Welcome to Branding Bootcamp !

1. Welcome to Branding Bootcamp! Maria Ross July 2012

2. WEEK 2: BUILDING YOUR BRAND STRATEGY • IDENTIFY your ideal audience • ASSESS your strengths and weaknesses • ARTICULATE your brand attributes, tone and personality • LEARN a new way to look at competition • LEARN what a “creative wrapper” is and how to use it.

3. WHO AND WHERE IS YOUR AUDIENCE? This is the single most important aspect to a strong Brand Strategy. If you don’t know your audiences intimately and make them real, you’ll be shooting at a moving target. Think about ideal, not average. Defining this also helps with your pricing and packaging, and helps you ensure that what you offer appeals to your ideal customer. PS: If you sell through others, than those businesses are also an “audience” to whom you need to speak. You might sell to anyone who wants to buy (or not!) Who are you going to spend your time, energy and money to proactively attract? Who is your “bullseye?”These are the people for whom you need to design and write. You need to speak TO THEM.

4. CASTING CALL! You are a Hollywood casting agent, and you get to pick your ideal customer from thousands of hopefuls for your “movie” (business). You may still cast others as “extras” but if there was one or two stars, who would they be? Imagine this person in your mind, or use an existing customer you love as an example. Create a detailed character sketch of this person. As a small biz, you’ll want to have no more than 2-3 ideal segments.

5. CASTING CALL: CUSTOMER PROFILE #1

6. EXAMPLE “PLATE SPINNER” Cheryl is a 40 year-old married woman with two kids, ages 4 and 7. She’s a career gal and had kids later in life. She is vice president at a bank and her husband is a senior financial planner at an investment firm. Cheryl lives in Evanston, Illinois and she and her husband both commute into Chicago for their jobs. Their household income is $300,000. Cheryl is an intellectual and reads The New Yorker and tries to read Jonathan Franzen books. She does not get enough sleep and drinks coffee all day long. They don’t have a nanny or au pair as they are fairly traditional, but they do have daycare after school. Housework is the number one thing she and her husband fight about – Cheryl does the lion’s share of it, but husband will only do his share when asked. They really need to hire a cleaning lady but that hasn’t happened. She watches the Daily Show and the Colbert Report and leaves MSNBC on for background noise. Cheryl will go to NYT.com, Salon.com, Slate.com – she’s a news junkie. But she’s also a self-help junkie – loves to read about new diets and ways to better herself. She likes Dr. Oz and Sanjay Gupta – those who offer more practical self-help advice rather than just woo woo. Cheryl is also Type A, but in trying to be Superwoman. She’s constantly looking for ways to improve herself because she striving for perfection and doesn’t think she’s up to snuff – that’s her fear, that’s she’s not good enough in ALL areas of her life. She’s spinning a ton of plates and if one falls, she’s doomed. DRIVERS: Needs more hours in the day, practical tips, structure, time management, organization, validation at home, time for relaxation and self-care, career success, rewards and acknowledgement. “Superwoman guilt.”

7. WHAT ARE YOUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES? Your brand communications should play to your overall strengths and downplay or address your weaknesses, turning them into positives. You should address: “What unique things can your business offer? What compelling assets, skills or connections do you have? What does your business really have going for it? Where is your business vulnerable? Where do you fall down against the competition? You can play up your strengths in design, copy and touting certain benefits to your customers. For example, a great location is a strength and the lack of a strong community network to promote your business is a weakness. In some cases, the same item might be both a strength and a weakness.

8. YOUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES These are your corporate strengths and weaknesses. What do you have in your arsenal from which to draw? Think of your business as a whole not necessarily product by product (unless there is a unique angle). Also consider your own personal strengths and weaknesses (networks, connections, experience, etc.)

9. WHAT ARE YOUR BRAND’S EMOTIONS AND ADJECTIVES? What do you want people to associate your company with, or “think of” when they hear your name or see your logo? These are also known as “brand attributes.” Think of pictures, images, adjectives, famous people, locations, personality traits. You might want to leverage the brands of people, characters, or locations for your description. As an example, in describing a brand as “Audrey Hepburn”, you would instantly get the picture of grace, femininity, elegance, and beauty without explicitly stating that. What images come to mind when you think of “New York City” as opposed to “New Orleans”? This is a huge help to designers and writers in understanding your brand personality, tone and voice.

10. BRAND ATTRIBUTE EXAMPLES

11. YOUR BRAND PERSONALITY Think of pictures, images, adjectives, famous people, locations, personality traits. Brainstorm to create a list of all the adjectives, images, or emotions around your brand (the “brand attributes”) that come to mind first, and then trim the list until you have the 3-5 most important ones.

12. WHO IS YOUR COMPETITION AND WHY ARE YOU DIFFERENT? Your brand should clearly address how you’re different and why customers should come to you instead. Branding is all about differentiating your business from the other options customers have and find the “whitespace” you can claim in the market. Knowing what you’re up against will help you craft your message so you can clearly and concisely state why you’re the best alternative. What competes for your time and money? May not be a “direct” competitor – i.e., do it themselves, alternative use of discretionary funds, etc. How are you different from each of them? What is your unique differentiator?

13. YOUR COMPETITION For each competitor (direct or indirect), list bullet points of their positioning and what they provide. Be brief. Then, list why your business is better/different. For this exercise, we can start to look back on the other questions we’ve answered so far, such as benefits and strengths.

14. CREATIVE WRAPPER A unique, compelling and memorable device to communicate your brand. Gives the brand “legs” in design, copy and communications – even offering names. Don’t force it! Therein lies the path to an inauthentic brand – or cheesiness.

15. EXAMPLES • www.TheGalahads.com • www.majormom.biz • www.red-slice.com

16. WEEK 2 HOMEPLAY • Create your ideal customer profiles and narratives • Assess your strengths and weaknesses and how you might play them up or down with your brand messaging • Narrow down 5-7 brand attributes that descriptively evoke your brand look and voice • Identify your 3-5 main competitors and how you are different and a better alternative • Brainstorm creative wrapper concepts, based on all of the above!