I have written about strategy extensively in various essays on this and other blogs I contribute. I define strategy as the process of developing and prioritizing options to enable growth towards a broader vision. In my experience the development of options is often the relatively easier step, it is prioritization that most people and organizations bulk at. Ever watch a kid at a dessert table? It is a fascinating visual, he or she will want it all and very often the largest size or the biggest piece of ice cream, cake, milk shake, you name it. Rest assured he or she is not going to finish any more than a small fraction of the entire selection. Organizations act like little kids at times when going after consumers. They want it all, they want their brands to be everything to everybody ending up being nothing to anybody.
Anyway back to brand equity… when prioritizing the attributes that define our brand’s core equity brand stewards often run into a very similar dilemma. Who is she and what is most important to her? How is she satisfying her needs today and why should she choose your brand to meet those needs? Often these criteria are not a simple one plus one equals two but one plus one equals zero or even four, every psychologist has developed his or her own theory to understand her desire to try and enable the one plus one equals at least two if not more.
As a marketer and the research budgets available to large brands these days there is a strong tendency to get carried away, it is really where economists are different from a brand marketer. Keep it simple, ensure every equity attribute needs to simply abide the following –
- Be Different!
- Maintain Relevance to the target.
- Live the brand with the highest Esteem.
- Communicate, Communicate, communicate
This is based on the Y&R DREK (Differentiation, Relevance, Esteem and Knowledge) model in assessing a brands equity value, the intangible asset value to an organization.
