How to build a Brand
Building the authenticity of your brand
It's about giving your brand a reassuring and human eaway to hit a specific target. According to the Journal of Consumer Psychology, “brand authenticity is the extent to which consumers perceive a brand to be faithful toward itself, true to its consumers, motivated by caring and responsibility, and able to support consumers in being true to themselves.” To see if you fit into this definition, ask yourself these questions:
1. Is Your Brand Faithful to Itself – Does your brand have a consistent mission and vision that won’t change irrespective of changes in consumer trends and industry trends?
2. Is Your Brand True to Its Consumers – Do you fulfill promises and values to your customers?
3. Is Your Brand Built on Integrity – Is your mission statement based on moral principles and does it stay true to its values?
4. Does Your Brand Add Meaning or Create Value – Is your brand perpetuating value or is it important to what people care about?
Building all this does not require you to have 2000 years but above all you must present your products in a way that emphasizes the brand values and your passion for your work. It is through this that you will give your targets the opportunity to recognize themselves through your products/services.
How to develop brand authenticity
“Authenticity in branding requires a step by step, measured methodology that doesn’t veer from a brand’s key identity.”
Business managers generally refers to 4 key elements to assess the perceived brand authenticity of their organization:
Continuity (brand is self-sustaining and speaks for itself),
Brand/comapny history
Brand transcends time
Brand adaptability
Brand's immunity to trends
Credibility (honest and does not create false hopes for consumers),
Trustworthiness of brand
A brand that delivers what it promises
Overall brand honesty
Integrity (anchored on empathy, responsiveness and responsibility)
Brand's responsiveness to consumers
Commitment to moral principles
Moral values espoused
Brand is responsible
Symbolism (brings out the best in consumers; gives value to them)
Brand changes consumers' lives for the better
Brand represents personal consumer values
Brand brings out the best in people
Brand lets consumers see what is important
What about the perceived value ?
Regardless of your message, whatever people are thinking and saying about your brand, that is your brand.
brand-positioning-workshop
Brand perception also known as brand image plays a central part in a company’s profitability. With the democratization of brand perception through social media and personal blogs, customer opinions have become more influential in shaping brand view.
Be loyal to your audience
It's about giving your brand a reassuring and human eaway to hit a particular target. Putting together this authenticity will therefore require you to be loyal to your targets and to put together a storytelling through which they can recognize themselves. The three key factors through which your brand's authenticity is measured are:
Your commitment to producing quality.
Your management of the customer journey (the client must not feel abandoned, disrespected or abused).
Inheritance/spirit promotes by your products/services.
The authenticity of your brand could quickly make the difference between you and your competitors because remember, customers are people who are willing to spend to satisfy a need; become the brand you instinctively turn to. you will need to be able to answer four questions:
Why are you doing what you're doing? Think about your passion, what inspires you and makes you want to sell services/products that stand out.
What and the specificity that is at the heart of the manufacture of your products or the implementation of your services? How your production/distribution technique is closer to what targets are looking for.
How would your brand want to mark its time? A well-managed brand can become a strong symbol that stands in the way of a specific problem.
What social problem would your brand want to eliminate? It is a question of demonstrating the ethical and human side of your brand.
Use your answers to become able to formulate a clear vision for your business. Be sure to always find a way to put this vision forward in your advertising media. For example: Google's vision is "Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". Such a simple sentence is enough to give Google its dimension in the perception we have of this organization, well you have to do the same: give a special dimension to your brand.
Our advise
As a business manager, you sell a solution through services/products, so to educate your target audience on your brand, you can show your brand’s norms through:
Your storytelling
This is the story that talks about the origins and path of your brand, be sure to specify why you see things beyond money (it reassures prospects). Here are some examples:
Airbnb is customer-centric and express it with its campaign Belong Anywhere
Always started a hashtag campaign #LikeAGirl promoting the fact that women and girls should not be influenced by society’s expectations.
Solve your target’s problems
Creating a product or services means responding to a specific problem in a way that will be accessible to the target niche. So you have to be able to tell your prospects what they would gain by becoming your customers. Here are some examples:
The Samung ads showing how their products are delivering a specific solution while the competition doesn’t.
Baubax designed a campaign with video ads presenting both the products and the targeted audience.
