Once a brand becomes a liability, it has no value, no market, and no future.
Take a look at some of the ways brand assets become financial assets…
• An authentic brand is the most efficient path to overcoming consumers objections and closing sales. A powerful brand, in fact, pre-sells. Cleverly branded products sell themselves. Products with colorless, indistinctive brand identities must rely on constant promotions to thrive—or for that matter, even survive.
• Authenticity is a secret propelling force: An authentic brand boosts marketing momentum through word of mouth (a.k.a. buzz), which, in the new economy, can make or break a brand. If everyone is talking about you, then you don’t have to spend as much money to promote yourself.
• An authentic brand should be an asset, aesthetically, for aesthetic assets impact financial assets. Aesthetics matter, from the brand icon/logo to product design and product packaging. Distinctive strategic design can propel a brand to exciting new heights. Aesthetics can be so powerful that they come to define a brand. Aesthetics, in fact, are so powerful that they can turn a common commodity product into a premium product, as in the Mini Cooper or Apple’s desktop and laptop computers.
• An authentic brand is the most powerful up-pricing strategy around. Consumers will pay a premium for the brand on the label if they believe the brand to be premium.
• An authentic brand is a strategic partner magnet. Build a powerful brand and other companies will flock to you because they will believe that lending your name to their products helps guarantee their success. Authentic brands attract lots of new friends and keep the old ones.
• An authentic brand builds affinity and future sales. Once customers experience the quality of one product sold under your company brand, they will be naturally inclined to buy future products from you, even when faced with keenly competitive products.
• An authentic brand builds customer loyalty. Customer loyalty in today’s fickle marketplace is rare and valuable. There are, in the end, four classes of consumers: prospects, customers, loyal customers, and former customers. It is no secret that it is cheaper, faster, and easier to keep an existing customer than it is to attract a new one.
• An authentic brand is equity, should you someday decide to sell your company. Personnel may change, geography may change, markets may change—an authentic brand does not.
• An authentic brand has clear intention that can be measured by clear results: brand value, profits, and equity. In the end, business is always about results.
Convinced yet? Want an authentic brand of your own? Let’s get started…