Co-written with Pete Canalichio The entertainment sector is currently evolving the art of building out brand success in exciting ways. And there are lessons in how they are doing that for entrepreneurs and companies with a brand that people want more of.
How do we recognise a brand? What do consumers see, and how different is that from the ways brands are structured?
If your brand is taken over by another company or your company takes over other brands, either as a stand-alone buy or as part of a broader merger and acquisition, what aspects of your current brand should stay as they are and what might you look to change?
Perhaps it’s inevitable. At some stage, a brand is going to do something to upset customers and prospects. That’s the price companies pay for trading in an era of greater and greater transparency. The key question is: when something does go wrong, will your brand be forgiven?
Christopher Zook’s article on why companies with strong founders are more innovative, generate a greater number of patents, and more valuable patents at that, and are proactive in investing in and adapting their business model is a reminder to all of the very human qualities required to keep a company (and its brands) growing.
The hardest thing you can do as a brand owner I believe is to insist on building a powerfully simple brand. It’s hard because single-mindedness is difficult in a world where the consideration set is huge and where others will quickly seek to engage you in a relentlessly upgraded features war.
Our gut instinct as marketers is to go with what is working, because everything in the corporate rewards system is geared towards that: lack of risk appetite; the quest for short term results; even performance incentives. The irony for brands of course is that the more you go with what works for others, the less likely those ideas are to work for you.
If brand owners are truly intent on developing brand strategies that cut through, perhaps the best place to start is with stranger questions. Asking the less obvious might push more brands to think more laterally about their futures.
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.
