- [Instructor] Hello, and welcome to the video lecture
of this week, which is about the brand
and how do you build, and how to sustain
the brand associated with your business or organization.
Here's a rundown of what we'll be doing.
We're gonna first define a brand, why it's important.
Talk about the building blocks,
the elements of a brand,
and the goal of a brand,
which is to have value in and of itself, or brand equity.
Here's the homework that is associated this week.
So first, what do you want your brand to be known for?
What is the promise that you wanted to express,
and how does it reinforce the position
that you've been developing?
And next, what brand elements
will you use?
So you see this list of them.
Which of these, and I would choose
something like three to five,
are the essential building blocks of your brand,
and how will that help to define your brand?
Here is what our textbook author defines it as.
It's the name, signs, symbol,
or a combination of these things
which identify the product or service
and differentiate them from the competition.
Here are a number of well-known brands.
These are logos, and a logo is not exactly a brand,
it's actually one of the brand elements.
But it's often the most recognizable part of a brand.
Others might define it as the public face of your business.
But my favorite way of thinking about it is,
it's your promise.
It's what you want to be promising to your customers.
It's the embodiment of value.
It's what makes you, you.
It's what makes you great.
And as we'll see,
it has something of value for you and your customer.
It's a powerful asset.
Something that you have to manage.
And every firm has one,
every firm should have one.
And, it's really something that you need to
develop and nurture, and take care of,
and strengthen over time.
Here is a graphic.
This graphic describes some of the parts of a brand,
and just for a visual representation.
Why is a brand important?
First of all, it has benefits for you,
for the firm, for your business organization.
It differentiates you.
It tells you what is great,
what is special, what is novel about you?
It embodies your business model,
your core values, the mission.
And it can help to draw and retain customers.
And in many cases, a strong brand
also has the advantage of
giving you access to suppliers
and channels
that, all else equal,
a supplier wants to sell to a business,
that they think is very well-established.
And distributors or market channels,
hopefully for obvious reasons,
are much more likely to sell a product
that has a strong brand
that already has a market,
that already has a loyal customer base.
So that rather than them doing a favor
of moving your product,
you're actually bringing them business
by bringing your customer base to them.
And for many of the same reasons,
a strong brand can give you access to capital.
An investor is gonna be more likely to invest in you.
A bank is gonna be more likely to sell, or give you a loan
if you have a strong brand.
If you already have a strong presence in the marketplace
and have established yourself
as a business that's around the long term.
It also has
value to the
customer.
It decreases risk, increases trust.
It makes them feel safe.
It lets them know what are they getting into.
So if it's a promise, then they can rely on
when they buy your thing, your good or service,
that they know what they're going to get.
It's reliable, and they understand it.
That it's a clear understanding, where they feel safe
of, "I can buy this because I know
that I'm gonna get what I am expecting."
Here are a list of brand elements.
And I'm going to go through each one of these.
So these you can think of as the building blocks,
or the components of a brand.
So I'll go through each one.
First is the name, which is basically
just the name of the company
that the words that are used to identify it.
The logo, which we saw earlier, is
the graphic representation.
A Tagline.
So for those of you
who can remember from the past,
The Quicker Picker Upper is Bounty.
"Can you hear me now?" was one for Verizon.
You can think about what is one for McDonald's right now.
Graphics are shapes,
which help to
identify it.
Shapes are also very close to graphics.
So those are very close, but like,
the Coke bottle, the Volkswagen beetle.
I guess, in this case it's the shape of the product
rather than of the logo or graphics.
Colors and sounds.
Here are examples.
Certain groups of products are known
for its distinctive colors or sounds.
Scents, tastes, and movement.
So let's go through and on the next slide,
I'm going to invite you to think about other examples.
And we'll do this in class as well.
So if you want to pause it here,
and jot down or think about other examples.
So here are a few that I thought of.
Heinz
57 got that name because of the large,
the number of products they sell.
The Apple logo.
We'll talk about what Motel 6's line are.
The Nike swoosh.
The shape of Reese's peanut butter cups.
What color is UPS known for.
You know, a jingle goes into the sound.
So the ESPN Sportscenter sound.
Anybody who drives by Al's on Williston Road
on the way to the airport
knows that they have a very distinctive smell.
Certain products have very distinctive taste.
I think Frank's RedHot sauce
doesn't really taste like anything else.
And I had a harder time with movements,
but in the Red Bull ads, that sort of movement
of the wings,
Red Bull gives you wings.
So that's also a tagline.
The way that
the wings move seems like
it's a distinctive part of the brand.
So here are the characteristics.
So it should communicate the distinctive value.
It should reinforce the intended position.
So it should be a good fit for the position,
and clearly articulate that.
And it should be consistent and unifying.
So we'll discuss this in class, but think about now.
Do you think Apple is going to release
like, a really cheap phone or really cheap watch?
So something that's way down
on the commodity end of the scale,
low price, sort of bargain basement product.
Would they do that?
Why or why not?
And if they did do it, what might be
a strategy that they would use?
So think about that, and we'll discuss it in class.
Think about as well,
what would be an off-brand
product or service
that your business
would choose not to do?
So what's the thing that would just not be a good fit,
that wouldn't reinforce your position,
that wouldn't be consistent with what you already do.
So maybe
UVM, who I think we've made our name
as being green and sustainable,
having a class on fossil fuel extraction
or how to externalize costs,
like that would not be
a product that we would hopefully offer
because it would really go against
and, in a way, taint our existing brand,
and our existing products.
So a good brand should build brand equity.
It should be easily understood.
So again, this is a clear promise
and they know what they're getting themselves into.
And it can be sustained over time.
So a good brand, if you invest in it,
if you tell a good story, if you have a clear promise
that this should stand the test of time.
This is the end of part one.
Please go to part two now.
Thank you.