Conscious Branding

Chapter 9

Product/Service Design

One of the roles of marketing communications is to set expectations. As we mentioned earlier, when these expectations are not met, there is a brand disconnect. A brand disconnect makes people wary and confused, or worse yet, disappointed. If you disappoint your market, then you have actually used your marketing dollars to harm your enterprise. Since that is obviously not good business, it pays to make sure that your products and services are reflective of your brand.

Let’s look at a typical company to see how you might easily create a brand disconnect. Manufacturers often have layers of brands. They can have the corporate brand, one or more category brands, and product brands (see chapter 11 for a discussion ...