Build your Brand

Once you have positioned your offering, you need to translate this positioning into a
set of intangible elements that will constitute your brand. A brand is a distinguishing name or
symbol intended to identify the offering of either one seller or a group of sellers, and to differentiate
those goods or services from those of competitors. With this name or symbol, a brand is making a
set of promises to its customers, it is a contract.
What type of promises are we talking about here? Well, promises that are in line with the
actual positioning statement of your offering, which summarizes what superior value your offering
brings to its customers, and to whom you are bringing it to (your target). So branding your
offering plays a key pivotal role between your positioning and the next step of the marketing
process, which will be to translate all intangible branding elements into a tangible customer
experience.

We are here
Marketing Strategy

1. Building the Brand Intangibles

Branding means creating a set of intangible elements that customers are going to associate with
your offering. This set of intangible elements so essential to branding are usually summarized
in a Framework, sometimes called brand essence statement/ framework. A brand essence
statement has to be consistent with your positioning statement, but goes deeper into understanding
what makes the brand unique.
There are several existing templates for this type of framework. All include the following
elements:

© HEC Paris – Prof. Anne-Sophie Chaxel 1

 • The benefits of the brand, including a justification of these benefits. Remember benefits
can be emotional and/or functional (question: WHAT is this brand)
• The character traits of the brand (question: WHO is the brand?)
• How the brand actually connects with its customers (question: HOW does this brand make
me feel?)
• And finally, a short sentence that summarizing all of that, sometimes called brand purpose
(question: WHY does this brand exist?)
When answering the question WHO (character traits), really try to think of the brand as a
person. The most usual personality traits for brands are (not-exhaustive list):
First, sincerity. You will find here brands that are down to earth and
honest. Think the brand Patagonia for instance.

Second, excitement. You will find here brands who are spirited and
exciting, such as Red Bull.

Third, sophistication – these are brands who are charming or glamorous,

such as Cartier.

Fourth, ruggedness, brands that are tough and masculine. Think

Marlboro.

Finally, competence, for brands that are reliable, intelligent, consensual.

Think Accenture.

Once you have your brand essence statement, so a summary of the intangible elements that
make your brand unique, you will do your best to create a branded customer experience that will
be consistent with your brand essence statement. In other words, you will work to convert these
brand intangibles into tangible elements that consumers can feel, see, touch, hear.
The brand image is the perception of your brand by consumers once they have felt,
seen, touched, and heard about your brand. If you have managed to link brand intangibles and
brand tangibles in a way that is coherent, your brand image should be more or less the same as
your brand essence statement. If not – if there is a discrepancy between your brand essence
statement and what you actually do with your brand, you will end up with a brand gap, which
is a discrepancy between how you intended your brand to be perceived, and how you are actually
perceived.

© HEC Paris – Prof. Anne-Sophie Chaxel 2

 If there is no gap, then you are on the right path to display a consistent message to your
consumers through your brand, which can ultimately lead to the creation of brand equity.

2. Measuring the path to Brand Equity

Brand equity is the added financial value brought by the brand only to the company.
Once your consumers are associating your offering with a specific brand essence, they create the
right network of associations each time they come across your brand. This set of associations can
then create financial value for the company, since it reduces costs, such as for instance
communication costs, and increases sales, for instance through brand loyalty. Brand equity is the
marketing concept that summarizes this financial edge that good branding can bring to a
company.
There are 4 main steps in building positive brand equity. Each step is building from the one
before. For instance, if you do not have the right brand image, you won’t be able to modify
consumers’ perception of your offer (brand value step). If your brand value indicators are in the
red, your brand power indicators will automatically be in the red as well. Etc.
The starting point to creating brand equity is to build the right brand image.
This includes measurements that tap into the automatic associations that
consumers make with your brand. For instance, for Kevlar (DuPont) it could
be strong, fearless, in control, heroes (check out
[Link] . Projective techniques in
marketing research are particularly good to measure those associations.
Online, word clouds are also a good tool to understand what words your
brand is associated with.

The second step is to see whether the brand associations actually impact the
perception of value associated with your offering. This is what is called
brand value research. Unlike brand image research, which aims to uncover
customer perceptions of the essence of the brand, studies examining brand
value focus on the personal significance of the brand for target customers.
There are three dimensions on which brand value can be examined:
functional, psychological, and monetary.

© HEC Paris – Prof. Anne-Sophie Chaxel 3

 The third step is to see whether your brand changes actual consumer
behavior: in particular, does it lead to an increased likelihood to buy? Or
does it induce your consumers to talk about your brand more? This step is
called brand power research.
In this domain, a quite famous measurement is the net promoter score. The
NPS – net promoter score- is a measurement of actual brand advocacy, and
really reflects how your brand influences what consumers say about it. The
NPS is quite often taken as a proxy for measuring brand equity. And indeed,
it is very correlated, since brand power research is the last step before the
final step, which is the actual measure of brand equity.

The last step is to be able to create financial value for the company. This is
what is referred to, usually, brand equity, and refers to the additional value
provided by the brand, independently of the offering does. Measuring brand
equity can take several forms. The financial approach assesses brand equity
as the net present value of a brand’s future earnings. Several companies do
this valuation, the most famous being Interbrand. Brand Z and Brand
Finance are two other very famous rankings.

In brief, building brand equity requires the creation of a virtuous cycle made of
positive associations, which turn in positive attitudes, which induces a change in consumer
behavior – and ultimately, creates additional financial value for the company.
A very important step in this cycle is therefore to successfully bridge brand essence and
customer experience at all customer touchpoints. The goal is in a way to transfer all of the brand
intangible elements into elements that the customer can hear, feel, touch, or see.

© HEC Paris – Prof. Anne-Sophie Chaxel 4