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The Marketing Faculty of The Kellogg School of Management

Taking a glimpse into the selection of well-researched tactics for reaching the zenith of your brand-building process, is not something you stumble upon every day.

Do we dare to say it? – Despite the odds of being exposed to such an impressive collection, you joined the club.

Without further ado, let’s drill down to the core of this book.

Who Should Read “Kellogg on Branding”? And Why?

Not all people aspire to build a sustainable asset in the world. In order to thrive on branding, one must prick up its ears, and embrace an open-minded approach.

In our opinion, “Kellogg on Branding” is an exclusive selection of tactics and tools that an organization should capitalize on, to survive in this age.

About Alice M. Tybout and Tim Calkins

Alice M. Tybout served in the Kellogg School for Marketing as an academic director and professor. Currently, she is the Harold T. Martin Professor of Marketing. Alice runs a research team to investigate how various individuals process information and make up their minds.

Tim Calkins is widely acclaimed for his contribution as a professor, consultant and keynote speaker. Momentarily, he has the role of a Professor of Marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, where he presents his insights on Biomedical Marketing.

“Kellogg on Branding PDF Summary”

Design, Build and Understand Branding

The central argument in this eye-opening book encircles around the concept of reforming the market and carrying out the necessary changes. The current global predicament leaves us little choice but to take into account the consumers’ preferences and bring them into line with the organizational goals.

For a business to gain the much-needed edge in this overly crowded marketplace, it must answer the following questions:

• Who should we target and why?
• How can the product/service be of use to potential consumers?
• Why should someone be fixed upon our brand over the competitor’s one?

Prior to showing glimpses of professionalism, and commitment, the organization must pay special heed to many rising aspects of doing business.

The first one that springs to mind is the frame of reference. Neglecting the integration between the frame and the point of difference can turn out to be costly! As a disregarded facet, it allows the business to expand their operations by helping the consumers meet their needs and wants.

Operating as a unit will undoubtedly going to provide support for the brand-building proceedings through fortification or other methods. In other words, by leveraging industry’s best practices, the organization could improve its positioning and impose entry barriers.

Afterward, you can quickly discern why is brand design so essential and move on to the categorization of products. To get a bird’s eye view of the process, you must execute all of the following 5 steps:

• Step 1: Realize that branding takes the shape of any concept, which lays emphasis on the categorization of products.
• Step 2: Identify a few categories that will clear up the brand concept when used by consumers.
• Step 3: Don’t let a single brand-design element slip from your memory. Eclipse your competitors by creating an asset that contains category name, logo, brand name, visual illustrations, symbols, verbal lexicon, etc.
• Step 4: Conduct an evaluation of your policies and consider other alternatives that might benefit the brand-process.
• Step 5: Use legit and impartial metrics to assess whether the brand concept is in tune with the product features.

On top of these steps, it vital to become conscious of the uniformity between market behavior and human behavior. For precisely the same reason, the authors assert that only perceptive managers with the right mindset will have no difficulties to integrate social, political and ethical aspects into branding.

How to Build and Leverage Your Brand

For the sake of supporting the previously stated strategies, it’s of unparallel importance for the brands to influence the learning process. This new form of structure, named “the buyer learning” absorb the central role in the brand-building process.

With almost total disregard for the status of the entries, top-notch brands unleash the same strategy from pioneers to late entrants.

It’s crystal clear that the pioneers absorb take the role of masters because they’re allowed to remodel the categories, launch their own brands, or even set up invisible barriers. Nonetheless, these aspects shouldn’t be construed as a full-scale victory for the pioneers, which may face other difficulties further down the road.

Late entrants, for instance, can exploit the inelasticity of pioneers, and take control of the learning process. Thereupon, they can introduce modifications to it, and benefit the changes arising from it. On the other end, being dependent upon one product category can be a formula for disaster.

When a brand opts for expansionism, the buildup of a network is influenced by the same token. With an aerial perspective of the situation, you can easily conclude that “brand evolution” is a complex operation, and as such, it incorporates the following guidelines:

• It urges you to take one step at the time
• Help others to understand the reasons for the brand expansion
• In the aftermath of expansionism on the parent brand, consumers must get the full picture

It may come as a shock to most people, but placing all your energy on one brand is not enough. Indeed, there’s such thing as a brand portfolio, which is the extension of the previous method.

Brand Advertising and Relationship Branding

Evidently, not even the best of the best products can reach its zenith without marketing efforts to support their ascend! Without a shred of doubt into your mind, you should endorse that advertising is composed of carefully selected means transmitted through the right channels.

The perfect copy as the authors have a habit of labeling it, must embody humor to enhance engagement.

This will not only give you a competitive advantage but help you establish an unshakable connection with the other side. Bound with the idea of sharing common interests, the brand and consumers can take the interaction onto the next level. Playing the emotional card is also something you should fully exploit.

If you aspire to put an end to the one-way relationship, you should stimulate feedback by interacting with your customers. The number of brands which are aware of the issue is meager. By soliciting the views from the end-users, you’ll take the driver’s seat and have full control over the situation.

According to the authors, being able to manage the relationships with the target audience proficiently is often depicted as the epitome of mass customization. It’s needless to say that a large bulk of today’s brands are mass-orientated. Steps in, CRM!

Customer Relationships Management is like a medieval fortification that stops the advancement of mass-marketing. It’s main incentive springs from handling the interactions between an official body and the customer. Unlike other processes, it strictly relies on data to prepare for potential twists and turns.   

It can be further broken down into the following subsequent elements:

1. Find and identify subsegments
2. Assess the effects of each sub-segment process by associating it with a goal
3. Design contacts and conceive an actionable strategy
4. Anticipate the outcome

If a brand doesn’t vouch for its services and turns a blind eye on the inept management, it will soon be overrun by other more user-centric organizations. The idea is to put the cravings of the consumers on top of your priority list.

Brand Driven Organization and Service Branding

Customer expectations must be satisfied by consolidating their input. In doing so, the business becomes a branding-machinery and would stay abreast of their demands by monitoring their reactions regarding the product/service offered.

Prior to conquering the world with your brand-new idea, one must make a decision to build a product or launching a service. The gap between these two separate fundamental features must be considered by understanding the following truths:

• The services are intangible deliverables
• Services don’t fall into the category of commodities for disposable use
• Their heterogeneity nature

It comes as no surprise that internal branding is also a force to be reckoned with, and should receive an equal standing with the other execution strategies. In addition, the organization should enforce a code of conduct in order to speed up the integration, and put all elements together.

The author cannot emphasize enough the importance of conducting strategic employee-assimilation. Hence, it’s pretty straightforward to identify the first-class brand assimilation programs. With the segmentation taken care of, the author presents the three-phase structure:

• Phase 1: Strategic Development
• Phase 2: Foundation Building
• Phase 3: Implementation

In truth, many things can deteriorate the morale of the employees and even put into question the successiveness of the internal branding programs. In this book, you’ll find why embedding the procedure in the broadcast can turn out to be a huge mistake on your part.

When it comes to allocating resources for external and internal branding, you should refrain from stretching too much. Such uncontrollable expansion can aggravate the problem even further and put you in a position of jeopardy. The same logic is applied to seductive ads and messages used on both fronts.

In a nutshell, branding services is a never-ending work, but that mustn’t discourage you to proceed.

How to Build a Megabrand

Reaching the top of the heap is not an overnight thing. Yet, in a race against time, NetZero shocked the world with its innovative way of doing business, which puts adaptation in the center of it. In just 5 short years, NetZero compelled the internet marketing community to shift its core paradigms due to the changes that occurred.

To receive the “rising star” epithet, NetZero focused on the frame of reference. Neglecting and undervaluing its effects can hurt your business. One-of-a-kind marketers are aware of the power emerging from the frame of reference and feel disposed to use it in order to improve the brand positioning.

The authors point out yet another decisive element to achieving brand-domination – Name. It may seem like being struck by lightning, but being creative and setting your heart on something that will stand out as being catchy and unique can give you the upper hand.

How to know which name would meet these criteria?

The author claims: A brand name must be able to stand the test of time! Do we need to say more? The more iconic, the better you’ll do. Pay attention to the business as a whole, don’t dissect it in order to choose a suitable name.

A good label may provide the stimulus required for going international. You’ll need all the support you can get in that regard. However, prior to sailing to new shores, you must evaluate the consistency of the brand by examining the pricing, distribution and positioning on the local markets.

In addition, be cognizant of the fact that the pricing strategies must be in accordance with the local competitors and the demand. Creating a global system must be complemented with a broad perspective regarding the price elasticity and other factors.

Generally speaking, every brand must give the impression of earnestness and decisiveness for each market segment.

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“Kellogg on Branding Quotes”

Our Critical Review

If you have your perspective broadened, and your mind sharpened, then we did a great job. If not, we firmly advise you to read the book, whenever you find some time.

Don’t forget to implement the tactics to accentuate your professional endeavors.

Emir Zecovic

Emir is the Head of Marketing at 12min. In his spare time, he loves to meditate and play soccer.