The Power of Branding on Business Decision Makers

‘The Power of Branding on Business Decision Makers’ is the second blog post from “The Power Of” series, sequel to The Power of Brand Awareness I posted last month.

The goal of these series is to educate readers by outlining the essence of branding with some straightforward examples covering different dimensions of the branding concept.

Whether we like it or not, any business despite of being small or big, governmental or private, commercial or charity based, introduce some promises to their consumer/client/customer which they have to fulfill. They have a message to deliver, a value to present, and an image to create in their consumer minds. This will have rational and emotional factors that should be assessed and managed accordingly by business decision makers.

Regardless, if your business is to sell matches in a traditional Bahraini souq (market) such as ‘souq madinat Isa’ or sell franchised automobiles in big showrooms such as ‘Behbehani Bros’, both have the above aspects in common in spite of having different target markets, distribution channels, pricing strategies etc.

ARE BOTH OF THE ABOVE EXAMPLES BRANDED? AND WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BRANDING AND A BRAND IDENTITY?

While considering all the points above as a necessity to establish and maintain a brand (Branding), each successful brand should have a brand identity to present all of the above points to the consumer, position itself in the market and differentiate itself from its competitors.

...The brand identity is considered to be as the shell of a walnut, while the brand is the walnut itself...

The match seller in traditional souq promises the buyer a match box which is affordable, reliable, and does the basic functionality of what expected from a match. It gives the buyer a rational factor of cheapness and the emotional factor of generosity when supporting such small business. On the other hand, a luxury automobile re-seller company promises their customers unique design, along with reliable, comfortable, eye catching, and classy car that gives the customer the sense of luxury and arrogance.

The questions here are:

how the two businesses above identify themselves to their consumers? Establish the connection, position themselves in the market, differentiate themselves from the competitor, and maintain their brand image!

If the match seller sells good quality match that fulfills its promises, makes its customers happy with the product, they become emotionally attached with the communication that takes place during purchase, then when they pass through that souq again while they need a match, they will most likely consider buying it from the same match seller (Customer Retention). They might even go directly to that seller or recommend the seller to a friend if the experience they had was special and the attachment was strong (Brand Loyalty). However, if the match seller has no identity such as a name, shape, logo, packaging, uniform, color palette, slogan, business card etc, how customers can identify the match seller or recommend that to others as all they can do is to provide the location of the seller. If someday for some reason the location or the shopkeeper changes, then the business must start from scratch to gather its retained customers.

In addition, it’s difficult to promote the quality of a service, the value presented, the emotional factors associated with the communication without a proper identity. The Decision Making Unit (DMU) in such simple scenario is the seller himself. If he had planned a simple unique memorable identity to his street business, he would’ve had a better chance of exposure with a better overall recognition compared to his competitors who have no proper identity.

Moreover, if the seller added a simple marketing strategy such as free testing, or a bulk selling package with pay back warranties, then that small street match seller took a forward step in strengthening his brand with a simple brand building strategy. Herewith, the match seller is shifting from being a simple street match seller who sells to random customers to a bigger match provider serving a bigger audience who can now notice his brand, respect his product quality, and recognize his identity.

The decision maker in such scenario deals with low involvement products (street matches). Customer buying behavior towards such products is not that critical as switching from one match seller to another is simple. It’s very easy for the customer to go and buy match or a box of matches for a few dollars elsewhere. However, in high involvement products such as luxury cars, the case is completely different. The customer’s percentage of switching is very low and the behavior towards the brand is much more complex. The customer will research months or even years for his or her dream car. Customer will consider the brand as a crucial factor during decision making process. One will research the promise of the brand, the values provided, other customer’s experiences, after-sale services, as well as rational and emotional dimensions associated with purchasing that specific brand.

In such scenarios, the power of brand awareness discussed in the previous post plays an important factor in influencing the customer’s decision. The business decision makers should have planned and prepared marketing strategies for each of those aspects mentioned above.

...The branding process starts from the day of preparing the feasibility study of a business and will stay throughout the company’s lifeline...

A strong brand speaks for itself. The Ferrari brand for example has positioned itself as one prestigious luxury car with a deferential advantage of high performance and of exclusivity. It’s one of the few car brands that most car lovers wish to possess. The same goes with brands such as Mercedes, Porsche, and BMW. The business decision makers in such companies have prepared ‘brand building strategies’ for years so they could reach such level of brand awareness.

SO WHAT IS THE POWER OF BRANDING ON BUSINESS DECISION MAKERS?

Thus far, we have been talking about branding in general for simplicity. Brand managers can target brand personality, dimension and performance for building their brands. In addition, they can split branding into corporate branding and product/service branding, however, the blog is meant to educate the reader in linear steps. For now, it’s very important to notice that corporate branding covers the entire business while the product/service brand, as the name suggest, covers a specific product/service or product/service line. These will be discussed in later blogs if necessary.

Below in Figure 1.1 seven factors defined by Professor David Jobber for building a successful brand that can affect business decision makers when it comes to building brand values. We will use this model to brand our street match seller and help him grow his business. The street match seller was picked on purpose as it’s a very simple business and unlike other businesses it cannot implement most of the branding elements at the beginning.

Figure 1.1- a sample brand building  study for a street match selling business using the seven brand building factors model by Prof. David Jobber.

Quality: Business decision maker should make sure that the core functionality of the product/service associated with the brand is reliable, functional and satisfies customers’ needs. (Nobody wants to buy a match which does not light a fire!).

Positioning: The business decision maker should plan models and strategies to position the brand in the market by defining the right target market and providing a deferential advantage. This can be achieved by using models such as the anatomy of brand positioning by Prof. David Jobber which includes the following elements to be addressed: brand domain, brand values, brand reflections, brand personality, brand assets, and brand heritage.  The brand should carve in customers’ mind, exactly like the case when we hear Volvo and we think of the word safe, or when we see McDonalds we know that we can have meals for cheap and for quick. (As explained above, in the match seller example, this can be a value positioning such as bulk selling with warranty, or it can be a quality positioning such as guaranteed functionality).

Re-positioning: Re-positioning a brand depends on the product/service life cycle and whether the brand needs re-positioning to reflects the necessary changes in the market. If competitors started to offer the same deals then a re-positioning can be a solution to define a new Unique Selling Proposition (USP) for example.

Well-Blended Communication: In here, the business decision maker should communicate the brand to the customer and target customer’s perception throw introducing proper brand identity, advertising, charity campaigns, word of mouth…etc. the main purpose is to let the customer attach to the brand. In the match seller example, as the business is very small, we can start very simple by communicating an identity, and then we can strengthen the bond by providing bulk selling services with competitive pricing.

Credibility: As it’s not easy to achieve, building brand credibility is one of the crucial aspects that the business decision makers should consider. This can be achieved by delivering the brand promises in a competitive approach, stick to brand values and mission, to retaining customers, and strengthening the brand experience etc. It’s obvious that other factors mentioned above affects the credibility of a brand. This cannot be achieved immediately, the business needs to serve many customers and build proper strategies to be credible in the customer perception. In our match seller example, one of the best potential aspects is being the first mover in the market. Offering bulk selling with discounts associated with great brand experience can increase the credibility of such businesses and from such credibility the business can expand.

Long Term Perspective: In association with credibility, business decision makers should plan a long term perspective for the brand by building brand awareness, communicating the brand message and building up customer loyalty. In the match seller example, this can be achieved in association with the other factors above. The decision maker should believe that there is nothing short-term about a brand. Brands are there to build-up and grow.

Internal Marketing: Managing internal marketing and educating internal stakeholders about the brand, its values and positioning is vital for the success of any business. Training and communicating with internal staff is a necessity to establish a barrier-free relationship between internal stakeholders which in return helps to transfer brand values and the right message to external stakeholders. In the match seller example, the business thus far has 1 staff on-board. This staff should be completely aware of his brand, what values and messages he wants to communicate, and how he’s planned to do so. When the business gets bigger he will need to hire new people, train them, assign tasks and provide rational and emotional support so staff can learn how to reinforce the gaps in the business and handle customer’s expectations.

Branding is a mega concept which affects the entire business from day one. A proper branding can build-up the business using proper (brand) building strategies. As shown above, branding plays a vital role in establishment and in continuous growth of the business.

In the kingdom of Bahrain, some business decision makers are still not fully aware of the power of a proper branding, they don’t give enough attention to their brand promises, as such, they lack to satisfy their customers and deliver the brand values. In some scenarios, the brand has no values at all suffering from being a weak brand among well-established competitors. Some decision makers ignore all these facts or make initially wrong decisions, and then they end up paying a fortune to improve their branding once they have figured out how important these elements of branding are for the survival of their businesses.

A simple example can be a company who requested a brand identity as a part of their brand development. At the beginning, a brand specialist explained to them about the weaknesses in their brand name and what obstacles they might face later, for e.g., in their domain names and marketing materials. The company did not bother to accept and when it came to preparing stationary and their marketing materials, the decision maker realized that they need to change their Commercial Registration (CR) as the name was not suitable at all for the rest of the materials. That was a fair expense compared to companies that have established the wrong branding and not only their identity. Such companies need to re-brand their entire business spending tremendous resources and a fortune.

There is nothing wrong in-re branding the business as long as there are critical situations and noticeable improvements which outweigh the risks. Batelco and Bahrain TV are great examples of successfully re-branding their identity which had positive outcomes. However, doing it in the wrong way can destroy what the brand built for years. Therefore, it is not recommended to proceed with re-branding a well-established company unless there are serious reasons to do so.

Ahmed Al-Ansari

Founder of Alansari Studios, Co-Founder of Impressco. Author, Researcher, Media, Marketing, & IT Consultant from the Kingdom of Bahrain.