Is Brand YOU Unique

chris busch on unique..

emotions and YOU

via headrush..


You're emotional. Deal with it.

No matter how enlightened and politically correct we've become, most people still tend to believe that when making decisions, men are less driven by emotions than women. Men use left-brained (metaphorically speaking) logical, rational thought. Men are persuaded to buy or act based on thinking, not feeling, while women do the opposite. You know, that whole Mars and Venus thing.

This wouldn't be so bad if those left-brained characteristics weren't seen as being more... virtuous.

Newsflash: emotions are sick and tired of being treated like second-class brain citizens! They're taking back their rightful place in the world, thanks to the work of brave neuroscientists like Joseph LeDoux and Antonio Damsio (author of Descarte's Error). These two, and a handful of others, withstood the mocking of their peers ("Wait... let me get this straight...you're basing your career on studying emotions [laughs hysterically, spits coffee out of nose]. That is hilarious! Oh, Antonio, you almost got me on that one... ha-ha-ha." But thanks to their strength of character, and scientific abilities, they've finally started to offer honest-to-goodness, left-brain-compatible, bonafide scientific evidence of how crucial--and pervasive--emotions are in our lives.

You're all making decisions emotionally. You can deny it all you want, but you should be grateful for emotions. Without them, you'd remember almost nothing. Without them, you wouldn't learn much. Without them... you'd probably be dead. (And not much fun at parties or, for that matter, in bed ; ))

Brands from Asia -Singapore Airlines

Recognised by travellers as one of the best airlines in the world ....... Singapore Airlines has chosen to focus on one aspect of the experiential brand strategy - in-flight hospitality and warmth symbolised by the Singapore Girl . The brand promise has been built around this experience rather than the product features and benfits...

Ever wonder what the story behind the Singapore girl is ..and how many of us are aware that Madame Tussaud’s Museum in London started to display the Singapore Girl in 1994 as the first commercial figure ever....Martin Roll delves deeper

Singapore Airlines - An Excellent Asian Brand

branding tips

All gurus seem to be consistent in their views on branding...and the advice is fairly simple
...brands are not built overnight. They need time , authenticity, patience, consistency, focus , energy and an unabiding attention towards building an outstanding customer experience.


Philip Kotler’s Top Five Marketing Tips.


1. Come in under the radar"Building a brand is a roll-out process, not a drop everywhere in the world at one time. The key to brand-building is to have something good that you roll-out in a very intelligent way. Maybe even invisibly for a while because you want to be under the radar screen of competitors."

2. Know Your customer"… marketing has evolved to be not only product centered but customer centered. We are saying you've got to understand and choose the customers you want to serve. Don't just go after everyone. Define the target market carefully through segmentation and then really position yourself as different and as superior to that target market. Don't go into that target market if you're not superior.”

3. Own your branding"We are not in a state of competition anymore; we're in a state of hyper-competition. So people are desperately looking for handles -- functional features, emotional appeals -- that will draw people to their product. We should think of owning a word or a phrase that helps to build customer retention and loyalty.”

4. Stay ahead of the competition"The worst thing is that if something works, your competitors are going to clone it and before you know it anything that you had as a differentiator is imitated by the others. So you're in the business of constant innovation. Constantly asking yourself, 'Three years from now, what will our differentiator be?'"

5. Make it an experience"There's a big movement to say, 'we're not just adding services to our business and our product, we're actually trying to design an experience.' You'll see that language being used. We're in the experience design business. Starbucks is a very good example where coffee is coffee but they decided to sell it differently, put a higher price, make it good-tasting and make it an experience rather than just some coffee."

[CLICK HERE for the full article]
source : brand autopsy

branding terms

some frequently used terms in brand management

Brand positioning :The distinctive position that a brand adopts in its competitive environment to ensure that individuals in its target market can tell the brand apart from others. Positioning involves the careful manipulation of every element of the marketing mix.

Brand Patterns :“Brand Patterns” cause consumers to migrate their value from existing brands to other brands. These patterns help brand managers understand “what might come ahead” in terms of changing consumer needs and how innovation/modification changes to meet their needs.

Brand promise :The spoken or unspoken expression of the continuing, important and specific benefits clients connect with a firm, service or product

Brand commitment :The degree to which a customer is committed to a given brand in that they are likely to re-purchase/re-use in the future. The level of commitment indicates the degree to which a brand's customer franchise is protected form competitors.

Brand You

Investments in building brand YOU...ever given entrepreneurship a thought...

Rajesh Jains emergic.org ( Rajesh's internet portal Indiaworld was acquired in 1999 for a cool US$ 115mn in what was then one of Asia's largest internet deals) has some of the most profound thoughts on entrepreneurship. follow the link as Rajesh unfolds his own experiences....

Check out how they can help the brand called YOU....

http://www.emergic.org/collections/tech_talk_my_life_as_an_entrepreneur.html

trivia

some little known facts

The Gap began as a chain of outlets to sell Levi's jeans only...
It was Mickey Drexler who gradually transformed The Gap into a brand that beat Levi Strauss in its own game and became a global power to reckon with.
The company that started out selling Levi's jeans ended up leaving Levi Strauss behind..

Phil Knight , taught accounting before starting Nike

source: A new Brand World - Scott Bedbury

Time your story well...

Steve Jobs "You've got to find what you love" speech has inundated the web and blog world..the speech is almost on all blogs i visit..( including mine)...

for one ..it is straight from the heart.....when you mean each and every word you speak..people read and re - read and pass around..

then it definitely is a great speech....( actually all stories that urge you to follow your dreams always are....)

and most of it all it comes from a brand called Steve Jobs...wonder if in the pre ipod days ...the speech would've generated the same response...

Do you have a great story...make sure it is heard...and time it well...

a great story

Starbucks....a great story...beautifully told....

All brands need a great story ....and the story HAS TO BE TOLD...You cant just sit on a story and expect the world to know about it

Whats your story??

Brands are Fractal

Metacool reinforces the fact that a brand is sum total of all experiences a consumer has of the brand...

"Definition of fractal, from Hyperdictionary:

A fractal is a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be subdivided in parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a smaller copy of the whole. Fractals are generally self-similar (bits look like the whole) and independent of scale (they look similar, no matter how close you zoom in)

Good brands are fractal. Every interaction you have reflects the interaction you'll have with every other piece of the whole, as well as the whole itself. Since "brand" is shorthand for the total experience you get from buying, using, servicing, and disposing of a product, creating a great brand requires taking a fractal point of view to the process of designing total experiences where everything -- large and small -- is consistent and mutually self-reinforcing."

Why we buy

An interesting insight on why we buy from brand play "As marketers, we often talk about demographics and customer segmentation as if people make buying decisions based on who they are right now. Yet personal experience tells a different story. I find that I buy based on who I want to be, not who I am.
Think about that nice suit you bought, or a Rolex, or a Lacoste polo. You're not trying to make a good impression, you're trying to make a better impression.
Think about the health drink you bought this morning, or the Nike watch that tells you how far you've run and at what incline. Those weren't about who you are, they were about who you're trying to become.
As customers, we constantly look to a future self. If I buy this, what will that make me? As marketers, we'd better know the answer. If you buy us, you'll become X. The fact that "aspirational" is still absent from most dictionaries (including Microsoft Word) is baffling to me.
Where do you want to go today, and what brands will help you get there?"