www.cteves.com

Brands are important aspects of any business, but unlike money or bricks, mortar and paperclips, a brand is an intangible aspect of business. It lives in people’s heads and is defined by all of that person’s contacts with a company. Improving a brand is, therefore, one of the best marketing tools available because it involves your whole company and in the end, creates happier customers, more loyalty and higher marketshare.

Hiring a branding company that specializes in brand image is best equipped to improve your brand with proven research and consulting services. Any successful effort to do these things must be built on a solid foundation. That foundation is your brand. Any kind of strategy without a solid brand under it, like a house, might work for a while, but in the long term, will crash to the ground. That’s not what you or we want. Quite simply, a brand is the essence of what your company is and what your company appears to be to the outside worldyour brand identity and ultimately your brand image. And if it’s not solid and consistent, a branding company we’ll help you get it there.

The Brand Analysis process includes:

Tags: brand, brand identity, brand image, brand strategy, brand strength, brand value, brandingbrand, brand identity, brand image, brand strategy, brand strength, brand value, branding

Share This

• Leave a comment... (0)

The concept behind the Holiday Inn Express brand certainly should be “smart.”
Customers are supposed to feel an increased sense of intelligence after staying at
Holiday Inn Express because they have recognized and capitalized upon good
quality for a great price. With the reputation of Holiday Inn’s quality for reasonable
prices backing the brand, Holiday Inn Express should have a win-win status in the
mindset of the consumer and should also boost the efficacy of the Holiday Inn
parent brand. Does the current messaging for Holiday Inn Express accomplish this
status? We think not.

Many brands use messaging that makes the customer feel smart and as though he
has made the right choice. Wal*Mart and Target are examples of brands that ensure
the customer that if he shops at their stores; he is avoiding the embarrassment of
overpaying and not finding what he wants/needs. Customers not only like to know
that their purchases matter; they like to know that their choices matter. Brands that
give customers real affirmation that they have “done the smartest thing” will
succeed. This affirmation must be evident through effective brand execution, which
also includes marketing and advertising. The message must be both clear to the
customer and clearly shown by the brand.

Does Holiday Inn Express have a sure-fire brand message? Yes. Does Holiday Inn
Express convey and execute this message properly? According to our brand model
at Stealing Share, it comes up a short. In fact, if you read how the “Stay Smart”
campaign began, the brand is more superficial than it even appears. According to
customer questionnaires conducted before the campaign, the two reasons why
customers felt more savvy for staying at an HIE were free breakfast and free local
calls. Perhaps these two elements created a little more of an advantage for HIE over
other limited-service establishments, but these kind of table stakes are not what
fuels real brand. Clearly the right questions were not asked. The customer’s
connection to the brand should go deeper than cinnamon rolls.

Furthermore, the commercials for the “Stay Smart” campaign contribute to the
shallow continuum of brand execution for HIE. For example, one commercial opens
on a group of scientists hovering around a microscope, observing a strain of the
Ebola virus. The man standing in front of the microscope explains the
characteristics of the virus and proceeds to knock the sample off of the table,
assuring the group that it was not airborne. When his colleague asks him how long
he has been studying the virus, the man responds, “Well, I’m not actually a scientist.
But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”

Several other commercials followed in a similar pattern. One commercial showed a
man who had not graduated past the seventh grade winning Jeopardy because he
stayed in a HIE the night before. While the commercials are humorous and
borderline ridiculous, they demonstrate a rather narrow interpretation of the brand.
Although the commercials are effective for short-term brand awareness and
recognition, this brand execution is overall unsatisfactory because the customer will
not consider the brand a serious option. If anything, the brand has become more of
a joke among consumers because of the blatantly ignorant people portrayed as
customers in the commercials. The brandface, or the customer’s perception of
himself when he uses the brand, is not one of intelligence. In fact this brandface
mocks intelligence rather than reinforcing it. This failure to execute is more at the
fault of brand management than advertising creation. Unfortunately, in all
industries, one directly influences the other.

Humorous commercials are memorable and entertaining, but does the brand
directly reflect the customer and benefit from this type of execution? In the case of
Holiday Inn Express, we argue against this method. The brand execution began with
category benefits rather than the belief systems of the customers. The advertising
had to rely upon a general campaign focus of “Stay Smart” without knowing what
being smart really meant to the target audience. In order to correct this problem,
Holiday Inn Express would need to take a few steps back, observe what their
customers want/need from their brand and challenge their brand to accommodate
these expectations. They would need to get a full outside-in perspective from the
market.

The “Stay Smart” campaign was effective in getting HIE’s name out in the market,
but that is where the effectiveness remains. Real brand success goes beyond the
reiteration of a funny punch line. The “Stay Smart” messaging does not reinforce the
brand as a tangible option for the customer. The humor, in this case, actually
creates distance between the brand and the customer.

Overall, Holiday Inn is all about quality for a sensible price, and Holiday Inn Express
can make that message work as well. Holiday Inn Express needs to convey this
message with a little more honesty and customer perspective in order to own real
estate in the mind of the customer looking for reasonable hotel accommodations. In
short, “smart” needs to be more about intelligence of the customer than the
cleverness of the business and its agency.

Molly Sunderdick
Brand Strategist
Stealing Share, Inc

Tags: brand, branding, destination, holiday, hotel, inn, market, motel, share, strategy, tourism, travel, travelingbrand, branding, destination, holiday, hotel, inn, market, motel, share, strategy, tourism, travel, traveling

Share This

• Leave a comment... (0)

Branding Today

Have you ever had a good brand experience? How about a bad brand experience? Is there a difference in your mind? How many people do you tell about a positive brand experience? How about for a poor brand experience?

One poor brand experience will not destroy a firm. One poor brand experience per day, however, can ruin a company in the long run for sure. It’s really easy math. If one person receives a poor experience with a brand, they might tell 10 people. At 365 days a year that’s over 4000 people per year. Yikes! Not good at all.

So, how can your employees protect your brand everyday?

It all depends on delivering your internal brand and training. Not only do you have to train employees on customer service issues but also they must know how to deal with a customer that is upset or has a problem.

Let me give you an example. I purchased some artwork on a Carnival Cruise. Upon purchase from the vendor (not from Carnival Cruise itself) I requested custom frames. The vendor, Park West took my order and informed me that it would be 6-8 weeks for delivery.

10 weeks later I called Park West. They told me it shipped. I received my artwork 3 weeks late. I was so excited and I ripped the packaging away only to find they did not put on the custom frames. I waited 10 weeks for nothing.

I called Park West immediately. Guess what? I was going to have to wait another 6-8 weeks for the correct replacement. I asked for a refund and a pick up of the incorrect artwork. They denied me and said it was a final sale.

I called my credit card company. Guess what? The charge went through my Carnival Cruise account. I called them. Guess what? They would not help me, as it’s a third party vendor. This is a third party vendor that Carnival Cruise has partnered with.

Did I mention that this was my 19th Carnival Cruise?

Long story short I had to pay to ship my artwork back and my credit card company took care of me.

I will never take another Carnival Cruise again.

How could Carnival save itself from losing me as a customer? It’s really quite simple. Ultimately because the charge went through Carnival they needed to take responsibility. They should have said you’re a valued guest and we will credit you immediately. At that point I’m thinking wow, Carnival is even better than I thought. But instead I’m writing this article and never ever going on another cruise with them.

Carnival could have saved the brand. If they had gone the extra mile to put themselves in my shoes, I would have had a positive brand experience. I would have used Carnival again, and I would have probably told everyone I know how great there service was.
Developing a proper internal brand strategy and training is the key to delivering a positive brand experience. Don’t make stupid mistakes with your brand.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm in Boston, MA.

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

This Article may be freely copied as long as it is not modified and this resource box accompanies the article, together with working hyperlinks.

Over the course of his 15-year branding career, Scott White has worked in a wide variety of industries: high-tech, manufacturing, computer hardware and software, telecommunications, banking, restaurants, fashion, healthcare, Internet, retail, and service businesses, as well as numerous non-profit organizations.

Brand Identity Guru clients include: Sun Life Financial, Coca Cola, HP, Sun, Nordstrom, American Federal Mortgage, Franklin Sports and many others, including numerous emerging growth companies.

Tags: brand, brand identity, brand image, brand strategy, brand strength, brand value, brandingbrand, brand identity, brand image, brand strategy, brand strength, brand value, branding

Share This

• Leave a comment... (0)