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.
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.
One of the hardest judgment calls for brand managers is relevance. Brands must change to stay consistent yet they must also remain recognisable in order to preserve brand equity. So what should you change, and when?
Smart brand managers actively manage their brand portfolios for maximum collective and individual brand return. If you’ve recently re-assessed your brand portfolio and identified what appear to be one or a number of under-performers, there are a range of options you can pursue to fix that situation.
Some events, like the Olympics, Formula One and the FIFA World Cup, attract huge audiences. If you’re a smaller brand looking to change how you are perceived, is it a responsible action to bet everything you have on being seen there?
