How to decode a brand’s DNA?

A presentation by Tannistho tannistho@gmail.com

Who is this presentation for?

If you are a seasoned marketer, you can happily skip the slides. This presentation will be of use to small business

owners, independent professionals and students who are taking up marketing as a field of study or practice.

What is a Brand DNA

Brand DNA refers to the distinctiveness, novelty and attributes of a brand. It is what helps the brand stand out, create its own set of brand communities, and drive emotional attachments in a crowded marketplace.

Why do you need a brand DNA

• As a marketer your intention is to reach out to the people who will benefit from your product or services the most and to create an emotional connection with them.

• Your brand DNA will help you create your strategy for making this connection possible.

So, how do you go about identifying the DNA of your brand?

When you started out…

• … your product or service had a mission. You did not just want to create another product… you wanted that product or service to solve a human problem or create a human impact.

For instance…

• Starbucks had the mission ‘ to inspire and nurture the human spirit, one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time’.

For instance…

• Coca Cola wants to ‘refresh the world, inspire optimism and happiness, create value and make a difference…”

For instance…

• BMW wants to provide, ‘sheer driving pleasure, sporting and dynamic performance combined with superb design and exclusive quality’.

So, what’s your mission for your service/product?

You can answer this by asking:

a. What do you want to change in the world?

b. How do you want your product/service to help you change it?

Ok, so you’ve created your mission… now what?

Take a piece of paper and create the following columns

ATTRIBUTES DISTINCTIVENESS NOVELTY

Once, you are done

• Write down the key attributes of your product/service under the attributes column. For example, on-time delivery, competitive pricing, superb packaging, personalised message with each package, etc.

• Your attributes should support your mission.

• Your attributes should be detailed and exhaustive. It is a list of ‘what does your product or service do’ and ‘how does your product or service do it’.

What’s distinctive about your attributes?

• When you list your attributes you will realise that you are not the only one who’s offering these services. Your competitors are also doing the same. So, what’s distinctive about your product/service?

• You might re-look at your product/service now and see if you can add something that’s distinctive. For example, instead of on-time delivery you probably reach five minutes before. So you actually do before time delivery. This is an example of distinctiveness.

Now, you go about creating your novelty…

• So, you have listed your distinctiveness.

• So to arrive at your novelty, you rank each of your distinctive characteristics in a rank. Rank from 10 to 1. The least distinctive gets a 10, the most distinctive gets a 1.

• List out the 1, 2 and 3 characteristics in your novelty column.,

So, now with your listed novelty you have created your brand’s DNA.

Now, test out the points 1, 2 and 3 that you have arrived at with test users of your product and service. Test users will be representative

Not all 3 might be accepted in the same way, but this test will tell you how your brand is going to work with the consumers and what

are the changes that you might need to do.

You can now…

Create your brand communication around the

novelties that you have listed on your DNA structure.

Hope it helps folks!