recent stand-off with the FBI refocuses the dilemma of what to do when someone has used your product in a way that was never intended. What should brands do to influence or change how their products are used?
