Comprehensive Brand Presentation

Comprehensive Brand Presentation

Comprehensive Brand Presentation (CBP), introduced in the Journal of Product and Brand Management, is described as the alignment of Integrated Marketing Communications and Total Quality Management to optimize a brand’s image in the marketplace.  Using CBP, the brand owner creates specific expectations in consumers’ minds and then delivers on those expectations through the consumers’ actual experiences with the brand.  This article provides a streamlined view of CBP and offers practical applications of its principles to assist organizations, and even individuals, in enhancing their brand image.

 The central theme of CBP is to understand consumer needs, define brand elements that deliver solutions, communicate brand benefits, target messages to the appropriate audiences, design products and services that deliver those benefits, and train customer-facing employees to enhance the product experience.  We categorize these actions into three overarching concepts:

·        Know- Identify the key consumer dynamics that are the underlying reason for creating the brand and define how the brand would resonate with those dynamics.

o       Design a research methodology to capture consumer behaviors and perceptions that drive their purchasing decisions.

o       Create the brand strategy that will reach the right audience with motivation to buy.

·        Grow- Translate the brand characteristics into specific product and service attributes that will define the customer experience.

o       Design and produce products and services that define the ultimate customer experience that differentiates your brand from the competition.

o       Craft the message that will capture consumers’ interest and motivate them to buy the products and services.

·        Show- Plan the delivery of the brand image to consumers.

o       Create, either directly or indirectly, a delivery method for the product or service that maximizes customer satisfaction.

o       Determine the environment and method for delivery of the brand message that maximizes consumer receptivity.

 The CBP diagram illustrates the interaction of the three concepts.

Know

Every successful brand taps into a specific need shared by a group of consumers.  These brands recognize they cannot be all things to all people, so they focus the most compelling elements that they can own and use to differentiate themselves in the market.  They then develop products that center on those elements and messages that keep those elements in the forefront of consumers’ minds. 

 Consider the market for bandages.  Band-Aid determined that the most compelling need for consumers was protection.  So they ensured their products would, above all, stay over the wound.  While they also worked on other elements of their bandages, they consistently ensured their products had the ability to stay on as long as needed and were attractive enough to ensure the user would want to keep it on.  Their message, which has lasted decades, is “I am stuck on Band-Aid Brand*, ‘cause Band-Aid’s stuck on me.” (The word “brand” was added later in the campaign to reinforce the brand name during a time when the term Band-Aid was becoming a generic term for bandage.)

 A brand has potential to become a classic if it has a combination of relevance to motivate trial and capability to drive repeat purchasing.  We call this characteristic “Relability.” A relable brand fits into the lives of its users and delivers a satisfying experience that drives an ongoing relationship between the brand and the consumer.  This relationship used to be referred to as Brand Loyalty, but that definition was misinterpreted to put the onus for the relationship on consumers.   Relability recognizes that the consumer has so many choices that the brand must be responsible for creating loyalty. 

 Comprehensive Presentation Research (CPR) is used to gain consumer feedback on brand elements.  CPR obtains consumer ratings on both the relevancy and capability of the brand.  The chart below stratifies key brand characteristics and maps them to assist in directing resources to optimize the brad’s position in the market.

Grow

Based on input from consumers, products/services and messages can be developed or refined to maximize the most relable brand elements. For physical products, that would include size, color, materials.  There would be a process developed to construct the product to ensure consistent output that adheres to the product definition.  For services, the brand definition would be more of a description of the transaction between the service provider and customer. 

 At the same time, the brand communication must be developed.  It would include the images and messages intended for the internal brand partners as well as the general public.  The communication describes the product, its benefits, and how it satisfies specific needs of potential customers.  It must be enticing enough to motivate consumers to try it for the first time, and to remind those who have purchased it of their positive experience so they will buy it again. 

 This is the most creative stage of the CBP process, and it is critical that a wide representation of brand partners be actively involved and able to share their perspectives.  Furthermore, the degree of competitive differentiation will depend on the level of creativity involved at this stage.  This is challenging for most organizations, as they are reluctant to move outside their comfort zones and standard perceptions of possibilities.  The risk of not letting go of these perceptions is that competitors’ may have thought of the same options.  But by beginning exploration outside of one’s comfort zone, it is possible to find a concept that no one else considered and create a true point of differentiation.

 The optimal process to achieving points of differentiation separates idea generation from evaluation.  Participants should share ideas, without any comment or judgment about their reasonableness.  It is important that this be a free-flowing session, with all participants and their ideas carrying equal weight.  Any judgment of a single idea has the potential to derail the process, as participants will unconsciously hesitate to suggest ideas that could be quickly dismissed.  One way to prevent this is to allow ideas to be offered both verbally to the group and in writing to the facilitator. 

While one group is developing the opportunities, a separate group should develop a list of success criteria.  These criteria represent the desired outcomes and consumer responses that would further the organization’s profitability, market position or prestige as well as the limits inherent in resources and operating constraints.  Once defined, the concepts developed in the idea generation session would be judged according to their ability to achieve these success criteria.  Those concepts which are judged to perform best against these criteria can be further developed for possible integration into the brand image.

 A brand guide is the ideal tool to define the brand and outline the key elements for all brand partners to understand.  When McDonald’s created the Big Mac, the product was very specifically described- “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles on a sesame seed buns.”  All personnel at their restaurants must follow tightly regulated procedures with specific ingredients to create a Big Mac.  Advertisements must show the product in very specific ways, both visually and verbally.  In fact, the company developed a campaign to get consumers to list the ingredients by creating a jingle using the ingredients as listed above.

Show

Once the brand is defined, a plan must be developed for delivering it to consumers.  The target audience should be defined based on the original Comprehensive Presentation Research conducted when refining the brand.  This definition can be used to project to the total population, identify the target audience’s location and shopping patterns, and track their media and product consumption.  While this seems a complex set of data to collect, it is necessary to determine how to cost effectively reach the target audience with the brand message and products/services. 

 For years, it was cheap and easy to mass distribute messages and products, but today the amount and sources of information and products consumers face have grown so much that consumers tune out what they receive from outside sources and limit their interaction to sources they trust.  The phrases ‘junk mail” and “spam” emerged from the negative attitudes toward this broad delivery of meaningless messages.  Today, technology allows organizations to more precisely direct their messages to consumers who they want to reach, but the interaction is still more of a monologue than a dialogue. 

 The first step is to determine whether the product/service should be delivered directly to the consumer (e.g., a Big Mac), indirectly (Q-Tips via independent retailers), or both (Apple computers).  Second is to determine who should deliver the product, the organization’s employees, franchisees, distributors, or broad retailers.  These brand partners need to understand the brand elements and what their role is in ensuring a satisfying experience.  A dissatisfying delivery can taint a consumer’s perception of a product regardless of how well the product itself performs.

 The same two steps are identical for the delivery of the brand message.  The message can be delivered directly through salespeople or brand literature, indirectly through public relations, recommendations and reviews, or a combination.  And the messages can be distributed by employees or through media outlets, and increasingly through social media (both organization-driven and consumer-driven).  Strong alignment between message and media is critical.  In the 1980’s, Proctor and Gamble directed the largest withdrawal of a media buy in the history of advertising when it cancelled buys for its cleaning products in afternoon television.  It described the environment of talk shows at that time as filthy, the antithesis of its products. 

Conclusion

Strong management of the creation and delivery of brand products and messages can create a more powerful effect on consumers, at both the individual brand and global levels.  By reducing the number of irrelevant messages, each necessary message has a better chance of being received and generating a response.  And the additional time can be used to develop a relationship with the consumer and reestablishing loyalty.  Then when the buyer has a satisfying experience with the product/service, it’s easier to resell because customers are reminded of that experience when they hear the next message.

A More Formalized View of CBP

Comprehensive Brand Presentation is the combination of two long-standing business models, Total Quality Management (TQM) and Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC).  Both models have the same purpose- to ensure that the creation and distribution of a product is closely aligned to the desired brand image.  In TQM, the product is the item or service that is being sold, and in IMC, it is the idea of that item.  For a brand to succeed in its introduction, the message about it must be compelling and targeted to the right audience.  Therefore its creation and distribution must provide a strong expectation of a positive, satisfying experience.  Once the consumer's interest is gained and he seeks to experience the product, it must be created and delivered in a way that fulfills the expectation by providing that satisfying experience.  The importance of combining these two models is that the message must be compelling enough to gain the interest to try it, and the experience must be compelling enough to maintain that interest so the consumer will continue to purchase it.  At the core of the model is the input that the company receives from consumers about the brand, either confirming the strength it carries or areas of opportunity for improvement.