BrandForward has tested its Brand Insistence
™ brand equity management system across numerous industries
and organizations over the past eight years. We have found
that the following five components drive customers from brand
awareness to brand insistence regardless of the product or
service category: - Awareness
- Relevant differentiation
- Value
- Accessibility
- Emotional connection
Over the years, I have focused on the ‘awareness’
and ‘relevant differentiation’ components quite
a bit given their relative importance. But today, I will focus
on accessibility. While it is clear that accessibility is
important for retail brands, it is also important for every
other type of brand. Accessibility is defined as how easy
it is (or seems to be) for customers to interact with and
purchase the brand. Certainly distribution channels and ‘location’
are important to brand accessibility, but so are hours of
operation, wait times, product availability and process simplicity.
Accessibility is driven by both spatial and time dimensions.
A brand must be at the right place at the right time for a
sale to occur. But accessibility is dependent upon even more
than that.
I worked with a museum that was not ‘accessible’
to the general public in its geographic area because its gates,
grounds and imposing buildings screamed ‘private –
do not enter’ to the average person. So accessibility
has an approachability aspect to it as well. Think of the
personalities that have ‘turned you off’ over
time. Perhaps they were too loud or too aggressive or too
egotistical or prematurely intimate. Brands can suffer from
the same problems. Accessibility has the most pronounced impact
on converting brand awareness and preference to brand purchase
(as illustrated in the diagram above). For this reason, accessibility
is something you should seriously consider as you manage your
brand and its equity.
Cynical Consumers
It is always instructive to work with business
executives from different countries and regions of the world.
For the past several months I have been working with a number
of Russian marketing executives. I gained two interesting
insights from my last interaction with them. Given the Soviet
Union’s long history of propaganda infused communication
(prior to Perestroika), most Russians today are very skeptical
and jaded about what they see, read and hear in the media.
This makes the marketer’s job even more difficult as
message believability is always an issue, making proof points
and ‘reasons to believe’ especially important
in Russian marketing communication. This also argues for the
importance of ‘customer touch point design’ (reinforcing
the brand essence and promise at each customer touch point)
in brand building efforts. Finally, it argues for carefully
monitored congruence between what a brand promises and how
it actually behaves.
The degree to which this applies to citizens
of other countries is the degree to which their governments,
businesses and religious and other institutions are perceived
to control the issues and information to which people are
exposed and how it is interpreted.
On a somewhat related note, I discovered
that most company news and articles result from paid placement
in Russia. There is far less opportunity (especially for large
companies) to place stories through a media relations story
pitching process. In Russia, the distinction between advertising
and PR generated coverage is greatly diminished. Because of
this, editorial independence also has less meaning.
Top U.S. City Slogans and Nicknames
Recently, Eric Swartz, president of TaglineGuru
released his company’s list of the top 50 U.S. city
slogans and nicknames. Following are the top ten of each:
Slogans
- Las Vegas, NV – What Happens Here, Stays Here.
- Charlottesville, VA – So Very Virginia.
- Atlantic City, NJ – Always Turned On.
- Cleveland, OH – Cleveland Rocks!
- Hershey, PA – The Sweetest Place on Earth.
- Omaha, NE – Rare. Well Done.
- Sante Fe, NM – The City Different.
- Eagle Pass, TX – Where Yee-Ha Meets Olé.
- San Diego, CA – City with Sol.
- Peculiar, MO – Where the Odds Are With You.
Nicknames
- New York City, NY – The Big Apple
- Las Vegas, NV – Sin City
- New Orleans, LA – The Big Easy
- Detroit, MI – Motor City
- Chicago, IL – The Windy City
- Boston, MA – Beantown
- San Francisco, CA – Baghdad by the Bay
- Hollywood, CA – Tinseltown
- Cleveland, OH – Mistake on the Lake
- Los Angeles, CA – La-La Land
Brad VanAuken is president and founder of BrandForward, Inc., a full-service brand management consultancy with clients throughout the world. Previously, Brad was the vice president of marketing for Element K, a leading e-learning company and director of brand management and marketing for Hallmark Cards, Inc. During his tenure as Hallmarks chief brand advocate, Hallmark received the Brand Management of the Year award. Recognized as one of the worlds leading experts on brand management and marketing, Brad is a much sought after speaker and writer. He wrote the books The Brand Management Checklist and Brand Aid. His free online brand management and marketing newsletter is read by thousands of marketers throughout the world. Brad has a BS degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Email:
vanauken@brandforward.com
Company Profile:
BrandForward, Inc.
Company URL:
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