denise lee yohn: brand as business bites™ / brand tools

I’m working with a client to develop a new brand platform and thought I’d share one of the tools I used in my engagement – Brand Obituaries.
(more…)

Later today I will be presenting the new strategic brand platform to the Board of Directors for an organization I’ve been working with.  I thought I’d take this opportunity to share my approach to brand strategy.
(more…)

Right before the holidays, MarketingSherpa released its “2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report.”  The report indicated that “improving brand or product reputation” and “increasing brand or product awareness” did not rank highly in the list of social media objectives targeted and measured by U.S. marketers.  This confirms my own findings that companies are overlooking the importance of using social media tools for strategic, proactive brand-building. (more…)

When it comes to mishaps, most companies seem to have adopted Discovery’s song “It’s Not My Fault” as their anthem – but it would be so much better for them to follow Akon’s lead and plainly state “Sorry, Blame It on Me.”

To be clear, I’m not talking about issuing apologies for the sweeping mistakes companies have made for, say, running our economy into the ground — nor about mea culpas for the indiscretions of executives with poor personal judgment.  I don’t even mean the situations in which a company clearly screwed things up for a customer, like failing to provide a promised service or selling a defective product.  By now, companies who haven’t figured out the importance of an appropriate apology in these situations are just helpless and hopeless.

I’m talking about saying “sorry” for little things – the millions of seemingly-forgettable occurrences that happen every day as companies go about their business and end up inconveniencing, or disappointing, or causing some trouble for their customers.

I recently had two experiences that exemplify the right and wrong way to handle these apologies.

(more…)

While you are reading this, I’m attending the Consumer Electronics Show.  I’ll be meeting with clients and prospects, attending educational sessions, and walking the show floor — the last activity is one that I always find both exciting and frustrating.  Exciting because there always so many new and cool gadgets and technologies to check out; frustrating because so many of these new items tend to blend together into one big, indistinguishable, unmemorable morass of technology.  The brands suffer from the lack of remarkable and sustainable differentiation. (more…)

I read with great interest an article in SmartBusiness about Red Mango and the yummy yogurt chain’s founder, president, and CEO of Red Mango, Dan Kim.  I’m fascinated by the frozen yogurt chains that have emerged on the cultural landscape in last 5 years.  Pinkberry has probably gotten the most coverage in the press, with its high design aesthetic and celebrity fans, but there are plenty of others in the game including Red Mango.  The category is very crowded with operators of all sizes competing in a relatively small niche with punch cards and discount days.  Building brand awareness and shoring up a loyal customer base are particular challenges, which is in part why I’m so interested in the category (liking fro yo also has something to do with it too!)

In the SB piece, Dan explains his thinking and approach to building the Red Mango brand.  Clearly, this is a guy who gets it.  He believes in the power of his brand and he actively nurtures and protects it.  Here are my reactions to his comments, along with some suggestions for how he might ensure his brand-building efforts continue to be successful as the chain grows. (more…)

Recently I met with the folks in Cisco’s brand group and was delighted to find a few simple brand tools sitting in the place where a person’s business cards are usually found. (more…)

Today I’d like to do a little experiment.  I have an idea for a new brand tool but my thoughts aren’t fully fleshed out.  So I thought I’d use this blogpost as a way of reaching out to like-minded folks who might be interested in refining and fleshing out the idea.  The following post outlines my idea as well as questions and points for feedback.  I hope you will be eager to participate and actually read this as invitation to collaborate on something that could be quite exciting.

(more…)

This week’s AdAge features a troubling piece, Want More Out of Your Agencies? Write Better Briefs:  Execs at Top Shops Say Clients Are Unclear About What’s Expected, Leading to Lots of Wasted Time.  The article cites research (more…)

Earlier this week, I spoke on “Gaining the Competitive Edge:   How Companies Drive Business Growth by Operationalizing Their Brands without Huge Marketing Budgets” at the Marketing Forum.   The workshop outlined the “brand as business” management approach — that is, the deliberate and systematic management of the business around the brand — thinking of the brand as the business.  (You can read more about the workshop here.)

I took the participants through the differences between using a brand as a marketing asset and using it as a management tool — I invited them to complete this assessment of their organizations to help them identify where the biggest gaps might be.  I invite you to take the assessment and let me know the results.

Based on the discussion in the session, it seems like a lot of companies are not realizing the full value of their brands.  One notable exception was IBM — their marketing director described how they have distilled their brand into clear values and attributes and are always working on driving them into their services, R&D, etc.  It was great to hear about their efforts and their success.  You go, Big Blue!