Value-based branding
Investing in design and communication for your market is pointless if you haven't researched what your message is to be. Unless of course you simply have money to burn ....
Ask your market
Value-based branding can be both reactive and pro-active. It is important to research your market before embarking on the communication and design process. Relevant information worth knowing includes:
- What situations do customers potentially find themselves in when deciding whether to buy your product?
- What are customer attitudes towards your product and service, and who and what can influence their attitudes?
- What viable alternatives are there to your product, and how does the customer differentiate your product from your competitor's product?
- What coming changes in your customers' values should you be aware of, and how will these trends affect sales of your product?
That you must be market-oriented to achieve the best success is nothing new. Value-based branding is therefore no revolutionary concept. The shocking thing is that very few companies live up to being market-oriented in reality, and only a few of these companies' partners (advertising/design agencies) undergo the necessary process to become market-oriented.
The fact is that if you fail to research the values of market and the needs that must be met, the risk of a financial disaster is far greater than if you have advance knowledge of your market's needs. Some companies think it is enough to research the market once – in connection with launch, after which they forget that values and needs are constantly changing and evolving. If you research your market regularly you can therefore act and adjust far more flexibly and proactively. For example, with just a few changes to your marketing or product you can reach far bigger target groups than first supposed. By the same token, continuous researching of your target group's needs and values enables your company to pull out of a market in time.
Branding is an ongoing process
To think of branding as a fixed and rigid framework is therefore totally wrong. Branding should be perceived as an ongoing process that may outwardly appear stable, but whose design and message follow the values and needs of the market. If branding is to be a process, market and trend surveys must therefore be continuously acted upon. The design must be able to accommodate flexibility, dynamics and change, but must at the same time arouse recognition and trust in the customer.
The perception of branding as a process, which incidentally is not only a marketing matter but also very much a management tool, derives from the fact that we live today in a dynamic and rapidly changing world. The speed of this change is due to a number of factors, including globalisation, regionalisation, EU integration, technological development and the spread of mobile multimedia communication.
We hear only what we want to hear ...
The many underlying factors have increased customer options, customer access to information, transparent prices and good service. More than ever before we are drowning in an information surfeit, and this is making it harder for marketing people to get their messages across. We already unconsciously sift the large volumes of information we are bombarded with. Only the messages the receiver wants to hear – will be heard.
Generation Y gives new challenges
The unconscious screening of messages is a development that has only just begun. The younger generation (born after 1984) is far better at screening media messages than earlier generations. The reason is that they have grown up with access to an exploded media landscape.
The post-1984 generation - or generation Y as it is also known – has only experienced a world with colour TV, MTV, TV and radio advertising. They have known the internet and mass use of mobile telephony since their early teens. This generation and the generations that follow are and will continue to be a major new challenge for marketing people.
Value-based branding ensures that the values and attitudes of the market are the starting point so that the message is heard. It is important to meet the core values of the receiver and at exactly the right moment for the purpose of creating preferences and stabilising sales.
The boundary between the professional and the private market is becoming increasingly blurred. The B2B market is increasingly about motives that traditionally resemble the B2C market, and at the same time the private consumer is increasingly professional in his pattern of action. So there's no getting around it.
In our society characterised by over-communication, where everyone only hears what they WANT to hear and only sees what they want to SEE, value-based branding is therefore a necessity for ensuring commercial success.
By Thomas Kruse, Communication Consultant, Kühl+co
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