Brand management is a philosophy and a total approach to managing companies, and as such includes much about changing minds. Articles about brand here are:
• Brand management is: not as easy as it looks.
• Brand is: a perception, and more.
• The Tao of Branding: metaphysics and brands
• The Pathway to Reputation: is long and twisting.
• Types of brand: From Product to Geography.
Brand management is: not as easy as it looks.
The total approach
Brand management starts with understanding what 'brand' really means. This starts with the leaders of the company who define the brand and control its management. It also reaches all the way down the company and especially to the people who interface with customers or who create the products which customers use.
Brand management performed to its full extent means starting and ending the management of the whole company through the brand. It is simply far too important to leave to the marketing department. The CEO should be (and, in fact, always is) the brand leader of the company.
Creating the promise
Creating the promise means defining the brand. A good brand promise is memorable and desirable. It cannot be effective if nobody remembers it, and is no good either if nobody wants it!
A good brand promise evokes feelings, because feelings drive actions. Volvo offers feelings of safety. Mustang offers feelings of excitement.
The promise must be unique and identified with you alone. Within an industry, promises can be very close, but if you want any hope of success, you must stake out the very specific territory of your promise and know clearly how it is different from the promises of other firms.
The right promise is not just something you make up on a Friday afternoon. ...