My curiosity was piqued by the headline of a recent article comparing Siri, the personal assistant application on new iPhones, to Speaktoit, currently available on Android phones – but not because I wanted to understand the differences between the apps.  I was struck by how different the two names are – Siri:  short, cute, a person’s name, vs. Speaktoit:  longer, cumbersome, a function.

I got to thinking about what makes a brand name effective and how that’s changed over time.  As I’ve dug into the trends, I’ve discovered how brand names reflect the business climates they’re developed in – and how understanding the relationship between the two can help people develop effective brand names in these modern times.

In the past, brand names have served as labels for companies, products, or services.  The role of name-as-label is description and the purpose is primarily to instill confidence.  That’s why founders’ names (e.g., Disney, McDonald’s, Hewlett-Packard) and functional names (e.g., Burger King, IBM, Weight Watchers) have been popular.  The names tell people either what the company/product/service is, or what it does, or who’s behind it.  Names as labels are about consumer risk-reduction.

But in today’s marketplace, it seems brand names need to do more than that.  Modern names need to stand out, draw people in, and inspire their imaginations.  These days the most effective brand names don’t serve as labels – they’re more like identities.  They declare instead of describe, convey personality instead of confidence.  That’s why we see names like Jack for radio stations, Freebirds for restaurants, and Zappos for e-tailers.  These names as identities are about consumer attraction.

Which brings me back to Siri vs. Speaktoit.  The name Siri is derived from the SRI International Artificial Intelligence Center which developed the technology that powers the application.  Fortunately the founders were prescient enough to understand the technology’s potential and adapted the center’s name into woman’s name instead of forming it as an acronym.  An actual person’s name makes the application seem personal and approachable — the precise attributes the technology needs to attract people and generate trial.

The name Speaktoit Assistant, however, seems pedantic.  While the name clearly describes the technology, its descriptive nature genericizes the product.  It emphasizes what the user can do vs. suggests how the user will feel.  The potential of the technology seems more limited with a functional name and the name almost begs for copycats (I’m sure plans for Talktome, SayIt, and JustSpeak are already in the works.)

And that’s really the point.  An effective brand name conveys – or at least evokes – differentiation.  And while differentiation has long been an important part of brand-building, in most categories today, differentiation is achieved less with features and functions and more through values and personality.  The former are easily and quickly copied and commoditized; the latter, less so.  Modern brand names need to tap into the differentiating power of values and personality.

An effective brand name also supports the primary marketing task, so modern brand names should facilitate the marketing task of today’s market.  Companies have and always will need to assure customers of the brand quality in order to reduce the perceived risks of purchase – but now that is achieved less by promotion and more by identification.  Modern consumers trust brands that demonstrate interest in them and the things they care about – they’re attracted by the sense of affinity.  So marketers should select names that facilitate this connection through identity.

There are two other factors to consider. First, salience. With the growing number of competitors and the shrinking size of screens – not to mention attention spans – the need for salient brand names is greater now than ever before.  Short, pithy names stand out quickly.

Second, if ICANN’s push to add as many as 1,000 new top-level domains is accepted (and it’s looking increasingly like it will), descriptive names will become even less important.  No longer will a company need to spell out that it’s an eating establishment if it can use the “.restaurant”  or “.eat” domain.  So marketers will enjoy more freedom when selecting modern brand names.

Brand names are an interesting sign of the times.  And it’s clear, it’s a brand new world out there (pun intended.)

related posts:

• a tale of two re-brands: syfy and starbucks
• losing more than a brand name
• fundamentals of brand naming

In a recent post, I described a meeting I led for one of my clients that needed to engage its senior leadership with its brand. And I mentioned that I had started the meeting with a cheeky “What Can Brands Learn from Lady Gaga?” video.

Although I can’t show the video here, I did want to share with you the points from it, since I really do believe the Lady has a lot to teach us about brand-building. And the success she’s achieved in such a short time is admirable for anybody – and any organization – that’s looking for tangible results:

• won five Grammy awards
• 1st album “Fame” hit #1 on record charts in 6 countries
• named Billboard Artist of the Year in 2010
• on Time Magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential People
• is #7 on Forbes’ list of Most Powerful Women
• sold over 22 million albums and 69 million singles worldwide
• grossed $170 million on 137 songs in 22 countries in 1 year

Those are impressive numbers on the key metrics that matter for someone like Lady Gaga. How did she build such a powerful brand? Here are the top 5 lessons we can learn from the Queen of the Little Monsters:

#1. define a clear identity

“Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta” just wasn’t who Lady Gaga aspired to be, so she changed her name and assumed a new identity:
• a change agent
• a diva
• pop culture
• creative
• outré (definition: unusual and startling)

Companies need to clearly define their brand identity. While visual image is certainly an important piece of this (Lady Gaga wouldn’t be Lady Gaga without her unique looks), identity is much more than just a logo or look and feel. Brands must be clear about what they stand for – the values and attributes they want to be known for.

Companies need to ensure the brand identity is understood, embraced, and interpreted and reinforced properly by all internal stakeholders so that it is clear to the outside world. This is particularly important in today’s social media-dominant world where if you don’t define your identity, someone else will.

#2. be different

If there’s one thing Lady Gaga is, it’s different. She stands out from the sea of female pop artist sameness by looking, acting, performing, writing, and being different. “You have to be unique, and different, and shine in your own way,” she explains.

Differentiation is critical to brand-building as well. It’s important because our brains are hard-wired to notice differences. So differentiation enables you to stand out and get noticed – not a small feat in the today’s over-crowded marketplace.

More than that, though, differentiation also helps create brand preference by helping customers understand their options and giving them reasons to choose one over the other. And it helps companies charge higher prices. If people perceive an offering as special, they are willing to pay more to get it. Think of how at auctions it’s the one-of-a-kind items that people drive up the price for. Plus, if you offer something completely different from everyone else, customers can’t easily compare it to others and so you can set your own price expectations.

#3. tell your story by creating an experience

Lady Gaga is an entertainer, so she knows how to create a breakthrough experience that really brings to life who she is and what she wants to say.

Think about the 2011 Grammys. She was paraded through the streets and down the red carpet in an egg carried by staffers in revealing eggshell-like costumes. On stage, the egg hatched and Lady Gaga emerged, launching into a spectacular version of Born This Way. At one point, she played on a dramatic organ with disembodied heads balanced on top and, at the end her dancers stripped off their latex outfits. Talk about an experience!

Most companies, of course, wouldn’t want – or need – to create such a spectacle, but they do need to create customer experiences that stand out and send a message. Brand experiences should tell a story, appeal to the senses, and inspire — from start to finish. And, details matter (you can bet every moment of Lady Gaga’s time at the Grammy’s was choreographed.)

#4. stand for something bigger than yourself

The gospel according to Lady Gaga goes something like this, “I want women — and men — to feel empowered by a deeper and more psychotic part of themselves. The part they’re always trying desperately to hide. I want that to become something that they cherish.”

Or in other words, “To everyone who says this is wrong to feel like this say, ‘I was born this way baby.’”

To her fans, Lady Gaga is more than a singer or performer. She is hope, love, inspiration, and empowerment. That’s why she’s able to create such a powerful connection with them.

Companies can develop powerful connections with their customers as well. For some, this is done by connecting the core values of the brand with customers’ core values. For others, it’s about calling people to a higher purpose to which the company and its customers aspire. The point is to recognize that, as humans, we all seek meaning in our lives.

#5. foster a community

Community is what creates impact for brands and for Lady Gaga.

Lady Gaga calls her community her “Little Monsters.” They love it; they love her. She’s written a manifesto and created an app for them.

She also uses different tools to engage, listen to, share with, and relate to them: Twitter (12.2 million followers), Facebook (42 million likes), YouTube (150 million views), etc. Her website features a wiki-style blog, Gagapedia, which features nearly 2,000 pages of content she and her Little Monsters have created.

These tools and tactics are powerful brand-builders. They help develop relationships that seem exclusive and personal, while fueling buzz and broad awareness. What company wouldn’t want to have a passionate community of supporters and evangelizers?!

To riff on her song title, Lady Gaga teaches us about brand romance!

related post:

• kicking off a brand journey

Thanks to my column-writing gig with QSR Magazine, I recently got an insiders’ look at a remarkable company, Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp.  You probably know them as Souplantation, the 110+ unit salad and soup buffet concept, or Sweet Tomatoes, the name they operate under outside of Southern California.

I’ve always loved their restaurant concept and so I appreciated the opportunity to take a look behind the curtain.   What I found was a fun team, a smart business approach, and some fresh takeaways for all companies:

1. When it comes to corporate personnel, don’t underestimate the value of front line experience.

Many of the people on the corporate staff at Garden Fresh started their careers on the company’s restaurant floors.  Co-president Ken Keane got his start as a Souplantation restaurant manager, for example, while a couple of restaurant dishwashers worked their way up to roles as the company’s Culinary Director and Vice President of Business Development.

Not only does such a track record produce a deep passion for the brand and the distinct wisdom which results from longevity with the company, but also an intuitive understanding of what customers want and a careful eye toward in-restaurant execution to shape every decision.  The organization seems nimbler and more focused because it’s run by former front-line employees.

2. Understand the difference between a product and a brand.

The company just introduced a new restaurant concept (read a great write-up about Souplantation Express by my QSR Magazine editor Sam Oches.)  The way the company developed the concept reflects their understanding of the difference between a brand idea and a product offering.

The new concept, in which a customer points to the ingredients he or she wants while an employee builds the selections into a salad, is a departure from the signature all-you-can-eat buffet set-up of the chain.   Souplantation Express was inspired by the many you-pick-we-make salad QSRs which have grown in popularity in New York City over the last several years and are now popping up everywhere.  But as CEO Michael Mack explains, “Salads are products; other restaurants don’t have a concept.”

The company is using Souplantation Express to reinforce – and to grow – the company’s brand identity in “choice.”  To that end, they offer over 30 salad ingredients to choose from as well as five soup selections.  Plus customers are not limited to a certain number of ingredients and they’re not charged by the weight of the completed salad, common practices among most salad restaurants.  All of these factors increase operational complexity and are likely to wreak havoc on food costs, but the company believes delivering their brand identity, not simply a product, will make the business a success.

3. Use social media as a business tool.

The way CEO Mack explains it, social media is a like a “mirror image.”  It reveals what you really are, how you’re really perceived – and the company embraces that sometimes harsh reality.

Garden Fresh doesn’t simply use social media as a way to interact with guests – although it does have over 15,000 followers on Twitter (three times as many as Burger King, which has 10 times the number of units), and more impressively the company follows over 15,000 people (for most QSRs, the number of followers dwarfs the number of people they follow.)

The folks at Garden Fresh see value in using social media to round out their other market research efforts and to increase transparency within the company and with the outside world. Social media enables the company to “get more well-rounded information, it puts everyone on their best behavior, and it ensures everyone has the same information.”

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It’s difficult to determine the impact of these principles on business growth and the bottom line since Garden Fresh is a private company.  But, chain-wide sales have been reported at $300MM, which translates into a $2.6MM+ PSA (Panera Bread’s is around $2.1MM).  They haven’t closed any stores recently and in early 2009 they reported annual same stores sales had increased 3.2%, which is pretty impressive given the chain’s concentration in California, a state hit hard by the recession.

So from what I can tell, Garden Fresh’s approach is, well, fresh, and worth learning from.

other impressive companies:

• herman miller, a business lab disguised as a furniture company
• six best practices in retail
• love the moosejaw madness

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.

the background
The client lacks a clear brand identity and their brand seems “forgettable.”  The problem is not that they don’t have good products – it’s that they no longer know what they stand for, and so neither do consumers.

The first step in my engagement was a Discovery — a diagnostic evaluation to assess the current performance of and future opportunities for the brand.   As a matter of course, I conducted stakeholder interviews to learn (among other things) individual perceptions and beliefs about what the brand currently stands for and aspirations of what they want it to stand for.

Although this process was helpful, I found people were more likely to define the brand by what it isn’t, as opposed to what it is, or could be.  As such, I wanted to generate more perspectives about the potential identity for the brand.

the objective
I decided I needed to do something in the first project team worksession to spark a dialogue about the brand’s “reason for being” – generating rich discussion and revealing points of consensus and disagreement – which I could use as inputs to our work on crafting a new brand platform.

I often use projective techniques in consumer qualitative research in order to uncover underlying attitudes and beliefs.  They also help less-verbal people articulate their ideas.  I decided to use such a tool with the project team.

the process
Prior to the worksession, I asked the participants to complete the assignment described in “the tool” section below.

During the worksession, I divided the group into small groups and asked them to share their completed assignments with each other — and then to incorporate the best of each into a composite to share with the large group.

the tool
People were asked to write a Brand Obituary:

Think about the brand as a person – not necessarily the type of customer that shops at the brand, but rather the type of person the brand would be if it came to life.

Also think about the brand today when it’s at its best – not some idealized future – and think about it as a whole – all that the brand entails.

Pretend that upon waking today, you learn that the person “the brand” has passed away.  As a reporter for the local newspaper, your job is to write an obituary for the brand as if it were an actual person who has died.  Please jot/type your thoughts in the space provided below.

In doing so, think about describing the salient points of the brand’s life, as well what is different now that the brand is gone.

Some of the type of things you should include are:

• the cause of death – given how the brand is “living” today, what might be the reason he/she would die?  Was his/her death unexpected?  Did anyone (competitors or trends) contribute to his/her demise?

• who/what the brand left behind – who will mourn or miss the brand – and why?

• what was the brand’s biggest accomplishment in life? What will he/she be remembered for?

• what lessons can be learned from the brand’s life? – and from his/her death?

• who will take the brand’s place now that the brand is gone?

the outcome

This exercise was a real success on several different fronts:

1.  Participation in the assignment – Given that the project team is comprised mostly of the company’s executive team, including the CEO, CFO, and head merchant, I wasn’t sure how much cooperation I would get with a “homework” assignment.   But I was pleasantly surprised that 12 out of the 14 participants completed the assignment and it was clear many of them had spent a lot of time on it.

2.  Tone – I was also a little concerned that I was asking people to think about something quite unpleasant – the brand’s death.  I even included a note on the assignment to offset any potential negativity:

“Please note this is intended to be a fun exercise, to get you thinking out of the box.  Although the approach seems to come from a negative place, the results will be quite positive!”

This turned out to be a non-issue.  People did indeed have fun with the exercise — some of the obituaries were quite creatively written and the small groups had animated discussions, sometimes punctuated with laughter.

3.  Participation in the discussion — The exercise seemed to break the ice and get people really talking.  After engaging with each other over the obituaries, the participants seemed more willing to speak up and speak openly.  As one person explained to me in a follow-up note, “Exercises outside of our normal routine can and should serve as important learning experiences that are fun.”

4.    Group buy-in — Some of the issues revealed by the obituaries were the same as those that I had presented as having learned from my stakeholder interviews – but they seemed much more powerful and persuasive coming from the participants.   Actually I think the exercise gave my assessment and recommendations more credibility because many of my points were reinforced by the obituary outcomes.

5.    Rich insights – Above all else, the tool accomplished its objectives.  From the reactions in the small and large group discussions, it was obvious that the obituaries revealed thoughts that people had not shared with others before.  People were surprised to learn what others really thought about the brand – and in some cases, I suspect, they aren’t aware of all they had thought or communicated themselves.

I definitely have rich fodder from which to craft a “strawman” brand identity for our next worksession!

Let me know if you’re interested in learning more about this tool or other approaches I use in my Discovery process.

related posts:

• strategic brand platforms
• brand documentaries

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.

Why do you need a brand strategy?

I believe a brand is a driver and compass for the organization – it focus and aligns all decision-making and it guides what we do/don’t do and what we say/don’t say.  Having a clearly articulated brand strategy ensures everyone who works on our brand shares one clear, consistent, common understanding of what our brand stands for and how it competes.  And this, in turn, helps them align their behaviors and decision-making with the brand so that it is delivered through every touchpoint with the outside world.

Simply put, if we are clear about our brand, so will our customers be.

The brand strategy should be clearly articulated and written down.  Whether your organization has 5 employees or 500,000 – whether you’re just starting the business or it’s been around for decades — it’s dangerous to assume everyone knows what your brand platform is or to rely only on informal means for sharing it.  Particularly in these times of so much change, it’s easy for efforts to become unfocused or focused on the wrong things.  Your brand strategy should be codified.

Also, with so much buzz about customer co-creation and the power of word of mouth vs. traditional one-way brand communication, some pundits have proffered, “Your brand is whatever your customers say it is.”  This would suggest that there is little value in defining and articulating your brand strategy – I completely disagree.

An organization must know and make clear what it wants its brand to stand for and how it wants it to be positioned.  There is definitely a place for collaboration and integration with customers on how the brand manifests itself and how it is expressed (see 2 great presentations 1, 2 on this topic from German agency nouve, but I believe a brand strategy is as valuable a tool for business leaders today as it ever has been – if not more.

What is a brand strategy?

A strong brand strategy is really comprised of a complete strategic platform:

• brand identity – what your brand stands for – the values and attributes that define your brand
• competitive brand positioning – how your brand compares to existing options – this includes your target customers, the frame of reference in which they consider your brand, and the unique benefit or value you provide to them

An example I came across years ago is Campbell’s.

The two parts of the platform are integrated and interdependent. The brand identity explains who/what the brand is; the competitive brand positioning explains how the brand does what it does.  The brand identity tends to be more timeless, serving as the constant foundation of the brand; while the competitive brand positioning can change as the competitive context and target audiences change.

Your brand understanding is incomplete if you only have one part.  Without a brand identity, your company lack beliefs and principles to guide its market activity. You define yourself more by your context and less by your organization’s strategic intent.  Particularly in categories in which the products have become commoditized (fast food, for example) or in which the distinctions between competitors is difficult to ascertain (healthcare), the who and the what of the brand is the basis for most of a brand’s differentiation.

Without a brand positioning, the business orientation of the brand platform is missing. In isolation, a brand identity can seem only conceptual.  You need a brand positioning to reference who you are selling to, what your business scope is, and what you do to create value for your customers.  If the brand is defined separately from the business strategy, often the two aren’t aligned — and so when conflicts arise, the brand takes a back seat to the business.

Together the brand identity and competitive brand positioning function symbiotically – complementing and supporting each other.

A strategic brand platform is intended to provide richness and depth, not complexity.  Some of the best brands can be summarized in a single word or idea (Southwest Airlines = fun; Disney = family magic).  But in order to fulfill its potential as a business driver, leaders must expound on the brand and dimensionalize it into a full platform.

There are many frameworks that can be used to communicate the brand identity and competitive brand positioning.  Building blocks, circles/wheels, four-boxes, etc. — each is relevant to a different type of brand.  Storytelling, images, and videos are often helpful approaches to expressing a brand strategy.

What makes a brand strategy good?

The strength and integrity of a brand platform can be judged by several criteria.

1. Is it meaningful? – is it relevant and compelling to our target customers?  Some brands create new desires; others simply meet existing demand – either way, people must value what the brand stands for and delivers.
2. Is it believable? – does it over-promise or set up false expectations, or does it pass muster among even the most skeptical of customers?
3. Is it differentiating? – does it give us a distinct advantage over competitors?  The advantage must be noticeable, understood, and appreciated by your target customers.
4. Is it feasible? – does it accurately reflect our organization’s capabilities?  A brand platform can be aspirational but it must be possible.
5. Is it sustainable? – does it enable us to provide value and compete now and in the future?  The brand should be an enduring proposition which drives continuous improvement and innovation, not a fad-dependent or short-lived idea.

How is a brand strategy used?

As I explained earlier, the brand drives everything the organization does.  So it guides and influences R&D, product/service development, manufacturing, operations, sales, distribution, employee recruitment/training/development, stakeholder engagement, strategic planning – oh, and also marketing.

In the case of the organization I’m meeting with today, the new brand platform is of particular interest to the staff, who see it being particularly helpful in their prospective employee interviewing/screening process (“The brand personality explains the exact kind of employee we’re looking for,” said one manager).

Also it’s serving as a guide for the website re-design they’re undertaking, ensuring that the experience of using the website is aligned with the brand attributes we’ve developed.
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I hope this information has been helpful.  I haven’t done a post like this in awhile — I’ve been doing more observation and analysis lately.  So if you’d like to see more posts like these, please let me know.  Also if you or someone you know wants to know more about engaging me to develop a strategic brand platform, here’s an overview of my Brand Platform service offering.

related posts:

• brand documentaries
• simple brand tools

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.

Good stuff
Dan’s commitment to the Red Mango brand is remarkable:

• It’s his primary focus. He says, “We always start with, ‘Who do we want to be when we grow up and who are we as a brand?’…We always keep that top of mind in terms of everything we do.”  And he keeps his focus on it.  “If you constantly change who you want to become, the strength of your brand goes away.  If you try to do too much and address too many things, you stretch yourself too thin and really can’t accomplish anything.”
• He’s clearly articulated what the brand stands for and has documented it in a digestible, memorable form.  Unlike many entrepreneurs, he didn’t just assume that his employees would know what is in his head – nor that explaining it once is enough. He created a “brand trifecta” that outlines the brand’s core values and there’s a “MangoFesto” in the form of a poster in each store that explains to employees what the goals and philosophy are.  Dan says, “The thing that you can do that’s not cool is you write [a brand manifesto] once, and you never come back to it, and it gets lost.  You have to make that part of the cultural fabric of your organization.”
• He also uses the brand as a filter for decision-making.  In other words, he operationalizes the brand platform in key decisions about what the company should or should not do.  Frozen yogurt in cones didn’t pass the brand test but papaya as a new topping did.

The next level
Dan’s brand-building efforts have paid off.  Last year, the company received a $12 million cash infusion and they’ve been successful enough to recently launch an aggressive franchise push with the goal of opening 550 locations over the next five years.  That kind of growth will present a host of challenges, not the least of which is maintaining the priority on the brand.

It’s a common problem.  When a company is smaller, there are fewer players who need to “get” the brand.  And as long as the founder (or whatever role the brand champion might play) is actively involved in the daily operations of the business and as accessible to employees, it’s fairly easy to stay on track.  But issues arise as growth inherently brings more people to inculcate, more opportunities to assess, and more touchpoints to align.

A couple of tools and approaches will help Red Mango and other companies aspiring to grow their brands and their businesses:

Competitive positioning. I’ve found the best brand strategies are actually brand platforms comprised of a brand identity (what the brand stands for) and a competitive brand positioning (how the brand compares).  The brand identity is based on the key values and attributes of the brand – including the brand essence or core belief.  The competitive brand positioning outlines the target, the competitive frame of reference and how the brand is optimally positioned in that frame, and the unique benefit of the brand.

Some companies only outline one part of the brand platform but both are important.  You must understand the defining values and attributes of your brand (brand identity) but without a competitive positioning, you aren’t indicating how you will use those core elements to establish competitive advantage.  And you must outline how you compare with other options, but without a solid brand identity, you won’t have the foundation that drives consistency and focus.  Furthermore, the brand identity should remain constant; the competitive brand positioning might change over time as the target audience or the competitive landscape changes.  The two parts of the platform are complementary and symbiotic.

The Red Mango brand essence is outlined in the SB article:  it’s the convergence of health, taste and style.  The piece, however, didn’t speak to the chain’s competitive strategy.  Perhaps a competitive brand positioning exists, but if it doesn’t, I would encourage Dan to clearly articulate one.  And in particular, getting the competitive frame of reference (i.e., the mental file folder that the target puts your brand in) is key.  I’m guessing it’s not simply other fro yo brands (although carving out a unique position in that category is important) – but also other quick serves as well as buy/make at home options.

Empowering stakeholders. In explaining the aforementioned no-go decision on the cone idea, Dan relayed that it was a franchisee who suggested the idea and it was Dan and his executive team that assessed the opportunity.   As the chain grows, it will become increasingly important for others including franchisees to be able to make their own assessments.  Otherwise the executive committee will become a bottleneck for decision-making and a barrier to growth.

I suggest an effort to inspire, inform, and instruct everyone about the brand and how they should interpret and reinforce it in their daily decision-making.   A brand toolbox is an effective way to do so. The collection of tools in a brand toolbox:

• relays the brand identity and positioning along with the background and rationale to increase understanding and buy-in, and outline principles and examples to guide appropriate brand execution
• connects people to a purpose and values bigger than themselves, get them excited about working on the brand, and motivate them to adopt behaviors which support it
• helps people make decisions and take actions that are “on brand” through interactive exercises and decision guides

A brand toolbox can take a variety of forms – workbooks, videos, website, downloads, or a combination of these – the important thing is to develop one that engages everyone who works on the brand.

Aligning stakeholders. A brand toolbox can also be helpful in aligning all stakeholders and their expectations.  At one point, Dan laments, “…you have a lot of outsiders or board members or executive managers who don’t understand how the strategy is executed in regards to having the right resources, then you’re in a situation where you just constantly want to do more and more things without people understanding why you can’t do them.”

He’s talking about brand stakeholders and the real need to align them in order to garner their support.  Board members for example significantly influence the value the organization delivers and the way it does business through their strategic, high-level guidance on things like resource allocation and M&A activity. The businesses a company works with to develop, make, distribute, and sell the product — vendors, strategic alliances, distribution channels, service providers, franchisees/affiliates, etc.– are stakeholders in the brand. The number and range of stakeholders only grows as your business grows.

By fleshing out what the brand is and how it is used, a brand toolbox facilitates brand understanding among these audiences.

Imagine your brand as a source of light. In an ideal world, the light of your brand would shine strongly and directly on its intended target. However the current marketplace is far from ideal and so your brand’s light becomes quite diffused and unfocused in the clutter and competition that exists between your brand and its target.

Brand stakeholders actually function as filters for your brand light. Essentially your stakeholders are situated between your brand and its target. Each stakeholder bends and directs the light in their respective roles.

Problems arise when different stakeholders bend and direct the light in different ways. The result? A mess of light rays all pointed in different directions and none focused on the target.

Your stakeholders need to be aligned so that you end up with a laser-like beam of brand value delivered to your target. While it may seem that the people and groups who comprise your brand stakeholders are independently-operating entities fulfilling a specific function or playing a particular role, a more accurate picture is that they are linked together in a brand value delivery chain.

A brand toolbox is a great way to reinforce this linkage.  Sometimes there is a need to protect or segment some parts of a brand toolbox, but generally speaking the more transparent you can be about what your brand is all about and how you’re operationalizing it, the better.

I hope these suggestions are helpful not only to Dan and his team at Red Mango, but to all business leaders who are passionate about their brands and about growth.

related posts:

• simple brand tools
• if a brand has something to say, say it

Joe Pine — author of the several best-selling business books including the recently published Authenticity, consultant, former TED speaker, cigar-aficionado, and a really smart guy — opened a friendly debate with me that I thought others might want to weigh in on.

The back story: The Brand Ultimatum is an article I recently wrote for the American Marketing Association’s Marketing Management magazine.  It argues that a deep brand identity – one with rich, multiple layers of associations – fuels successful brand extensions the way a deep hero character like Jason Bourne or Harry Potter fuels a successful movie franchise.

My POV: In the article I reference a few brands that don’t have a deep enough brand identity to warrant extensions into new categories — one of the examples I use is Harley-Davidson.  I explain, “the Harley brand is already completely understood; there is no more brand story to tell.  It has a rich and powerful identity but, colloquially speaking, there is no more ‘more’ there.  Seeking out novel categories into which to extend the brand (like cake decorating kits) ultimately makes the new products seem formulaic and forced.”

Joe’s POV: “Loved your article, Denise, on brand narratives — but I’m not sure I agree that there’s no more “more” at Harley.”

Your POV: ???  we’d love to hear what you think — does the Harley brand have rich, multiple layers of associations conveyed by a deep brand identity that provide the fodder for extensions?

OR, does Harley belong in the company of brands like Southwest Airlines, Target, and Volvo which enjoy strong brand equity built from unaffected, sophisticatedly simple identities, and therefore shouldn’t be extended?

Let us know your POV.