By M. Isi Eromosele
Today's marketplace is so
crowded and fast-paced that very few people have the time or the inclination to
search through claims of product or service superiority. Parity rules and
acceptable performance is the price of entry. This is increasingly true in
global markets as well.
Buying decisions are made on
promises that transcend products, and promises are rooted and embedded in human
emotions. It's all about human feelings and how they emotionally connect with a
particular brand.
For marketers, it’s about
marketing vision and creativity in managing the brand and in building trust by
keeping promises to customers. It's looking outward toward your customers and
their needs.
It's trying to find a
meaningful difference that will set your brand apart within its market category.
It's thinking less about what you can make in your factory and more about what
your customers want. It’s about realizing the fact that customers do have
feelings about and can develop attachment to what we purchase.
The reality is that most
marketers still do not understand the power of a brand. Branding, the one thing
that has the most dramatic impact on the success or failure of a modern-day
business is also the least understood.
Brand building isn't a skill
mastered in business school; in fact, it isn't even taught in most business
schools. It's not as black-and-white or empirical as most want to think about
business.
Your Brand Is Your
Business
A company’s name is not a
brand and neither is its logo. It's what these symbols mean and the feelings
they engender from customers that makes the value of the brand.
Brands and the equity they
engender are not the sole responsibility of the marketing department. The
science of marketing is not a department. Everyone in your company is
responsible for marketing the company. Your brand is not part of your business.
It is your business.
Your product isn't always
your brand, but your entire company and what it stands for is. Coke's fixed
assets are worth about $17 billion, but according to one recent analysis, its
brand value is worth $104 billion. Brands are the real assets companies own. Without
their brands, they virtually have nothing.
Emotional Equity
The real value of a brand
should be thought of in terms of its emotional equity, the way it makes
customers feel. A brand is like an emotional bridge between a company and its
customers. Branding your products sets them apart from all the other products
in their category.
A great brand is a story that's
never completely told. A brand is a metaphorical story that's evolving all the
time. This connects with something very deep within the fundamental human
appreciation of mythology. People have always needed to make sense of things at
a higher level.
We all want to believe that
we are part of something bigger than ourselves. Companies that manifest that emotional
sensibility in their employees and consumers invoke something very powerful
about their brands.
M. Isi Eromosele is
the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme
Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance
Copyright Control ©
2012 Oseme Group
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