What strategies do companies use while branding consumer goods

What Is Brand Strategy & How To Develop One? [Ultimate Guide]

A brand is what the customer talks about when he uses the product. It’s what gives the identity to the product, makes it recognizable, and helps build an emotional connection between the company and the consumer.

But a brand isn’t just the name, logo, and tagline. It’s the experience a customer has while buying the product, a consumer has while consuming the product; and a perception the target market has of the company, product, or service.

A brand strategy is a long-term strategy that helps in developing just this.

What Is Brand Strategy?

A brand strategy (or a branding strategy) is a long-term plan used by a business to establish its brand identity and find a unique position in the minds of the target audience.

It includes specific and long-term goals, achieving which results in establishing a successful brand with high equity and credibility, which occupies a competitive position in the market.

Importance Of Brand Strategy

With a plethora of companies offering similar products with no or very few differences, today’s market runs on perception and emotions. In fact, according to a study by HBR, over 64% of the customers pursue relationships with the companies based on their shared values. Having a brand strategy helps you build such relations. Besides this, a brand strategy is also essential to –

Components Of Brand Strategy

A brand strategy is always developed with a holistic perspective of how the target audience perceives the brand and how the brand wants them to perceive it. A successful brand strategy always takes into consideration the following eight components –

How To Develop A Brand Strategy?

Unlike the last decade, people are now more focused on building a brand than ever.

If you go out and ask the established businesses about the importance of developing a brand strategy today, you will be surprised knowing how much they invest in it. And it’s even growing at a massive rate. According to the 2019 State of Branding Report, 66% of marketing decision-makers plan to invest more in creating branded visual content than they did in 2018.

Building a brand and developing a brand strategy isn’t an easy process. It requires months (or even years) of research and analysis to finally figure out how the customers intend to view the brand. And it’s even harder for the new-comers.

But fret not, here’s a complete guide simplifying the brand strategy process for you –

Determine Purpose And Objectives

Just like a marketing strategy, the development of a branding strategy is fuelled by the purpose or the objectives. It can be a new company looking to create a name in the market, an existing company looking for a product line extension, or an established company looking for a strategy to either extend its existing brand or to add more sub-brands under its name.

To find the objective, answer these two questions –

When it comes to brand strategy, no one strategy that fits all needs. Hence, it’s essential to know what you’re building a strategy for before moving ahead.

Introspection

Once the objective is identified, it is essential to introspect the company and the offering which needs to be branded. Focus on the why (vision), what (mission), and how (values) of the company and try aligning the branding objectives with the company’s overall objectives.

If the branding strategy is being developed for an offering, focus on its features and find the unique selling proposition and value proposition you can capitalize on. Usually, the brand positioning strategy is rooted in these two factors.

Research The Target Market And The Competitors

The next step involves you to focus on who’ll be buying your offering. Create a buyer persona and zero your target audience by answering these questions –

To answer the last question, you need to do a competition analysis as well. Zero your competition by answering these questions –

Discover Brand Barriers

During the internal and external environment analysis, you must have already come across many barriers when it comes to the target audience and the competition. Combine them with other barriers related to market conditions, government policies, and other factors that can hinder the success of your proposed brand positioning and look for ways to remove them.

Develop A Holistic Strategy Defining Your Brand

A holistic brand strategy focuses on giving an identity to everything your business produces and represents. It involves –

Find The Perfect Positioning Strategy

An effective brand strategy has its roots in how you plan to position your brand in the market. Positioning results from finding the perfect space a brand can occupy in the brains of the target customer concerning its features and competitors’ positioning strategy.

Promotion

A brand is always created in the eyes of the customer. Once the company succeeds in developing the strategy of how it wants to be viewed by the customers, the next step involves it promoting the same. Brand promotion is an essential part of the brand strategy as it informs, reminds, persuades convincingly, and influences the buyers to drive their purchasing decisions in favor of the brand.

Go On, Tell Us What You Think!

Did we miss something? Come on! Tell us what you think about our article on brand strategy in the comments section.

A startup consultant, digital marketer, traveller, and philomath. Aashish has worked with over 20 startups and successfully helped them ideate, raise money, and succeed. When not working, he can be found hiking, camping, and stargazing.

10 Types of Branding Strategies

Branding Strategies
A branding strategy helps establish a product within the market and to build a brand that will grow and mature in a saturated marketplace. Making smart branding decisions up front is crucial since a company may have to live with the decision for a long time. The following are commonly used branding strategies:

Company Name
In this case a strong brand name (or company name) is made the vehicle for a range of products (for example, Mercedes Benz or Black & Decker) or a range of subsidiary brands (such as Cadbury Dairy Milk or Cadbury Fingers in the United States).

Individual Branding
Each brand has a separate name, putting it into a de facto competition against other brands from the same company (for example, Kool-Aid and Tang are both owned by Kraft Foods). Individual brand names naturally allow greater flexibility by permitting a variety of different products, of differing quality, to be sold without confusing the consumer’s perception of what business the company is in or diluting higher quality products.

Attitude Branding and Iconic Brands
This is the choice to represent a larger feeling, which is not necessarily connected with the product or consumption of the product at all. Companies that use attitude branding include: Nike, Starbucks, The Body Shop, and Apple, Inc. Iconic brands are defined as having aspects that contribute to the consumer’s self-expression and personal identity.
Brands whose value to consumers comes primarily from having identity value are said to be “identity brands. ” Some brands have such a strong identity that they become “iconic brands” such as Apple, Nike, and Harley Davidson.

Derived Brands
Some suppliers of key components may wish to guarantee its own position by promoting that component as a brand in its own right. For example, Intel, positions itself in the PC market with the slogan (and sticker) “Intel Inside. ”

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The Ultimate Guide to Brand Strategy

The world’s most adored and successful brands didn’t just pop up overnight.

The truth is: It takes focused strategy and (a whole lotta) work to build a truly great brand.

But what is brand strategy?

It can be your greatest asset or your unfortunate demise.

Above all else, it’s the vehicle for building real connections with people. And here’s a little secret: Real connections turn into loyal customers.

In this article, you’ll learn about brand strategy and the various traits that strong brand strategies tend to share. We’ll also provide examples of good brand strategies as well as give you a few steps to start your brand strategy plan today.

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What Is Brand Strategy?

You can think of your brand strategy as a 360-degree business blueprint. Ideally, your brand strategy outlines the key elements that make your brand unique, your mission and goals, and how you’ll deliver on them.

A strong brand strategy is meticulously crafted, taking into account all aspects of your market, niche, product or service offerings, customers, and competitors.

This should all be rooted in as much data as you can get your paws on.

In the beginning, you’ll need to take some leaps of faith – this is unavoidable when you’re starting from scratch. But with each new visitor, follower, and customer you get, there will be more glorious data to create meaningful strategies that actually translate into results.

Elements of a Brand Strategy

Here’s a brand strategy template that can help you cover all the bases:

How to Develop a Brand Strategy

There are generally three phases for the brand strategy process:

Let’s break these phases into five actionable steps.

Do Your Research

Market research is non-negotiable if you want to grow fast. This process helps you build a solid brand development foundation, giving you important insights into things like:

Here are some more research resources:

Create an Awesome Brand Identity

During your research phase, it’s basically impossible to not get inspired with ideas for your own brand identity. That’s why we recommend dipping your toes into the market before making any final decisions over your identity and aesthetic.

Here’s a checklist for important brand identity elements:

Logo and slogan: Shopify’s Hatchful can help you make a cool, crisp logo in a snap – no design skills needed.

Color palette: Pick three to five colors, and stick to them for all of your branding and marketing materials. This will help to solidify brand recognition. Oh, and don’t forget about color psychology to set the mood.

Voice and tone: Silly, conversational, inspiring, dramatic … the way you deliver messages can be just as important as the messages themselves.

Storytelling: Emotion goes a long way. Create a bond with your customers by giving them your backstory. How did the brand start? What are your values and mission? Your dreams and promises? Get personal.

A beautiful website: Please don’t send people to a glitchy, slow, or sketchy website. This is exponentially more important for an ecommerce business, where your site is your backbone. One study showed that 94 percent of respondents have rejected or mistrusted a site based on the web design alone … don’t be that site.

For more on brand identity, check out these resources:

Develop an Actionable Marketing Plan

Having a sweet brand isn’t going to cut it. You’ve got to drive it home with continuous messaging on all sorts of channels.

And once you’ve roped them in, you should keep them roped in by strengthening the relationship and earning their loyalty.

Basically, you’ve got to keep going for the rest of your brand’s life.

We never said it was easy.

Here are some considerations for the marketing portion of your brand strategy plan:

Sales funnel: Especially for an ecommerce site, a sales funnel can smoothly lead your visitors to become customers, and customers to come back for more.

Content marketing: This is a big deal. Technically, every product video you create, social media post you make, email you send, or blog post you publish is content marketing. When you use content marketing best practices to pull customers through your sales funnel, it can be massively impactful.

Email marketing: Email marketing is yet another effective tool for your sales funnel. One study found that email is 40 times more effective at helping companies acquire new customers than Twitter or Facebook. It’s powerful stuff.

Here are some more marketing resources:

Be Reliable and Trustworthy

Consistency is key. Don’t start out with haute couture branding and then veer left field into soccer mom chic territory. Likewise, don’t use deeply emotional messaging and switch to sarcasm and jokes.

The whole point of the brand strategy process is to carve out a clear, distinct voice and image for your company – and stick to it in every single aspect of what you do.

Before making any merchandising, branding, or marketing decisions, ask yourself – Is this in line with my branding strategy? Does it “fit” with everything else and enhance the narrative I started?

If a new idea is even a little bit off, scrap it and try again.

In addition to keeping your branding and messaging consistent, it’s also critical that you keep all the promises you make. If you offer shipping in one week, those packages better darn well get there in one week.

Losing a customer’s trust is the fastest way to lose them and tank your reputation in the process.

Track, Assess, and Evolve When Needed

Evolution is necessary for our survival on this floating space orb – why should there be an exception for your brand?

Google Analytics is a personal favorite, as it gives you a wealth of in-depth information about your website visitors and what exactly they do on your site – down to the last click. If you don’t have a Google Analytics account, create one now.

Always be on the lookout for ways to improve. And accept that sometimes improvement needs to happen from the ground up, starting with essential elements of your business branding like your tone, marketing channels, or even your brand identity.

Creating a Brand Strategy: Examples to Inspire You

Target audience focus: Mollyjogger

Mollyjogger was made by nature lovers, for nature lovers. It’s right there in the slogan: “Field, Forest & Stream.”

You can see this profound understanding of the brand’s audience in virtually every aspect of its brand identity – from the deep forest greens and river blues in their color palette, to the fun and adventurous brand fonts, to the lifestyle photography that showcases their products in action.

You can’t beat the personal touch of that red station wagon packed to the brim with camping equipment. The type of vehicle alone is a clear example that their audience lives a more humble lifestyle that leans away from luxury and more toward rugged.

There are even an axe and some firewood packed in there, too.

Brand storytelling: Tropical Sun

Tropical Sun sells Caribbean-inspired products in the UK. The owners nail the storytelling facet as they explain the brand’s humble beginnings.

It connects “the UK’s thriving ethnic communities” back to their culture and brings them together. Humanizing the brand is so much more powerful than any generic list of health benefits or product quality.

Plus, that clever world map made of spices really drives home the concept of bringing people together.

The photo alone gets an A+.

Cohesive marketing: Harper Wilde

Harper Wilde is a bra brand with a fun, cheeky attitude. But it’s more than just that – it champions and empowers women socially and politically.

This is the kind of brand that connects deeply with the passions and identities of its customers.

And they do it all with puns, hashtags, and the occasionally silly photo.

“Together we will lift up your ladies and the future leading ladies of tomorrow.”

They use their branded hashtag #LiftUpTheLadies on their website and social media to create brand cohesion between channels.

The company Instagram carries on these concepts, shifting smoothly between political messages, jokes, and product photos.

Overall, it’s an expert job of strong brand development that’s embodied in all of the company’s marketing efforts.

Wrapping Up

The fact is, when created properly, your brand strategy provides support and direction for your business.

It tells you what your company’s position in the industry is, relative to your competitors, and what makes it different from the rest.

With the right personality, colors, voice, and actions you take for your brand, you can make it more appealing for both your staff and prospective customers.

Do you have a brand strategy in place? How do you show customers what your business is all about? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section below.

Complete Guide to Branding Strategies

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This article explores the world of branding and branding strategies, pre-branding measures, the stages of the branding process, as well as some of the most popular branding strategies that you can choose from for your business.

INTRODUCTION INTO BRANDING

Your brand is more than a mere representation of your business’s name, logo, or catchphrase; it is the entire experience that your consumers and potential consumers have with your business. Your brand strategy, therefore, is a representation of what your business stands, an oath that you take, and the sort of business character you portray. As much as branding may include your business’s name, logo, and color scheme, these are simply creative components of your whole brand.

Your brand represents you every day in the market through:

Branding is a necessity for any products or services sold in a large consumer market. It is also crucial in business to business environments since it helps your business stand out in the crowd. Brand strategy is what makes you relevant in the market. It is what makes your business as a force to reckon with in the market.

Take a moment to think about some very successful brands, for example, Nike, Starbucks or Apple. You probably know what these brands represent. Now proceed to imagine that your business is in competition with these organizations. If you are going to capture a sizeable market share, you will have to start by implementing a strong brand strategy or you are likely to be invisible in the face of such fierce completion.

In your business’s field, the competition may not be too fierce, but if you put any two organizations side by side, the organization that represents something of high value will always outperform its competition in terms of closing and retaining consumers. Similarly, successful branding creates brand equity, which is the amount consumers are willing to part with for the mere fact that it is your particular brand; brand equity is what builds your business’s value over time.

PRE-BRANDING MEASURES

When it comes to branding, if you employ a winning strategy that is perfectly suited for your business, you will undoubtedly excel in your endeavor to grow your consumer base. However, this section of the article will discuss the measures to be taken prior to implementing that branding strategy. The following measures are essential for you to be able to successfully implement a branding strategy for your business.

Understand what a Brand Means

The very first step is understanding what your brand stands for as well as what you want your brand to represent.

Simply note down all characteristics that describe your brand on one side of a sheet and how you would like your brand to be perceived on the other. Once this list has been complied, fine-tune it and ensure that you are in full command of your brand so as to reach your consumers, and more importantly, potential consumers.

The characteristics that describe your brand should be the differentiating factor between your business and that of your competitors. These characteristics should not only comprise of the products and services that your business provides, but also what your business is known for. These characteristics should also assist you in identifying how you can positively move the consumers into favoring your products and services over those of your competition.

For this purpose do the following:

Convert Employees into Brand Ambassadors

Your employees are a representation of your business and your brand as a whole; they are the first real impression potential consumers have of your organization. For this reason, ensure all your employees fully grasp what the business’s brand stands and that they remain true to the brand in the performance of their duties.

More often than not, you will find that owners and managers are aware of what a brand represents but the people who actually come into contact with consumers do not understand the brands intent; isn’t that ironic? Yes. It is extremely important that everyone is reading form the same playbook and understands how to represent what your brand stands for; this is especially so for those interacting with your consumers and potential consumers.

To convert your employees into your number one brand ambassadors, you should:

STAGES OF YOU BRANDING PROCESS

Most people assume that branding is a mysterious and complicated process, but in reality branding should be quite simple. Branding is a straightforward process of fine-tuning your focus:

This simple definition does not necessarily mean it will be a piece of cake to conduct your own brand strategy process. There are steps and exercises that will contribute to your success in that endeavor.

However, the stages to take in implementing your brand strategy may be easier than you imagine as you can see below:

Discovery

Every branding process, as I am sure you are aware by now, includes discovery. Discovery in this context means the process of better understanding who you are as a business, what you represent, and what you want to represent, even though you thought you were already aware. What we think of ourselves in business in most cases is very different from what the consumers think of us. Ultimately, it is the consumers that matter. The consumers will define your brand in the end; you just have to help in shaping their perception of your brand.

In addition to consumer research, this stage involves brand auditing and the examination of your business’s culture, history, competitor environment, mission, and vision. At this stage a business plan or a customer satisfaction survey will give you insight into the direction you want your business to take and in what areas you want to effect change.

Clarification and Articulation

This is where the information you have gathered in the process of discovery is processed into a strategy that will propel you to where you want to be. It is where aspects such as the business’s values and corporate personality are defined and articulated into words and slogans.

Ensure that these words and slogans are exhaustively refined to give them the greatest power of representation possible of your business.

Differentiation and Presentation

This stage in the branding process is pivotal to your new brand in the eyes of the consumers. This is where the consumer looks at your business in comparison to the competition. In this stage, you present to the world in detail what your unique value is; an account of the unique benefit you provide. You present to the consumer what sets you apart from the crowd. This presentation is often done through a series of strategic statements, which will become your guide in business decision-making henceforth.

Creative Stage

This is going to be the most interesting stage of your branding process. The creative stage will include the designing of the business’s logo, packaging, primary slogan, color schemes, advertisement videos, voice clips, among other creative activities. This stage is the stage in which you express your business’s personality and style.

It is not a surprise that you will see most business’s attempting to skip all the stages and get straight to the creative stage. However, without going through the first three stages, such an approach will, in all probability, only end up bringing out the aesthetic value of your brand. But with the discovery, articulation, and differentiation done; a combination of what your business stands for and a creative aspect can be that much more powerful and strategic.

Logos and packaging are just a tip of the iceberg. Underneath your business’s logo and good packaging should be a deeper meaning of your business’s values. Backed by the first three stages of the branding process, the creative stage solidifies a cohesive brand personality for your business. Everything at this stage works towards a common goal. It is not uncommon for businesses at this stage to realize that in order to stay true to the brand values realized in previous stages, there is a need for fine-tuning or even a total overhaul of some of their products and services. So do not be shocked if you come to the same discovery; don’t panic, it’s all part of the process of implementing your brand strategy successfully.

Application

This is the stage that inspired the initiation of the process; this is the actual launch of your brand. Some of the obvious aspects are inclusive of designing of websites, enhancing social media interaction and awareness, creation of business cards, and so forth.

However some of the most essential determinants of the successful launch of your brand are things like employee conduct and the actual consumer experience. These are factors that will not be necessarily affected by the creative stage (logos and color schemes), but significantly affected by the initial stages where the articulation of your business’s values, character, and competitive edge took place.

This is not to disregard the creative stage; the creative stage is equally important for promoting the aesthetic value and attractiveness of your brand to consumers as well as encouraging word of mouth and social media awareness of the brand.

These stages are all critical in building your final brand. Sadly, most businesses will focus most of their efforts on the last two stages giving very little priority to the stages that are the true lifeline of any brand strategy. Where great strategy and articulation inspires creativity, and where you present value that resonates with your consumers and potential consumers, your brand begins to take deep root in the market over any competitors.

TYPES OF BRANDING STRATEGIES

Branding strategies are a tool used to establish your product or service in the market and cement your brand. Once successfully established your brand is able to grow and mature even in a saturated market. Making a smart branding decision for your business is important because your business may have to live with the effects of that decision for a long time. Suitability of branding strategies defers from business to business.

The following are some of the commonly used branding strategies you can consider for your business.

Word of Mouth

This may be the best branding strategy for any organization. There is nothing more empowering for your business brand than getting consumers to tell other consumer about your product or service. Some studies have proven that word of mouth can be much more powerful than conventional advertising.

Today word of mouth can be used as a branding strategy through the use of wide spread awareness among consumers and potential consumers on social media platforms. Making your brand a household name in such platforms where recommendations from friends or followers are everything, can popularize your brand in no time.

Successfully implementing this strategy demands the following:

No-Brand Branding

Some organizations these days have adopted an alternative approach to conventional branding strategies. No-brand branding involves making your brand conspicuous by not branding it.

While it may sound pointless and quite possibly counterproductive, the results can be quite positive.

For example, ‘Yellow Cap’ is a company form Venezuela that became a popular brand by simply manufacturing yellow caps and nothing more. By forgoing branding or flashiness, your business can save money that would have been spent in other branding strategies. Your products and services, on the other hand, will appeal to the segment of the market that wants high quality products without necessarily being concerned by the brand name.

Attitude Branding

The attitude branding strategy is used to create an emotional connection with your audience or consumers. This connection does not have to be necessarily linked with the product or service you are offering as a business and may sometimes be completely irrelevant. This strategy focuses on a certain feeling, lifestyle, or identity.

Nike, for example, uses this kind of strategy. As a company that produces shoes just like any other shoe company, Nike differentiates itself in the market by using the trademark tick logo. The logo has come to be a representation of health, agility, as well as an independent lifestyle emphasized in the slogan, ‘Just do it.’

Other brands that have adopted this branding strategy are Coca Cola and Apple. By adopting this branding strategy your brand will be contributing to your consumers’ identity. For example, by wearing Converse sneakers, a person does not just make a fashion statement but an identity/personality statement.

Brand Extension

Brand extension is where an already established brand name is used as an instrument to boost the popularity and brand awareness of a new or revised product.

This branding strategy is especially popular in the fashion, furniture, and the hotel industries.

In most cases, the product is never much different from how it was previously presented in the market except for the fact that it now has a new and popular brand name. However, note the risk in using this branding strategy for your business is the risk of diluting your own brand’s identity from its own market segment or niche.

Therefore, before implementing this strategy you should consider whether you are ready to water down the character of a brand you worked so hard to grow.

Learn some interesting brand extensions that failed.

Multi-brands Strategy

Another popular brand strategy is the multi brand strategy. This branding strategy will especially work for you if your business is in a saturated market. This strategy works by releasing two or more brands of the same product making them seem like they are in competition in order to take up a larger share of the market.

The rationale behind this strategy is that if you have five out of ten brands in the market, you will capture a larger market share than if you only had one brand.

Therefore, if your business is at a level where you can afford to launch more than one branding campaign, launching several brands may lead to an overall increase in your business’s revenue. This strategy will also increase your cumulative/overall brand awareness; despite the fact it is split amongst several brands.

TO SUM UP

Branding is your business’s identity in the market. The question we should all ask ourselves is whether our business’s brands say what we want them to. Your business’s image is all based on the message you send out to the market through branding. What message are you sending out to the world? A negative impression of your business might detour potential consumers, just as a positive impression will encourage potential consumers to try your product or service. How you brand your business’s products or services is an integral part of that business’s success.

However, simply choosing a suitable branding strategy for your business is not enough to guarantee your product’s success. If you skip the initial stages of clarification, articulation, and differentiation of your business’s values and character, the whole branding process might end up being fruitless and disappointing to you. In addition to this, branding is not simply about sending an image out to the world; successful branding also demands that your employees act as branding ambassadors for the business. A successful branding initiative will be determined by first answering the following questions:

What are the values of my business? What does my business stand for? What do I want my business and brand to represent? How does my business offer value to my consumers? How am I a unique force in my field of business?

If you thought branding and branding strategies were not worth investing in, or that they did not matter, you were deeply mistaken. Clients and consumers will judge your business based on the brand image that you portray, therefore, invest in your business’s branding.

10 Brand Strategy Examples and Why They Work

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When we talk about branding, we don’t just mean the image of your company — we’re talking about how customers interact with your business and its products or services. To some extent, this is out of your control. However, with the right brand strategy, you can influence the experience. As you’ll see in these brand strategy examples, there’s no single way to position your brand. Instead, you’ll need to pick the right strategy according to the needs of your company.

What Is a Brand Strategy? The Definition

A brand strategy encompasses the core values of your company. It allows you to decide what you want your brand to represent and to define the personality of the brand.

There are a few essential elements to every brand strategy:

Why Is Brand Strategy Important?

By developing a brand strategy, you can see greater customer loyalty and set your brand apart from the competition. A successful strategy will also lead to brand equity — in other words, customers will be willing to pay more for your offerings because they come from your brand.

Bear in mind that a brand strategy is not just important for introducing your brand; you need to keep strategizing throughout your time in business. For instance, a brand strategy is necessary for decision making in product development, strategic partnerships, dealing with internal and external issues, guiding you market campaigns, and much more.

Brand Strategy vs Marketing Strategy vs Business Strategy

Before we start looking at examples of brand strategies, it’s important to be clear about what the strategy includes. For example, what’s the difference between a brand strategy and a marketing strategy? And how does a brand strategy differ from a business strategy? Let’s look at each in turn.

Brand Strategy vs Marketing Strategy

Branding is not marketing. Whereas you may use marketing with the intent to improve branding, a brand strategy is about defining who you are.

A marketing strategy, in contrast, puts your brand in front of more people or keeps your brand fresh in the minds of customers and those who already know you.

Brand Strategy vs Business Strategy

What about a business strategy? This centers on how you make money and is usually laid out in a business plan.

Brand strategy and positioning, however, specify how you make customers feel about your brand. This is based on the qualities of your offerings, the advantages of your brand over your competitors, and the values you stand for.

In other words, a brand strategy helps your business grow whereas a business strategy is focused on the finances.

Winning Brand Strategy Examples and Why They Work

The best way to choose a winning brand strategy is to look at some examples. It also helps to consider how famous brands have used strategies to see success.

1. Differentiation

Often, the first thing that comes to mind when talking about branding is differentiation. This is an effective strategy, as it allows businesses to target a specific audience and helps consumers feel like the brand is talking directly to them.

For some brands, differentiation can mean offering a superior quality than their competitors. An example of this is Chipotle, which uses high-quality ingredients while remaining a classic fast-food brand. A second example is Tesla. By entering the market offering luxury electric vehicles, it was instantly in a different realm from mid-range brands like Toyota.

Another way to use differentiation is in brand voice. Two companies can offer almost identical services, but one has a serious tone and the other fun. Uber and Lyft are a great example. They entered the market around the same time with the same concept. However, Uber was focused on comfort and professional experience. For instance, drivers had to meet certain standards for their cars. Lyft, on the other hand, wanted to provide a personal experience. Their cars had pink mustaches, passengers would often ride in the front, and drivers were encouraged to make conversation.

Since they started out, both brands have deviated somewhat from their original vision to better meet market needs. This demonstrates the importance of adaptability in brand strategy.

2. Targeting a New Audience

Related to product differentiation is the targeting of a new audience. This is a popular tactic in an industry that has existed for decades or more without undergoing any significant changes. A brand comes on the scene and does things in a completely new way to appeal to a different audience.

Take banking, for instance. For a long time, banking was formal — even technical — and services reflected this. Simple was one of the first innovators on the scene. Launching its mobile app in 2012, it became one of the first banks without any physical branches. More importantly, it dismissed the traditional image of a bank and took a simplified approach. This specifically appealed to younger consumers like Millennials.

3. Name Recognition

The best-known brands rely on their name alone to attract customers to new products and services. These are the types of brands that most people can recognize just by the logo, slogan, or even color scheme. A recent example of this working in practice is the release of the Apple AirPods. Other companies sell similar products, but Apple has its brand in its favor. In fact, many customers wouldn’t even consider products from other companies than Apple.

4. Individual Branding

To give a product range its own identity, a company may decide to create a separate brand. This is useful if the product range has a distinct target audience or different qualities from the company as a whole. An example of a company with a huge number of individual brands is Procter & Gamble, which has Pantene, Olay, Vicks, and Pampers, among many others.

5. Brand Extension

The opposite of individual branding is brand extension. This is when a company has established a brand to sell a certain kind of product and decides to expand into another area. The company benefits from the associations customers already make with the original brand.

An example of a company that has used a brand extension strategy is Honda. Using the brand it created for its vehicles, Honda was able to become one of the biggest names in lawnmowers.

6. No-Brand Branding

It may sound paradoxical, but one type of brand strategy is the no-brand approach. Consumers are attracted by these generic products, as they’re able to spend less without sacrificing on quality. When companies create generic products that consumers can trust, this creates fierce competition with their branded counterparts. One company successfully using this tactic is Japanese retailer MUJI — the name means “plain.”

7. Private Labels

Another way companies are taking advantage of consumers’ desire for generic products is through private labels. Retailers do this by licensing a manufacturer to produce an item and then put their own label on it. In particular, this allows stores to release their own product range to compete with those that they’re selling. As they gain a greater percentage of profits from the private-label items, they’re able to keep prices low.

Most supermarkets take advantage of private labels. Another example is Amazon, which has two several lines.

8. Attitude Branding

With attitude branding, a company goes beyond its products and services to create a feeling about the business. This gives the brand a fully-formed personality and represents the lifestyle consumers want to be associated with. It’s an excellent way to include customers in your branding. A top example of this is Nike. The brand has created the idea that consumers who wear Nike are athletic and free willed.

9. Brand Councils and Managers

Many companies dedicate an entire team to brand management. Called a brand council, the team is made up of senior executives from every department of the company, including HR, legal, marketing, and finance. It may also include the CEO and outside consultants. A couple examples of companies with brand councils include Bristol-Myers Squibb and New York Stock Exchange.

Although it’s particularly common for multi-nationals to have a brand council, this practice is useful for midsize and even small businesses. However, an alternative is to just have a brand manager. The person in this position is devoted to ensuring that the brand fulfills its mission and meets its goals by tracking markets, trends, and revenue. Companies with multiple individual brands within the same organization assign a different manager to each brand.

Of course, you could even combine both approaches. A brand council is responsible for oversight, whereas the brand manager works in implementation.

10. Crowdsourcing

Companies use crowdsourcing for many things, including brand strategy. When customers and prospects are involved in the branding process, they help shape a brand that appeals to them. Plus, they feel more personally invested in the brand and interested in its offerings.

The most famous recent example of crowdsourcing for branding is actually a failure. When the National Environmental Research Council in Britain asked the public to come up with a name for their new research vessel, the people almost unanimously voted for Boaty McBoatface.

Nonetheless, there have been many successful attempts at crowdsourcing. These range from the “Do Us a Flavor” competitions from PepsiCo (where consumers have created new flavors for Lay’s chips) to the voting on a new cookie design from Oreo.

The right type of brand strategy for you will depend on many factors, including your target audience, budget, and industry. You’ll likely want to use more than one of the branding strategy examples from above. Whatever you pick, it’s crucial that you have a clear vision for your brand and infuse plenty of innovation into your ideas.

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