Brands,
logos, positioning - what do you really need?
Marketing
is full of jargon, much of it misunderstood. Even terms like
PR and advertising get used interchangeably but have completely
different meanings. In case you’re wondering, advertising
means spending money to secure space in the media, PR means using
your imagination less than your wallet.
One
of the most popular bits of jargon being used at the moment is
brand. How often do you hear about some one trying to build their
brand, or create a brand? However, probe a little deeper and
you’ll often find they’re not talking about a brand
at all, but a logo or perhaps positioning. This article takes
a quick look at what each of these really are.
One
of the ways customers respond to a product or service is according
to its brand. When they hear or see the name of a place or hotel
they have an instant reaction. This may be complete lack of knowledge,
such as “never heard of it” which often feels negative
rather than neutral, based on the idea that if it was decent
they’d at least have heard of it.
Or
they may have a more specific response, positive or negative,
which will be based on their total experience of that place,
product or service. This “experience” will be gained
through a variety of factors, sometimes rather vague and seemingly
insubstantial.
I
remember as a child a decision was made to take a short break
in Saffron Walden. In essence we’d decided to go there
before we really had any clue of exactly where it was, how long
it would take to get there or even what there was there. My father
simply liked the name, had met some one nice who’d once
lived there and had possibly seen a photo of the place although
he couldn’t be sure. And yet, he had an instant reaction
to a place name.
Without
a penny of promotional budget being spent on building a brand
(they probably hadn’t been invented then), my father had
a perception of Saffron Walden. He didn’t express it as
such but it was a “brand” he liked.
Brands
are not logos. A brand is about a (potential) customers’ response
to a product or service. Each brand usually has a combination
of rational and emotional benefits. For example, BA & Virgin
are both airlines, and fly some similar routes with similar aircraft
and offer broadly similar services in terms of a seat to sit
in, food and drink, films on long haul flights etc.
Their
brand values are very different from each other. Customers’ perceptions
of them are more emotional than rational. BA is seen as a more
traditional, established and serious airline. Virgin is seen
as more entrepreneurial, youthful and fun. And yet the real question
should be whether or not they can get you to your destination
in safety and on time.
That’s
the power of a brand – it makes consumers feel things about
products and services that influences/clouds their judgement!
Having
a strong brand means that consumers feel they know what they’re
getting before they actually get it. And because tourism is largely
made up of experiences you can’t sample in advance of making
a purchase – i.e. you can’t sleep in a hotel bed
for five minutes to decide if you’re going to have a good
time before actually making the booking – then brands are
important. Tourism is about creating the right perception.
However,
just because brands are important, it doesn’t mean you
can create one from scratch or even build a brand without some
expertise, budget and insight. Many brands emerge over time and
the consumer’s mind isn’t so easily manipulated.
Artificial brand building doesn’t necessarily work. The
best brands develop over a period of time. If brands are about
consumers’ response to a product or service, then there
is a huge amount of work to do to influence how that consumer
thinks. Designing a logo or strap line isn’t what brand
building is about.
Logos are often confused with brands. A logo may encompass or represent
a brand and all its values but not every logo is a brand… The
famous Nike tick is a logo and a brand, because its adherents
have an instant response to it and what it means.
Few
logos are true representatives of a brand. They are usually simply
a way of building name recognition, and often not even that but
simply a designers’ fantasy. Nothing wrong with designing
a logo but it can’t replace the wider effort involved in
building a brand. Some designers confuse the issue further by
saying they are brand specialists whereas they mean they are
good at designing logos.
Positioning is something else to be considered in the overall battle for
the consumers’ mind and wallet. Positioning a product or
service can help change or enhance its image and identity. But
it isn’t about changing your product or service, rather
about deciding how you want to be seen by consumers. Positioning
is once again about influencing visitors’ minds and demonstrating
how your destination, accommodation or attraction is different
to or better than your competition.
In
future issues of the newsletter we’ll look
in more depth at how you can build a brand and what you need
to do – even if you don’t
have a big budget or degree in psychology!
Susan
Briggs
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