Brands are Built Brick by Brick
It’s 1983. I’m cheap, so I’m buying my daughter clothes at Sears. She turns to me. “Daddy, it’s OK that you’re so cheap, but can we at least get a Gap bag so I don’t have to walk through the mall with a Sears bag?”
This is the kind of power a brand can wield. A strong brand is a company’s most valuable asset. If you’re going to build a business, you must know how to build a brand people can’t live without.
What greater good does your company offer? Answer that and you’ll have a foundation for building your brand: your vision.
Lack of a clear, customer-centric vision is what plagues retailers like Pier One and Kmart, so desperately playing catch-up to Target. Target’s superb execution of its vision, “Design for all,” has consumers going out of their way to shop there.
What about IKEA? Having helped build the brand, I can tell you that great products are not the key to its popularity. It is its relentless pursuit of its vision: To create a better everyday life for the many.
Visions can seem daunting, grandiose. They should be. To set your mission, you need three things: 1) Research. 2) Research. 3) Research. Get to know your competition and customers. Pulling ahead of the field is not based on educated assumptions and gut feelings. Today’s business environment is too competitive, and margins too slim to leave anything to chance.
Next, crystallize your product and service offering. Create an assortment that will compel your customers to buy again and again.
Then, determine how you’ll get your goods and services into customers’ hands: Stores? Online? It goes a long way in shaping the customers’ experience with your brand.
The final step is communication and execution. Communicate your brand promise and then keep it.
Marketing begins here; it is the icing on the cake of brand building, not the starting point.
A customer’s first encounter with your brand will likely be via some form of marketing communication. If you’ve done it right, people will be compelled to give you a shot. Their next experience will be with your sales and distribution channel. Have you made it easy, convenient and stimulating to shop? Then you’ve just scratched the surface of brand preference.
Next, they’ll experience your product. And if you’ve planned and executed flawlessly — your brand will become an essential part of their lives. This is where your vision as a company becomes a shared vision with your customer. This is where the most influential brands live — the Starbucks, Apples, IKEAs and Googles of the world.
Build your brand brick by brick and you — and maybe even Kmart — can live here, too.
Steen Kanter has been president of IKEA U.S.-East and CEO of both Lechters Housewares and The Body Shop. He currently heads Kanter International, headquartered in Philadelphia.
