BRANDING 101: ELEMENTARY BUT NOT EASY

PRESENTED BY KATIE FETTING OF TEAMWORKS MEDIA

But first…

Who is Katie Fetting?

• The Director of Client Partnerships for TWM

• Someone obsessed with branding

• The person giving this presentation

As Director of Client Partnerships I provide:

• Strategic guidance

• A daily point of contact

• A fall-guy for anything that goes wrong

Background

• I’m a marketer by way of moviemaking

– In Hollywood, I sold a number of scripts, two of which were produced into movies starring the famous actresses Elizabeth Hurley and Mischa Barton – unfortunately they aren’t famous for acting

• Worked on brands like Autoweek, David’s Bridal and Zillow

But enough about me

Let’s talk about branding

What does this animal make you think of?

This font?

This pattern?

This mustache?

Branding is the reason you can identify these things

But why should you care?

Branding is everywhere in our lives…

From the reason you choose one TV provider over another to why you’ll buy Advil over generic ibuprofen.

We all have a brand(whether we know it or not)

Leonardo DiCaprio has a brand

He’s handsome, tortured, talented…

He made his brand on Titanic, so whether or not he likes it, he’s a heart-throb…

This image is why they pay him the millions.

It’s what the people want.

What they don’t want is…

That isn’t the suave, hot Leo we know and love. This is a bizarre man-boy who

isn’t living up to his pin-up promise.

People aren’t throwing down cash to see this version of Leo – at least his core

fan-girls aren’t because…

A brand is a promise of an experience

And it’s repeatable.

When you buy a Coke you expect a certain experience –brown in color, a familiar taste, a familiar smell, carbonation.

The brand experience is the payoff of that promise

If my Coke comes out green – even if every other factor is the same – we have a problem.

Because…

When the promise and experience don’t match, your brand suffers

≠

Let’s look at someone like Cate Blanchett. Her brand is associated with:

Good actingQuality filmmaking

Engaging storiesHigh-level directors and castmates

Benjamin Button, Blue Jasmine, Elizabeth…

So why do we get so annoyed when she makes Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?

Her brand promise doesn’t match that particular brand experience.

We expect the film to be good. We expect her to be good in it. When it’s not and she’s not, we’re disappointed.

So why don’t we care when Adam Sandler makes a crap movie?

Because we expect it to be bad.

Applying this TO YOU aka Steps You Can Take

Step 1: Identify…

• Constituencies / stakeholders• Communication touchpoints• Competitors in space

Step 2: Discover your brand

• Not what you think it is, but what it actually is

You do that by…

• Interviews with stakeholders• Interviews with strangers• A Google search• Looking at social media & press

coverage

Step 3: ID your ‘vision state’

• In a perfect world, what do you want people to say, feel, think about you?

Does your actual brand match your perfect brand?

?

If not, the gap between the two shows you where the branding

work needs to be done.

That work could be…

• Targeted content• A new ‘look’• Better message articulation• Increased public presence

Targeted content

Look at what influencers and participants are hearing from you and see if you need to adjust or create original content to directly appeal to those constituencies.

A new ‘look’

This is where visuals come into play… brand is not all about a logo, but how people feel about your visuals matters – are they clear? Are they unique? Do they feel current? Are they consistent?

Better message articulation

Does everyone internally and externally know what you’re about?

Increased public presence

Maybe you’re doing all of this right but dropping the ball at the 1 yard line when it comes to promotion. If a tree falls in the woods…? Who cares if you can’t hear it.

And ask yourself another question

Does your actual product or service experience pay off your

brand promise?

?

No? Then you need to evaluate where your system is breaking

down between the actual and the promise

To borrow the parlance of the last presidential election, don’t put lipstick on a pig.

If your core offering is bad – and if it doesn’t match up with your brand’s promise – none of

this will matter.

Marketing can get anyone to try something once… but if what they buy – or buy into – is

bad, that’s not a branding problem. That’s an offering problem.

Don’t pretend you’re Cate Blanchett and pay off like

Adam Sandler.

But what if I don’t have a brand at all?

How do I get one????

What if no one knows anything about me at all?

Exercise 1: Personality

This is a design questionnaire that has disparate values on a continuum… use this as an exercise in how you want to be perceived.

(This one is actually filled out for my company, TeamWorks.)

Exercise 2: Point of differentiation

We all think we’re special, but what makes you special to people

who aren’t your mom?

Insider bias: we all have it, but we need to break out of it. We live this stuff every day so we tend to think it’s more intuitive and interesting to the common person than it actually is.

To get to your point of differentiation, you need to think about what your target would find best about you – not what you do.

And don’t say your point of differentiation is something everyone claims like “good service.”

Exercise 3: Competition

Do it different and / or do it better

Key takeaways

1. Brand is more than a logo2. Think holistically3. Be patient – building a brand

takes time

Thank you for listeningQuestions?

Learn more at www.teamworksmedia.com