Hiring a brand identity company is very important. In every marketing campaign, your company should have a solid brand identity on which to hang its hat. Over time, no matter what your ad at the moment says, your brand identity will be the thing people remember and what that gets them to call you when a need arises. Unsure about your brand identity? Then you should consider hiring a brand identity company.

Your brand identity is something you should solidify before you ever embark on a marketing campaign. If you hire a brand identity company they’ll make sure your brand identity is ready for the light of day and that you won’t have to change it three months later when your business grows. Changing a lot confuses people. As a brand identity company, we’ve seen strong companies become underachieving companies simply because their brand wasn’t solidly defined from the start. If you hire a brand identity company, they guarantee that won’t happen. If you hire a brand identity company, you will have a brand that people recognize and know on first glance. Anything else you say on top of that will be gravy.

This is how a brand identity company can help you:

- Deciding what you want to say to your customers.

- Designing a logo that represents your company. This is one of the most important parts of your brand identity. How do you give it life and personality?

- A brand identity company will help you design your biz cards, letterhead, advertisements, and websites. These should each be consistently designed in a way that reflects the brand image you’ve chosen to put out there.

- A brand identity company will also help you develop a tag line, a catch phrase that provides further definition and personality to your company (like BMW’s “The Ultimate Driving Machine.”)

Above all, the most important aspect of your brand identity is to keep it consistent. If you hire a brand identity company they’ll ensure yours is.

Beyond your logo and tagline, the messages you send in your marketing and advertising communications can either support or detract from your brand. A brand identity company will ensure these things work hard to support it.

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.

Developing brand strategy is extremely critical. The most important asset your company has is its brand. Quite simply, for better or worse, it drives the direction of your business. You should definitely have a well thought out brand strategy in place. Unfortunately, too many companies don’t have a brand strategy, or have an inconsistent brand strategy. A brand strategy company should realize there’s probably a good reason you may not be paying attention to your brand strategy—you’re busy running your business.

What you don’t realize is that a proper brand strategy can make running your business easier and more profitable. A brand strategy is truly powerful, and a brand strategy company should be ready to help you find and develop the right brand strategy for your company.

Just how important is it that you hire someone who understands what makes a solid brand strategy? Consider this. Say you want to remodel your kitchen. If you were to do it yourself with no prior experience, it would take a lot of time and a lot of trial and error to get it right. That’s why it’s a better idea to hire a good contractor to get the job done right the first time and on budget. The same is true for brand strategy.

Creating the right brand strategy for your business requires research and a great deal of thought on how to creatively execute a brand strategy that captivates your audience. Then, it takes a talented group of creative branding strategy gurus to execute it. A branding company should be ready to be your “contractor” and develop a brand strategy that works for your business.

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.

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 world…your 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:

· Brand Audit (internal and external)

· Constituency Audits and Benchmarking

· Competitive Analysis

· Target Market Research

· Positioning Assessment

· Brand Valuation/Benchmarking

· Brand Analysis

· Constituency Analysis

Brand Strategy

· Brand Architecture (blue print)

· Brand Nomenclature & Covenants

· Naming Research, Testing and Strategy

· Employee Mindset Shift

Brand Communications

· Core Messaging/Value Proposition

· Communications Strategy & Planning

· Communications Standards

· Web strategy and development

· Corporate Communications / Investor Relations

· Constituency Communications:

* Recruitment

* Human Resources

* Investors & Analysts

* Industry Experts and Peers

* Corporate Staff

* Clients

* Customers

* Partners

* Media

· Brand Roll-out

· Brand Books/Style Guide & Manuals

· Advertising Design & Implementation

· Logo Design & Identity Design

· Packaging Design

· Collateral /Signage Design

Consider hiring a branding company offering complete marketing solutions with a proven approach who’s offerings include strategy planning, creative services, target market research, collateral creation along with graphic design and production and placing services for all types of media, web design and interactive.

Hiring a Brand Identity Team:

Consider a balanced group of innovative and results-driven professionals who have developed some of the world’s leading brands and managed and evolved them as needed through the good times and bad times. They’ll understand the challenges their clients face and are uniquely equipped to meet them with the best possible strategies. They’re a close-knit group with both the creative and strategic leadership and know-how to make your branding, advertising and marketing efforts more successful than you thought possible.

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.

Having a brand image is not a “have or have not” proposition. Everyone has one. The problem is that you might have more than one brand image, depending on whom you ask. You know yourself, but depending on whom you talk to, others may think you’re something completely different. That’s when a brand image company can help. You need to consider hiring a brand image company that identifies your most powerful brand image and then works to make it your only brand image. The phrase “brand image” gained notoriety when sales patterns began to show that feelings and visuals associated with brands were powerful motivators to purchase products. It isn’t just products that consumers buy. It’s their associated personalities and values.

People like people who are like them and value the things they value. The same goes for brands. People will buy products whose brands represent things they value and like, whether it’s fun, power, money, intelligence or numerous other qualities. Sometimes, a brand can be powerfully focused when it’s associated with an actual person who has the same type of attributes with which a company is trying to brand a product, such as, for instance, Chunky Soup and Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb: hearty, strong and reliable.

Great brand images are instant, positive and unique among competitors. Brand images can be reinforced through such vehicles as packaging, ads, promotions, customer service and word-of-mouth.

Good brand images are easy to see. Volvo is a good one. Immediately you think “safety.” That’s a brand image. A weak brand image, on the other hand, elicits a slower and less certain reaction. What does GM stand for? Who knows? But GM has a few strong sub-brands. Everyone knows what a Corvette is about…HIGH-SPEED FUN!

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.

The world is not waiting for you…or your product or service. Or your firm. Or your firm’s message. They’re getting along just fine without you. Until you give them a reason to think otherwise, it’ll continue that way. This isn’t news, though. That’s why you advertise and market. But so does every other business out there. What are the chances you’ll be noticed? Almost nil. Unless…

Unless you cause a disruption.

Unless you physically grab the hair on their heads and forcibly jerk them to notice how great you are. Okay, maybe contracting “marketing thugs” on street corners to assault people in the name of your message might get you in trouble (you’d get UNBELIEVABLE press though!). But we think it’s possible to achieve the same result with a fresh and unique branding and marketing strategy that breaks up the drone of everyday life for your market, and gets them to listen.

You need to consider hiring a branding company or a branding consultant who can differentiate you in the marketplace- that makes a difference. No matter how exciting or dull you may believe your company is, brand professionals have proven time and time again that they can produce convention-smashing branding, marketing and advertising efforts, no matter the challenge. Whether that takes the form of reinventing your brand identity and brand image or reworking internal and external communications, including websites, trade/consumer ads, annual reports, trade show exhibits, brochures, sell sheets, training videos, newsletters and press releases, brand professionals can pull your company out of the cluttered background and make it stand tall above your competitors in the marketplace.

What you’ll get working with a branding professional…

· Someone who puts your needs ahead of our own.

· Highly skilled professionals with passion and dedication to helping you succeed.

· Someone who wants to become a trusted long-term partner for your company and will work hard for the opportunity.

But most importantly, someone who knows how to unlock the potential in your company to attract new customers, gain market share, increase profits or motivate and align the internal side of your company to work better. Total brand equity!

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.

Consumers perceive and accept many brands within a certain trade group in different ways. By personifying a brand (How would you describe brand X if it were a person?) we can find out, that for instance consumers perceive brand A as a young, impulsive, lively, attractive, energetic woman full of ideas. In the same way could brand B be an elderly, conservative and relaxed man. The brand can also have a completely inexpressive and bad image. That is how brand C may not have any real personal characteristics, slim, tall, unnoticeable and calm.

The image basically expresses a way a consumer thinks about the brand and the feelings the brand arouses when the consumer thinks about it. On the basis of these characteristics, which the consumer associates with the brand, the company can build a competitive advantage for its brand.

What sort of image should our brand have?

Before answering this question it is important to take into account several factors and market circumstances: company goals, consumer wishes and expectations, trade groups and several other groups. A company builds its brand image through trade communication with its consumers. That is how a company informs the consumer of what the brand represents, what its values are, what the company is offering or guaranteeing the consumer, what its advantages are, its qualities etc. The consumers interpret all obtained information and form a subjective perception of the brand or its image.

Why research the brand image?

Understanding a brand image is of key importance to long-term management of a brand. It is also important how the consumers formed the brand and what kind of relationship was formed with the brand - what the brand means to them and how they have accepted it. Understanding the relationship between consumers and brands can help a company control its successful brand positioning and the efficiency of advertising.

How do we research the image?

The brand image is formed in the long-term and represents a non-conscious and "untouchable" area, which needs to be researched using projective researching methods that help the consumer to overcome certain obstacles and limitations as well helping him to be inspired in the world of brand names. The consumer does therefore not only focus on the brand, but mainly on his experience with it and on its usual users. He focuses on the opportunities, which are most suitable for the specific brand and what sort of image the brand presents etc.

We are able to research and describe the brand from various perspectives. We obtain many different associations, ideas, benefits and people whom the consumer in some way connects to brands, which need to be suitably and correctly interpreted. It is important to define the key characteristics and values, which are connected to a specific brand by the consumer. Relevant findings show results of long-term management of a brand and represent key dimensions on which the competitive advantage of a brand is based.

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.

Branding Services is a tactic that marketing executives and managers should not only understand, but also employ. Branding services helps your company clearly position your company over your competition by branding your product/service in the minds of your target markets. This helps build brand identity, brand image and overall brand equity.

Once you build brand recognition with your products/services with your company, you’re destined to establish total brand equity. Think about safe cars - there are thousands of vehicles to choose from for a safe car, but isn’t the first name you think of Volvo? This is because they have done a great job of branding services.

Once you’ve established a strong brand image then your customers will keep coming back over and over. You’ll be able to do this with the proper branding strategy. A Branding consultant, can help you discover the correct way to establish your brand and receive the best ROI.

Marketing and advertising alone will not catapult you over your competition. What does that is branding services consultant. They can help you position and differentiate your business.

They can help you develop the proper branding strategy, web design and marketing efforts to increase your business. It can be anything from helping you redesign your web site, develop ads, re-position your company or develop a direct mail campaign.

One of the most important things you can do for your firm is to find branding consultants who will know your industry and provide expert objective advise. Branding services is a tough task and an expert can bring you to the next level.

So, take a good look at the kind of business you are doing. Is your company’s brand strong enough? If not, then perhaps it’s time to start thinking about branding services.

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.

It is important to distinguish between corporate identity, brand identity, and brand image. Corporate identity is concerned with the visual aspects of a company’s presence. When companies undertake corporate identity exercises, they are usually modernizing their visual image in terms of logo, design, and collaterals. Such efforts do not normally entail a change in brand values so that the heart of the brand remains the same - what it stands for, or its personality.

Unfortunately, many companies do not realize this fallacy, as they are sometimes led to believe by agencies and consultancy companies that the visual changes will change the brand image. But changes to logos, signage, and even outlet design do not always change consumer perceptions of quality, service, and the intangible associations that come to the fore when the brand name is seen or heard.

The best that such changes can do is to reassure consumers that the company is concerned about how it looks. Brands do have to maintain a modern look, and the visual identity needs to change over time. But the key to successfully affecting a new look is evolution, not revolution. Totally changing the brand visuals can give rise to consumer concerns about changes of ownership, or possible changes in brand values, or even unjustified extravagance. If there is a strong brand personality to which consumers are attracted, then substantial changes may destroy emotional attachments to the brand. People do not expect or like wild swings in the personality behavior of other people, and they are just as concerned when the brands to which they have grown used exhibit similar "schizophrenic" changes.

On the other hand, if the intention is to substantially improve the standing of the brand, then corporate identity changes can be accompanied by widespread changes to organizational culture, quality, and service standards. If done well, and if consumers experience a great new or improved experience, then the changes will, over the longer term, have a corresponding positive effect on brand image. If you are spending a vast amount of money on corporate identity, it is as well to remember this. Brand identity is the total proposition that a company makes to consumers - the promise it makes. It may consist of features and attributes, benefits, performance, quality, service support, and the values that the brand possesses.

The brand can be viewed as a product, a personality, a set of values, and a position it occupies in people’s minds. Brand identity is everything the company wants the brand to be seen as.

Brand image, on the other hand, is the totality of consumer perceptions about the brand, or how they see it, which may not coincide with the brand identity. Companies have to work hard on the consumer experience to make sure that what customers see and think is what they want them to.

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.

Where is your brand positioned in the marketplace? How is it perceived, both positively and negatively? Can you identify your brand’s core strength’s and equities? What are the barriers or threats standing in the way? A brand strategy company will provide you with an objective assessment of your brand.

They can deliver specific solutions that will allow you to reach your strategic business goals and objectives, and clearly differentiate your brand and identity in the marketplace. Contact a branding company and they’ll explore how they can help you develop a "BrandMasterpiece" branding and positioning strategy.

Many clients have the mistaken idea that they can’t brand their company because it is too expensive. In fact, a smaller business can build a very strong brand in their sales area by being uniform in their image and message through a proactive and consistent campaign.

Corporate image and branding are strongly connected. In order for the brand to work effectively, the correct colors, font and design must be used in your corporate identity. It is not enough to say I need my logo to be blue; it’s knowing what shade of blue, out of the 1000’s to choose from. Remember your corporate identity is designed to attract your target markets, as well as represent your company.

Why Positioning

When people ask a branding company what exactly is it that they do, they unhesitatingly answer, “positioning”. While they also perform other marketing-oriented activities for their clients, their philosophy is that the entire marketing mix hinges upon good positioning. If the client’s product hasn’t been positioned properly, it will fail. Period.

The strategies, tactics, messages, and creative are all directly dependent upon the development of appropriate positioning. Unsound positioning will weaken each of these endeavors and yet it’s probably the least understood and most neglected of marketing activities. Many brand positions are hurriedly crafted by committee to placate management with obvious results. A landmark article by HCI once pointed out that fully 70% of new product positions mimic that of an established brand in the therapeutic category. That’s not typically a formula for success.

A branding company believes that good positioning is born of thorough market and product understanding. Only then can a diligent, proven process craft the positioning that will drive proper strategic, tactical, and creative work.

Positioning Design

Positioning is arguably the most important and yet the most difficult responsibility of the marketing professional. That may be why a branding company’s most popular service is a positioning design process. This unique, process makes use of a rigorous developmental methodology that designs brand positioning, and is quantitatively proven to create a positive product perception and generate incremental new prescriptions.

Whether it’s a new product requiring positioning developed from scratch or an under-performing product needing re-positioning, a branding company can enhance your product’s performance.

A branding company utilizes a disciplined, proven process to engineer an optimal brand positioning and an actionable communications blueprint. The process is broken down into three distinct phases: Surveying, Design and Engineering, and Brand Blueprint.

Researching Phase

The Researching phase includes the development of the initial strategic assessment based on an evaluation of the currently available information regarding the product, audience, and marketplace. This phase also includes recommendations for additional market research and exploration. The Researching activities include, but are not limited to:

· Qualitative evaluation and situation analysis

· Product and market differentiation

· Customer segmentation, needs and problem analysis

Qualitative / quantitative research and analysis

Strategic Phase

A branding company should believe that strategy, message, and tactics all flow from a well-structured positioning. In the Strategic phase, positioning development, evaluation, and testing lead to the formulation of an effective strategic framework for the Brand. Only with a thorough understanding of that brand positioning, can key messages for offline as well as online delivery be crafted and evaluated. The Strategic phase activities include, but are not limited to:

· Positioning workshops and option development

· Strategy creation, mapping, and metrics

· Attribute articulation / messaging

Blueprint

The Blueprint is a unifying document that provides strict guidance on the tactical application of the strategy and positioning to the full cadre of outsource communications partners (i.e., professional and consumer promotional agencies, public relations, publication planning, e-promotion resources, etc.) A primary goal of the Blueprint is to ensure consistent, cohesive, and synergistic promotion for the Brand across all tactics and media. The Blueprint:

· Creates appropriate relationship between science & marketing

· Increases cohesiveness of internal and external teams

· Is a focusing tool for tactical partners

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.

Today, in many organizations around the world, branding is treated as a cosmetic exercise only, and regarded merely as a new name, logo, stationary and possibly a new advertising campaign. But, to associate your “brand” with such superficial cosmetics is like saying that people are really only the sum of their name, face and sometimes their clothing

But branding is a thoughtful discipline that strongly belongs to the long-term strategy of an organization; brand strategy is, or should be, business strategy, and vice versa.

Smart Branding is about having a clear point of view on what an organization is about and how it can deliver a thoughtful and unique experience to its customers. Then, the execution is about organizing all products, services, and corporate operations around the customer, to close the gap between the promised and the delivered brand experience.

For example, Staples, an office-supply retailer in the US, aims at making the purchasing experience easy, as communicated in its trademarked slogan "that was easy." In practice, it may mean training the front-line personnel in customer service processes (e.g., how to minimize issues during check-out), designing the website for instant product reviews and actual delivery time, and scheduling fast delivery of orders and pick-up of returns. All those organizational aspects thus reinforce each other and converge to the same strategic objective.

Approach branding as a business strategy, is to view how all products, services and interactions with the consumer under the brand name become building blocks of bedrock of trust derived from their customers’ experience; For instance the iExperience that the iFamily of Apples’ iProducts deliver to its iFanatics.

To be successful, Smart Branding has to be seen as an important part of the corporate strategy, something that will deeply influence the entire organization. That’s why Smart Branding initiatives need to be aimed not only to the external costumer but also has to be directed to the inside of the organization, transforming the figure of the CEO into the brand champion who drives the brand and everyone in the organization; Think Howard Schultz, Steve Jobs or Richard Branson

To truly become and act as The Brand champions, CEO’s need to take all their decisions based on three premises:

1. The brand is the most important organization asset

2. The most important source of income is the customer, and

3. Branding is about business planning.

These three premises will help CEO’s follow the most important rule of the marketing game: If you don’t sell, you aren’t in business.

This CEO level approach to branding, allows brands to have an aided recognition that can result in premium pricing and extension opportunities, which ultimately will increase customers’ loyalty. It also provides management tangible metrics to assess initiatives, which eventually can be transformed into tangible brand equities.

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.