Marketers rely heavily on intuition. The key to building a brand more scientifically is to connect the anticipated market segment with a deep understanding of the customer and the brand's personality. Building a strong brand is increasingly not easy at all. An explosion of a number of brands – as well as the proliferation of ways to communicate information, from thousands of television channels to the Internet, product substitution in movies, and even on mobile phone screens – all make information exchange more and more sophisticated.
Furthermore, converging product features and service levels in some industries have made it more difficult to maintain existing brands. Meanwhile, the economic downturn causes marketers to cut budgets (Exhibit 1, next page).
Rising above the unresolved clutter, banks demanded ever more sophisticated brand development from companies. Throughout the 1990s, marketers learned to use unprecedented but plural budgets. The company did not deliver better results. Some companies' promotional efforts are haphazard and focused on aspects of the brand that do not make customers buy. Others focus on changing customer preferences and influencing market segmentation. For example, the Volvo brand lost years of potential sales because the brand decided to wait until 2003 to launch its sports engine. In short, marketers rely too much on intuition and do not understand enough the reality of the marketplace. A handful of companies are starting to get more scientific about branding and pushing marketing to new realms. The key is to connect predicted market segmentation with a deep understanding of customer needs and product characteristics. The value of customer information and representative buying patterns (achieved through learning everything from honest survey programs to bargain internet surveys) and the usability of statistical tools Complex and useful statistics make performing these tasks easier and with a greater degree of precision than ever before. In short, reaching the next level requires rigorous and data-driven branding. Of course, even the most advanced quality engineering cannot save brands whose target values have fallen behind those of their competitors.
And adapting to a new methodology creates other challenges. Grounded analytics at the heart of new insights not only require new skills in marketing but also breakthroughs that other components of an organization – from the development department From product development to the implementation department and then to the customer service department - must be responsible for supporting each other in building the brand. Furthermore, some marketers worry that adapting quantitative techniques will change creativity. However, in our experience, having analysis of customer needs and brand characteristics helps differentiate and direct creativity for different locations. And the possibility of avoiding costly trial-and-error methods and the ability to build a good brand in a more scientific way is too attractive to pass up, especially in these challenging economic times.
Market segmentation of the future today
The first principle in business is to look carefully at the long-term profit potential of each customer segment. On the other hand, marketers waste energy identifying and delivering brand value to segments that do not involve profitable investments. Meanwhile, good brand managers ignore changes that seem too obvious, while marketers act in a traditional way based on an existing segmentation system with current conditions. such as size, income, age, and ethnically different target populations; estimating loyalty and consumption; and information about their locations, lifestyles, needs and attitudes. On top of traditional segmentation efforts, they run their companies dangerously by reaching customer groups that have long-term potential but are not strong. For example, many fashion companies find their target customers to be the youth segment with trendy clothing styles. But now, with young people representing a weakening demographic in some Western countries, the calculation of how to accommodate these fickle customers appears to be at a standstill. Luckily, deciding when to think about a segment doesn't require marketers to face the dangers of touching a fragile crystal ball. Furthermore, they should focus only on growing trends, find changes affecting the segment, and value the impact on future profits.
Focus on trends
Winning a race in any given segment is much easier because there is a whirlwind of trends behind it. Major changes – from behavioral changes, such as changes in diet, to changes in the demographic revolution, such as the era of family planning and the rise of Portuguese and Hispanic American populations – may be familiar to marketers, but only if they identify and act upon it. Considering the impact of increasing regularity in the eating process and increasing protein and low fat content, the Atkins diet has products such as breakfast cereals from manufacturers Kellogg's and Quaker Oats. Cereal-loving customers have long been divided into two segments: adults (brands emphasize health factors including fiber content and low-fat nutrition) and children (looking attractive by emphasizing flavor and fun while reassuring parents about nutritional information). Research into a concentrated grain market would be different than asking for changes in polling. Furthermore, feed has helped products such as NitriGrain, which has reached both segments, successfully use the cost of breakfast cereals. And more than 15 million people in the US have tried the Atkins diet, so assessing the future economic potential of the “protein-seeking” and fat-avoiding segment of breakfast cereals is important. Today's segment size is just a starting point. Marketers also need to plan their estimates on baseline obesity rates, the number of Atkins books sold, and growth rates. in the markets most relevant to Atkins, and the adaptive trajectory of past diet fads. While such predictions are not necessarily certain, plans with a probability of being wrong can still help marketers recognize the potential impact of trends, deciding which aspects are valuable. treatment to implement, and identify those aspects (for example, a diet with grapes) very clearly.
Run after money
Once marketers have discovered meaningful trends, the next challenge is to identify the right customer influence and ensure that that segment is profitable. Quickly develop additional aspects that are not yet profitable, so it is important to turn plans into money. Consider what has happened in the hotel sector. Over the decades, the industry has recognized two customer segments: services focused on business travelers and casual tourists. However, in recent years, the high-margin business segment has begun to emerge, with dangerous implications for hotel chains (including large hotel groups such as Hilton Hotels, Marriott International and Sheraton). that brands are concerned with services for business travelers and their needs. In one of their final images, rising pressures on fulfillment costs have given rise to a new breed of high-value business travelers. Another, a mobile development is expected to bring long-term professionalism away from standard business hotels, for the growing segment of high-end business travelers. This promises to connect play and work at the same time. Some are “Fashion Searches” that will show the hotels they frequent a personal favorite. The remainder are "Looking for escape" and are customers looking for a comfortable break from the boredom of daily business. Responding effectively to these pressures requires a deep understanding of each segment's future economic potential. The level depends on the content of the incident, but changes such as capital requirements, changes in room rates, and profit from related services are also very important. Entering a business segment that brings value requires a sophisticated and balanced execution: keeping costs low but achieving customer expectations of low prices but still being profitable while spending just enough for brand development. signal differently. The fashion segment also has some difficulties: it relies heavily on spending on style and service status – plus customers can choose service during economic crises. Fashion hotels can also spend more on maintaining bars, restaurants and lobby areas that are in use and popular. Such images help marketers decide which segments to target and act accordingly. If growth is possible but profits are lower, it is wise to limit the downside, perhaps by making existing brands bigger to meet new customer demands. Some hotel chains do this by offering “value ratios” within existing properties or creating representative brand equity such as Holiday Inn Express and Marriott's Courtyard. These brands delivered acceptable performance both before and during the recession. In contrast, during the late 1990s, the ultra-luxury business segment became increasingly attractive. New business streams from independent hotels to companies such as Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and Marriott, which have expanded their respective brands such as St. Regis and Ritz-Carlton. While many hotels have average room decor, this segment's profits have dropped more than twice as fast as the industry average during the recession. Distinguishing between cyclical effects and long-term trends can limit the crisis.
Branding
Once marketers see a promising future segment, they have to rethink the brand – a complex process. The rapid rise in brand value and rapid adoption reduces the effectiveness of advertising and breakthrough ideas, such as adding a “magic formula” to laundry detergent or incorporating a sports star. with a sports shoe brand. Today, cost-effective branding depends on a deep understanding of what consumers care about and wear. Such new and sophisticated acquisitions bring precision but only when both conceptual clarity defines the brand and then actually delivers the differentiation that marketers call “ “key” sites with which consumers interacted.
Anyway, “What is my brand?”
Defining a brand involves emphasizing its key advantages and contributions to customers. To do this, marketers must recognize that a brand consists of many tangible, functional contributions, intangible contributions, emotional benefits, along with its "personality". often fundamentally for maintaining loyalty and different long-term competition. For example, Coca Cola – is a strong global brand not only because it is a familiar drink in red cans and consumers like its taste, but also because Coca Cola possesses an optimistic image: the product comes from the US. Marketers can increase many brand attributes both tangible and intangible, but the goal is to bring that relevance to each consumer and the degree of differentiation of that brand. against competitors. The amount of branding at play and the interdependencies that often occur between tangible and intangible attributes can make valuations complex. Fortunately, statistical techniques can now increase confidence. As the analysis often shows, the basic characteristics will make a brand different from the competitors' brands but do not affect the customer. These attributes are the golden point of brand development. However, some attributes are very important even though customers expect them from competitors. We call them “bets” after the small payouts that card players get. For example in the hotel industry, Holiday Inn Epress strives to provide cleanliness, freshness, and comfortable interiors while Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts strives to provide all guests with the services needed for their stay. business travel. Such “bets” are not the main thing for these brands, because they do not differentiate the units engaged in such service delivery among their competitors. However, the advantages of that basic brand cannot be ignored: a value creation will not last if the service is provided by dirty or uncomfortable beds, or the luxury hotel brand do not have fax and Internet services. The most successful brands emphasize details that are important to customers and will differentiate them from their competitors (Exhibit 2). We refer to these characteristics as “brand drivers.” Holiday Inn Express hopes to differentiate its brand by giving customers the emotional benefits of feeling like “smarter business travelers” and strives to convey to customers a brand that is That clone is “hilarious” even a little from “crazy.” For players forced to cut costs, the opportunity to make the brand “smarter” and “fun” is not only cheap but also attractive. Next to the cost system, Westin Hotel & Resorts is trying to differentiate its brand from Hiton, Marriott and Sheraton by bringing serenity and efficiency. Among higher-end customers, the Four Seasons seeks to differentiate itself by offering customers what it calls “escape from routine” and humanizing the “Sophistication of Serenity.”
Which “key points” are important?
With the brand and leader bets identified, a key issue remains: how to deliver to customers cost-effectively. Brands are built around the key points, which a hotel includes reservations, check-in and check-out, loyalty programs, room service, business services, facilities sports, laundry service, restaurant and bar. Holiday Inn Express delivers on the "smart" and "fun" nature of its brand through focuses such as quality breakfasts, ensuring service prices are published online at the lowest cost along with the funny advertisement. Westin brings serenity to business travelers with its Heavenly Bed. And Then Four Seasons relies on personal factors such as service staff who call customers by their first names, employees holding higher positions who understand the needs of business travelers, and at least one of the service offerings. Available as a restaurant or high-end resort. Any compromise is possible. Airlines, for example, do not seem to differ with respect to visible service benefits for business travelers such as better food and alcohol or DVD players. Longer brand development techniques are more expensive. British Airways, for example, has redesigned the cabin to accommodate first-class flat beds in business class, while other airlines rarely increase seat size. Virgin Atlantic enhances its famous brand with the slogan “doing things differently” with a “Premium Class” service style that features cabins, bars, in-flight text services and seats like flat beds in “stylish design”. Deciding which expensive initiatives are worth it requires an understanding of the potential returns, quantitative tools that can also be of use to marketers. Brings focus to innovative and coordinated efforts throughout the organization. Companies will likely have to develop performance goals to help build the brand. For example, if you are an airline, you must decide that the best use of money for bringing about a “caring” brand is to enhance the security process and check-in area, which will try to demonstrate the level of outperform competitors – for example, the 5-minute security and 2-minute check-in method. Convincing other parts of an organization to participate is often more difficult for marketers than for the practice of creating and planning a brand's advertising, sponsorship and promotions. Luckily, analytics can help marketers make the case by dramatically increasing the level of precision with which they put recommendations. Get rid of the guesswork Realize the bet, people Leadership and focus are difficult to review. So how will companies choose the right people in the future? Traditionally, the factors that bring brand value to customers have had to be identified through cost and error surveys. The process involves asking direct questions about the functional benefits of the brand, analyzing the results through techniques such as conjoint analysis, and then taking the creative transformation chain that the research identifies. Their properties have no value. Although this achievement has been usable for many years, its functional focus still has the danger of losing sight of the brand's hard, tangible metrics. Traditional techniques are also not well equipped to properly validate the correlation between a brand's attributes and the most cost-effective focus it can deliver to customers. After all, testing is part of the equation. Traditional techniques can have the unpredictable effect of confusing customers by emphasizing one set of brand attributes first, then another. Today, marketers can reduce much of the guesswork by using social science techniques to identify underlying brand attributes that drive loyalty among specific customers. . Known as path patterns (or bamboo equations), these techniques are not new. They're based on basic regression techniques. But they're not just starting to be applied to brand building as marketers increasingly see targeting what customers care about as core. of effective branding. Developing this awareness will be done in today's information and communication boom with various factors (such as loyalty programs, online customer surveys, and sales data). electronics) and research the attitudes of third-party research companies as well as the ability to perform usable and more sophisticated data analysis services. Investment AnalysisThe first step is to manage customer research: develop probing questions, about 250 tangible and intangible brand attributes, and interview customers to evaluate the brand and its competitors. it on each dimension, then link the quantity of these dimensions to overall customer loyalty. These three characteristics differentiate the results between traditional methods such as conjoint analysis and focus group-based quantitative research. First, specialized and in-depth questions help marketers understand a brand's tangible and intangible advantages in detail. Second, analytics show marketers the interrelationships between each element of the brand – brand nuances that linkage techniques cannot separate. Finally, trying to determine the importance of individual factors, results in their contribution to building a brand in the long term - this is important because of what people say and who they are. Our actions may be different. Because traditional methods may show that hotel customers prefer reliable business services or comfortable in-room amenities, new techniques will clarify core needs (e.g. One hotel can make me feel at home when I am away from home) underlying such desires. Meetings require the basics of effective branding.
Complete research and analysis of customer psychology to help determine the most effective connection of key points that bring brand value to customers. It is important to determine which focus points most closely relate to the essence of the brand (that is, “make me feel special) and evaluate the statistical association between the key points to group them together.” the best correlation score with the brand (See more information “Behind the algorithm” on the previous page). This analysis often shows how the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. For example, linking a frequent flyer program with quick check-in and check-out services may be most correlated with the hotel's brand goals, even if room service is quick and internet connectivity is fast. Altitude is also strongly associated with brand
Model path applies a heterogeneous type of statistical analysis (known as model path analysis or model structural equation analysis) to quantify each association between brand advantages and attributes. The product – relationship up to now has been understood qualitatively. The result is a better understanding of customer preferences. The first step is to create, through real analysis, a different set of “brand-preferences” for both states ( For example, a brand I recommend to others is...") and actual behavior (brand consumption is the size of total consumption by brand's category). The next step is to determine clarify the correlation between brand-preference sets and various brand attributes, ranging from intangible (humanity and reputation of the brand) to tangible (functional advantages and disadvantages). trademark). In this model, brand preference represents the dependent variable (outcome); Brand attributes are free (predictable) variables. This analysis helps marketers separate bets, operators, and focuses according to efficiency and productivity. These separations influence consumer perception of the brand. This shows that intangible attributes are strongly related to the brand-preference composite (the brand makes me feel connected to my friends). Furthermore, this identifies the series of tangible brand attributes that are most strongly related to both brand preference and the intangible attributes that marketers hope are real. Identifying tangible marketing activities that create intangible connections is invaluable because strong brands rely on special and compelling emotional connections with customers.
Bonus
As complex as the sample path is, marketers should see it through because this path allows them to determine how much of a brand's potential impact is on customer loyalty and how this will be translated into profits. . When comparing costs, these estimates give marketers the opportunity to estimate the rough return on their branding investment. Such estimates simplify the process of creating key compromise. Consider the context of an airline that targets frequent business travelers and wants to be seen as “More Thoughtful.” At least 20 customer care focuses have been identified, including faster check-ins, better baggage checks, more premium amenities, more on-board benefits, and flying longer distances. . Without careful targeting, airlines will waste human resources in the wrong direction. The “model path” technique can also identify opposition to the focus. A Canadian food service company switched to cash-only payments at stores when it realized that quick service was important to customers – credit cards (previously considered a key priority) slow service times and others. These types of technologically pioneering businesses yield significant results. For example, a pharmaceutical company understood what the pharmacist was prescribing but not exactly why he was prescribing it, so he discovered the brand attribute that was most similar and relevant to the prescribing of the drug. . This was done because according to a survey of more than 2,000 pharmacists around the world covering more than 150 tangible and intangible brand aspects – a great transformation from the simple ones of the past – the surveys focused on previous function. In the first year of brand repositioning, sales increased by more than 10%. An industrial company used this technique to review and execute an entire product launch strategy for a total of $200 million in new sales. And the agent increased 2%'s productivity within 3 months in a way that attracted loyal customers.
Be sure of success
Identifying the brand's distinguishing attributes and the focus of what those attributes deliver to customers will be more than just a numbers exercise. Best of all, if a question isn't relevant to a potential brand attribute, it won't fully inform customer feedback. Input from participants – senior brand management staff, and sales representatives to advertisers – is important. Generalized relevance creates its own problems: in outline research, staff theory is disadvantaged. Leaders play a more important role in claiming a hierarchy in the field that allows research to resolve debates in a fact-based manner rather than by permanent memorization.Marketer can increase their chances of success by investing heavily in internal analytics communications and showing colleagues why these analytics support proposed initiatives. The model path may sound abstract, but its challenge is to present the ending in a way that a veteran leader who is not a marketer will understand and believe. To equip that conviction, boards and company leaders can become senior brand advocates within the organization – crucially in a world where branding depends on more than just on the attractive sound but also on the company.
Companies can build better brands at low cost with predictable segmentation and sophisticated analytics tools that increase the accuracy of identifying and delivering brand value. This result requires an open mind and persistence, but it beats betting because betting does not produce such results.
According to Massogroup
