How to Choose Your Branding Strategy

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Your branding strategy is not just a creative document but a serious and important business tool in with lots of elements to take into account when putting it together. Before considering the key criteria for choosing the right branding strategy you should have a quick look at the main strategies out there:

Brand Name

This strategy is a great way for a well-established company to use the power of its name to promote a range of products or subsidiary brands. Those products or brands are easily recognized through the brand’s logo, colors and slogan, and enriched with specific values and associations.
Examples: Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Samsung

Individual Branding

Individual branding is also known as the multi-brands strategy. The idea is in creating unique stories for each brand. That means individual style, positioning, or even quality or price of product. Brands could produce the same products or substitute products and compete with each other, or enter different industries. In any case, the consumer will not be confused.
Examples: Procter & Gamble, Unilever.

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Attitude Branding and Iconic Brands

Some brands are much more than just products as they convey a lifestyle, personality and experience. Choose those brands, offering the consumer a form of desired reality and… pay from up to 30% more for that brand. And the feeling he gets shouldn’t be precisely connected with product features or purpose. Often it’s just about the status that the brand offers its owner.
Examples: Nike, Apple, Harley Davidson

No-brand Branding

No-brand brands are not an oxymoron but the new trend in branding. Its supporters feel that today consumers are tired of choosing between thousands of stories. Apple juice is just an apple juice. Minimalism in design, simplicity of product and inexpensive promoting allow no-brand brands to offer similar quality at a lower cost.
Examples: Brandless, Muji, M/F People

Private Labels

Private labels, also known as own or store brands become more and more popular. Big retailers with their own products can compete with other brands usually by proposing lower price for the same quality. But sometimes store brands could position themselves as premium and get their own display treatment.
Examples: Kroger, Food Lion, Wal-Mart

Crowdsourcing Branding

Companies that choose crowdsourcing branding strategy allow people to take part in brand creation – naming, brand style, new products and so on. Why? Firstly, the answer lies in customer loyalty – trust breeds trust. At the same time, crowdsourcing minimizes the risk of brand failure because the feedback on any action is immediate.
Examples: Starbucks, Waze, Lego

 

After shedding some light on strategy types, we want to answer the key question: how to choose the right branding strategy for your business? Below you’ll find five crucial criteria:

Corporate strategy

Corporate strategy determines the global company goals and business processes to achieve those goals. But very often corporations and their managers don’t use this tool effectively as they don’t really understand the term. Focusing their attention on competition and competitors, they forget about other important elements, such as allocating company’s resources for getting better investment opportunities, or establishing expectations of internal and external stakeholders.

Business model

Business model is all about how the company will earn its revenue. It’s important for both – company success and interaction with partners and investors. This model may include variety of elements: product type, strengths and weaknesses, comparing to other companies, revenue sources – from pay-for-product model to e-commerce and advertising.

Culture

Entering new markets, companies may face some cultural problems, connected with acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Personal or group preferences in purchasing decisions, different values and beliefs, or even meaning of the brand’s name in another language could make your company fail or lead it to success. Remember it, when you day-dream of taking over the world.

Pace of Innovation

The pace of innovation is the speed with which innovations get to help customers make faster decisions.
Artificial intelligence, machine learning, VR… Do they relate to your industry? For example, if your industry updates innovations on an annual basis, it makes sense to choose a single-brand policy covering the range of products or services.

Added Value Leverage

Some brands and their products have an added value, linked to scale or reputation. It would be a mistake not to use this advantage to promote other company’s directions. Corporations often choose single brand umbrella strategy or source-branding strategy with two levels to strengthen their positions.

Have you chosen your branding strategy already? If you need some help, don’t hesitate to contact us.