Branding For Dummies®

Chapter 20. Ten Truths about Branding

In This Chapter

• Getting to the root of the best brands

• Making the human connection

• Benefiting from great brand experiences

The best name, logo, ads, and efforts can't compensate for a weak brand. But what's a brand? And how do you build a strong one? The ten truths presented in this chapter offer up answers to these burning questions and summarize the golden rules of great branding.

Branding Starts with Positioning

Your position is the birthplace of your brand. It's the unique space in the consumer's mind that only your offering can fill. You need to determine and stake your position before you develop the brand that will live there.

Positioning is the process of finding an unfulfilled want or need in the consumer's mind and addressing it with a distinctively different and ideally suited offering.

Remember these rules about positioning:

• Your position must be open. Otherwise, you'll need to dislodge an existing brand — and that's big and costly challenge to tackle.

• Your position must be based on a unique point of difference that's believable and truly attractive to consumers.

• Your point of difference must be one that you can deliver with such consistency that every experience with your brand reminds customers of why they chose and remain loyal to your brand.

Chapter 4 helps you conduct the research necessary to find an open position you can fill, and Chapter 5 helps you stake claim to the position you find.

A Brand Is a Promise Well Kept

Brands are promises ...