Overview of the process for strategic and tactical execution of brand building. Somewhat centered on a services and ";OpCo" layered organization, so while the vocabulary may change, the process is largely intact.

1. Jack Irving!
Title of Presentation here
Brand Development And Extension
Art, Science and Process

2. Discussion Topics
“Brand success is not • Guiding Principles, Strategies,
determined by the Continuum of Choice
advertising that is
• Tactical Processes, Rigor, Discipline
carried out to promote
it, but the overall • Strategic Processes, Rigor,
experience of its Discipline
delivery.”
• Next Steps
Prof. Phillip Kotler
Northwestern
University
Kellogg School of
Business

3. Guiding Principles
• Maximum leverage, presence and marketability
• Inter-brand selling opportunities maximized
• Consistent messaging, branding, positioning
• Tools and systems implemented to maximize
opportunity while minimizing costs
• Best Practices and Practice areas highlighted and
supported through organizational and brand
rationalization

4. Types of Strategies
• Market dominance - In this scheme, firms are
classified based on their market share or
dominance of an industry. Typically there are
three types of market dominance strategies
– Leader
– Challenger
– Follower
• Michael Porter generic strategies - strategy on
the dimensions of strategic scope and strategic
strength. Strategic scope refers to the market
penetration while strategic strength refers to the
firm’s sustainable competitive advantage.
– Product differentiation
– Market Segmentation
• Innovation strategies - This deals with the
firm's rate of the new product development and
business model innovation. It asks whether the
company is on the cutting edge of technology
and business innovation. There are three types:
– Pioneers
– Close followers
– Late followers

5. Types of Strategies
• Growth strategies - In this scheme we ask the “All great brands are built on
question, “How should the firm grow?”. There are a the bedrock of trust derived
number of different ways of answering that question,
but the most common gives four answers: from customer’s experiences
– Horizontal integration sold under the brand name.
– Vertical integration Brands create customer value
– Diversification
– Intensification because they reduce both the
• Marketing warfare strategies - This scheme draws effort and the risk of buying
parallels between marketing strategies and military things, and therefore give
strategies.
owners an incentive to invest
in quality and innovation.”
Prof. Patrick Barwise - London
Business School

6. Types of Strategies
• Practice Area
– Defined skill-sets or skills provided
• Vertical Market "What really decides
– Aligned with the client definitions consumers to buy or not to
• Geographic buy is the content of your
– Regional, national, trans-regional, advertising, not its form.”
international
• Geographically Sensitive David Ogilvy
– Predominant local/regional brands
• Branded service offerings
– Sub brands, products synonymous
with brands

7. Strategy Guidelines
In all the strategic models there are 3 key factors for success.
• The Corporation
• The Corporation needs strategies aiming to maximize the
corporation’s strengths relative to the competition in the
We should not focus on functional areas that are critical to achieve success in the industry.
making our products • The Customer
• In fierce competition, competitors are likely to be dissecting the
and services easy to market in similar ways. Over an extended period of time, the
sell, rather, we should effectiveness of a given initial strategic segmentation will tend to
decline. In such situations it is useful to pick a small group of
focus on making our customers and reexamine what it is that they are really looking
services easy to buy. for.
• The Competitors
• Competitor based strategies can be constructed by looking at
possible sources of differentiation in functions such as:
purchasing, design, engineering, sales and servicing.

8. Continuum of Choice
. .
Functional Brands Volume Brands “Excellence Brands”
Specialty Brands Value Brands
Less Control More Control Most Control
Regionally Driven Functionally Driven Market Driven
Individualized Brands Complementary Brands Maximum Leverage across brands
Less Leverage across brands Some Leverage across brands

9. How to Choose
• Brand Equity Assessment
– Brand equity does not exist in nature, to be assayed like gold ore in rock. It’s measurement depends on how
you define it.
• To Buyers, a brand is a promise
• To financiers, brand equity = retained earnings.
• To marketers, brand equity = retained customers
• There are two general approaches to the concept: a financial approach which is largely concerned with assessing
value for the purposes of setting a price for a firm; and a marketing approach, in which brand equity is viewed as a
strategic variable to be built and enhanced by advertising, promotion and public relations activities.
• To a marketer, creating and maintaining brand equity can provide for increased profitability, reduced vulnerability
to competition, the ability to charge premium prices, and a platform for introducing new to market products
carrying the brand name.
• Old, established brands with large cores of loyal customers have substantial equity. Brands that command
premium prices have enhanced equity.
• The essential ingredient in brand equity, therefore, is customer loyalty. A brand’s “consumer franchise” is nothing
other than the customers who choose it over alternative brands. Their number and frequency of purchase
determine its value.

10. How to Choose
• Market Segmentation Analysis
– Market segmentation is the division of the market or population
into subgroups with similar motivations.
• Market Trends
– The upward or downward movements of a market, during a
period of time.
• Account Based Marketing (aka Key Account marketing)
– Alignment with your largest and/or most influential customers
“Success means never letting the competition define you.
Instead you have to define yourself based on a point of view
you care deeply about.”
Tom Chappell - Tom’s of Maine

11. Jack Irving!
Title of Presentation here
Building a Brand
Tactical Rigor, Process and Discipline

12. Process
• Marketing is a far more
systematic, process
oriented and diligent
discipline than
imagined
– Opine, test, review,
test, review, change,
refine, test… and on
and on and on

13. Build a Brand
• Step 1: Reinforce and align a personality for the company,
product or service.
– Drive towards branding that consistently presents the desired
reputation, attitudes and behavior.
• Step 2: Build a relationship with your target market that
reflects that personality. EVERY communication should
consistently reiterate the brand.
• Step 3: Reinforce the relationship and trigger recognition with
consistent visual symbols. These include everything from a
color scheme and logo to business cards and collateral
materials, web.

14. Brand Principles
• Logo, Brand, Image all are our collective responsibilities
– Ownership is everyone’s role
• Messaging is a function of what our customers tell us
– Messages and messaging are refined over time
– Basic positioning doesn’t change, unless a wholesale change in
our basic value proposition occurs
• Execute, relentlessly and consistently with what we have
today
– Tools, consistency, behavior, programs
– Utilize the established document templates

15. Tactical Examples
• Unified web site
– Centralized, internationally driven, all brands link to/
from this site
• Capabilities materials and Collateral Materials
• Standardized color pallet, templates, branding
• Proposal response templates and “best answers”
library
• Global Intranet
• Micro-sites for practice areas

16. Jack Irving!
Title of Presentation here
Building a Brand
Strategic Rigor, Process and Discipline

17. Positioning
• Step 1: Make Sense In The Context
– Arguments are never made in a vacuum.
There are always surrounding competitors
trying to make arguments of their own. Your
message has to make sense in the context of
the category. It has to start with what the
marketplace has heard and registered from
your competition.
Source: Differentiate Or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition By Jack Trout, Steve Rivkin

18. Positioning
• Step 2: Find The Differentiating Idea
– To be different is to be not the same. To be
unique is to be one of its kind.
– Look for something that separates you from
your competitors. The secret to this is
understanding that your differentness does
not have to be product related.
Source: Differentiate Or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition By Jack Trout, Steve Rivkin

19. Positioning
• Step 3: Have The Credentials
– There are many ways to set your company or product
apart. Let's just say the trick is to find that difference
and then use it to set up a benefit for your customer.
– To build a logical argument for your difference, you
must have the credentials to support your
differentiating idea, to make it real and believable.
– If you have a product difference, then you should be
able to demonstrate that difference. The
demonstration, in turn, becomes your credentials.
Source: Differentiate Or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition By Jack Trout, Steve Rivkin

20. Corporate Positioning • Comprehensive version covers all top line
Positioning Statement
•
messages and competitive differentiation
Multiple versions are created: Mission
Company Messages
and statement, 5 & 10 words, Boiler Plate,
Sound bite
Messaging
Architecture Market Messages
• Leadership metrics, business model, sales
strategy, strategic partnerships, executive
team, investors, future direction, corporate
values
Product/Solution
Messages • Target markets, buyers, geographies,
customer problems, etc.
• Benefits of the company; Product options,
support, etc.
Technology/Tools
Messages • Scope of Technology, program support,
flexibility, etc that support solution
message

21. Positioning
• Step 4: Communicate Your Difference
– Just as you can’t keep your light under a basket, you can't
keep your difference under wraps.
– If you build a differentiated product, the world will not
automatically beat a path to your door. Better products
don't win. Better perceptions tend to be the winners. Truth
will not win out unless it has some help along the way.
– Every aspect of your communications should reflect your
difference. Your advertising. Your brochures. Your Web
site. Your sales presentations.
Source: Differentiate Or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition By Jack Trout, Steve Rivkin

22. Jack Irving!
Next Steps
The Science Behind the Process

23. Why this way?
Faced with globalization, rapidly advancing technology and dramatic market shifts over the next two
years, most CEOs agree that they will have to make major business changes and fundamentally alter
their current value chain in order to compete and grow. They know that the answer lies in an
expanded innovation strategy—one that includes product, service and operational improvements but
also emphasizes business model innovations.
Source: Business model innovation—the new route to competitive advantage. IBM Global Services 2006

24. Why this way? We hear certain terms a lot in professional
services: intellectual capital, thought leadership,
and knowledge management – impressive but not
entirely plain speak.
• Intellectual capital is the (collective) expertise of
a professional services firm’s experts (present
and past) that embodies the knowledge and
methods they use to solve client problems
• Thought leadership is intellectual capital codified
and marketed – and (most important) that the
market views as superior
• Knowledge management is the process and
organization used to capture, package and
disseminate intellectual capital and thought
leadership. capital and thought leadership
Source: Swystun, Jeff W.N., Brand Consistency Redefined, DDB
Yellow Paper, 2007 Once you remove the jargon and “consultese,”
the main take away is that professional
services can articulate and differentiate
themselves through the quality, uniqueness
and frequency of sharing their knowledge. It
simultaneously builds the brand and produces
real sale leads.

25. Why this way?
This is a critical observation for
professional services. No one goes
out daily to shop for a lawyer or
advertising agency. Clients purchase
the service when they have a real
need, and it is the job of marketers to
position their firm in the first
consideration set (or ideally as the
sole choice). From the client’s
viewpoint suppliers of services are
numerous and largely
undifferentiated. So they choose
based on indications of quality and
expertise.
Chrzastek, Jennifer D. and Reid Cyndy, Overcoming the Challenges of Professional Services Marketing,
Northwestern University Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications 2006

26. Multi-channel, Unified Messaging
Peter Drucker says that “the
aim of marketing is to make
selling superfluous.” Based on
the high desire to switch, there
is going to be an environment
of frantic selling because
service quality and marketing
are obviously not fulfilling their
promise.
Source: Scurry, Jeff and Wehmeyer, Holly, Strategies for
Differentiating the Professional Services Brand, Journal of
Integrated Marketing Communications, 2007

27. Jack Irving!
Next Steps
Awareness, Presence, Transformation,
Engagement, Allegiance

28. Presence and Awareness
• Global Efforts • Localized materials
• SEO by OpCo
Web Traffic
• Web, Print, Press, – Division
National/International • Optimized SEO by
Shows, Global OpCo
Alliances • Optimized SEO by
• Top-level OpCo Office
Overviews • SEM
• Press
– Local, National, Trade

29. Transformation and Engagement
• Localized SEM • Training
– By OpCo, by Office, by – As a part of the business
Web Traffic
Practice Area • PR’s
• Thought Leadership – WINS
– Speaking, White Papers, – Advertorials
Success Stories, Case • WINS
Studies
• Thought Leadership
• PR’s, advertorials, insertions
– Whitepapers, Industry Index
– Local, National, Trade
• Broad local/regional campaigns
• Localized guerilla marketing
campaigns – Job fairs, employer fairs
– Roadshow thought leadership

30. Allegiance
• Turning Customers into Advocates
– Satisfaction is an attitude, Loyalty is a behavior
– Provide pertinent product or service information in a regular email
newsletter. Web Traffic
– Offer customers an opportunity to leave comments, exchange ideas,
and create community: establish a bulletin board or create a blog.
– Give loyal customers a presence by featuring them in a case study or
inviting them to write an article about your product or service.
– Provide rich media and members only sections
• Local/regional seminar invites, national/international show passes
• Customer forums, advisory committees, steering committees

31. Brand Integrity (v) (brând in-teg-rÎtē)
The brand is never the face of a company.
Faces fib. The brand is the spine.