Why worry about branding? / Gen-Y drives foodservice
trend /
The vanishing holiday bonus / Brands and brainwaves
WHY WORRY ABOUT BRANDING?
Why should we have to concern ourselves with branding, anyway? Isn’t
branding mostly fluff — soft stuff that doesn’t
really affect the bottom line? Shouldn’t we be working on more
important things, like sales and marketing and communications?
Yes, of course we should always be concerned with sales and marketing and communications — and we should be concerned with branding only if we’re concerned with our reputation and all that’s associated with it. Here’s how AOL’s Robert Friedman puts it:
“. . . in the truest sense, the synonym for brand is ‘reputation.’ It’s the power of a blend of ideas, a sense of identity, and it helps consumers make decisions in a crowded marketplace.”
If your brand is your reputation — whether it’s the brand of your organization, a product or service brand, a brand of an internal department or initiative, or a branded event — it’s pretty clear that you’ll want to be concerned with shaping it, isn’t it?
Listen also to what Danielle Blumenthal, Ph.D., has to say in her book, Blumenthal on Branding:
“Branding the organization is inevitable . . . Simply by virtue of existing and interacting with others, the organization is branding itself. Therefore, branding is going to happen whether the process is managed or not. The choice is only whether to approach the brand proactively, or ignore and deny it and hope that the issue goes away.”
Guess what? The issue never goes away.
If anyone interacts with your organization, product, or service, in any way, your brand is being shaped. And your audiences are making decisions about you.
How can you tell if you’ve neglected the management of your brand? It will show up in one of the following three ways:
1. Your brand is a jumbled collection of mismatched looks and messages. Sometimes this happens with decentralization, when, under the guise of pushing down authority, the brand has run amok. How do customers and prospects know which “you” is you? Is this the best use of your resources?
2. You think you need to be like your potential customers in order to connect with them, so you bend over backwards trying to be what you think they want you to be. You try on many different looks and change with the trends, having many different images and personalities at the same time, or one after the other. Your customers are smart and savvy and they can smell when you’re “trying” to be like them — they know something’s off, and they respond by being luke-warm with their loyalty.
3. You get mired in analysis paralysis — over-thinking market segmentation, competitive positioning, value propositions, long-term objectives, short-term objectives, qualitative research, quantitative research, etc. etc. etc. (All of this is very important, of course, let’s just not get stuck here. Branding is organic, it has to move and breathe!) If you’re mired in analysis paralysis, you never get anything done with your brand — you’re always “working on it.”
Do you recognize your brand on this list? If so, it’s not too late to roll up your sleeves and dig in, and get hands-on with the management of your brand.
Learn more about strategic branding, brand process, and brand case studies at www.hoeck.net.
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GEN-Y DRIVES FOODSERVICE TREND
Looks like change is on the menu. In the
next two decades, restaurant menus will be pressured to change both by
an increasingly health- and weight-conscious public and by the influx
of Generation Y into the restaurant market.
According to industry publication Flavor & the Menu, GenY is the most food-savvy generation in history, and is composed of frequent restaurant patrons. Those born between 1977 and 1994 dine out twice as often as any other age group, and indicate that even considering that, they still don't visit restaurants as much as they'd like to.
These younger consumers are very open to other cultures and crave variety. When they encounter foreign or exotic ingredients, the reaction is excitement, not intimidation. A study by Wharf research found that while an unsurprising 90 percent of young adults were familiar with the quesadilla, almost as many -- 86 percent -- were comfortable navigating a sushi menu.
Cultural expansion and variety are key. A study by DLG Market Research found that high schoolers ranked Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Greek, Indian, Latin, Middle Eastern, and Spanish foods as those they'd most like to try. Given the sheer force of numbers involved (GenY is more than three times as large as GenX), this young influence is sure to be felt more and more in the restaurant business as time goes on.
Be sure to check out past issues of Marketing Tips for more information about foodservice trends and GenY.
Source: Albany Times Union
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THE VANISHING HOLIDAY BONUS
If your company gives annual Christmas bonuses, consider yourself in
the minority. Much like corporate pension plans, holiday bonuses that
workers can rely on are on the decline.
According to a 2005 Hewitt Associates survey, 59 percent of companies said they were not planning on awarding holiday bonuses. However, many companies are retaining bonuses in the form of performance rewards. More than three-quarters of the firms surveyed said they would give performance-based bonuses, with the understanding that workers were not entitled unless they earned the bonuses anew each year.
Bonuses among small businesses are more scarce, with only 39 percent planning to distribute them. Small companies do not have the certainty of future cashflow that larger companies often do. The leaders of these companies don't know how they'll fare in the next quarter or next year, so it takes a larger amount of confidence to distribute profits to workers as bonuses.
Holiday bonuses, in whatever form they may come, typically become a source of contention when the expectations of the workers are different from the intentions of management. If employees receive $100 gift cards -- gift cards are an increasingly popular form of bonus in many companies -- they'll likely be upset if last year's bonus was $200, but not if it was only $50. Consistency (when possible) and especially organizational communication are vital to ensuring that bonuses are received positively.
While bonuses are on the decline, the trend may reverse in coming years as millennial workers flow into companies. Millennials are less loyal than their older counterparts, so more incentives may be required to retain them.
Be sure to check out past issues of Marketing Tips for more information about millennial workers and rewarding employees.
Source: news.yahoo.com
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BRANDS AND BRAINWAVES
A neurological study at the University of Munich in Germany has revealed
evidence that strong brands have a larger impact on the brain than
lesser-known brands, regardless of what product the brand is known
for.
Dr. Christine Born used an MRI to monitor the brain activity of twenty adult subjects while they viewed logos for automotive and insurance providers. In both the cars and insurance categories, subjects were shown a well-known logo (Volkswagen and large European insurer Allianz) and a lesser-known logo (carmaker Seat and insurer Volksfursorge).
The Volkswagen logo produced strong activity in the parts of the brain responsible for rewards and self-identification, while the lesser-known Seat logo produced activity in areas associated with negative emotions as well as memory, suggesting that the brain had to work harder to process the information. What was perhaps more surprising was that a similar pattern was seen for the insurance logos, with Allianz producing just as powerful of a reaction as Volkswagen.
While the study is preliminary and as of yet unpublished, the information revealed suggests that it's not the product -- like cars, which people expect to be associated with positivity and self-identification -- that evokes positive brain activity. It appears to be the strength of the brand, and the positive emotions tied to it.
Our neuromarketing special report contains much more information on the impact of brands on the brain. Also be sure to check out past issues of Marketing Tips for more information about branding.
Source: The Wall Street
Journal, 11/28/06
