Building a Brand

Don’t dismiss branding as a multinational phenomenon - Look at what they do, and adapt it to your SME situation – Cameron Cooper looks at the important steps in building a brand, and vehicles for promoting it.

If you think branding is not important for your business, consider this: Coca-Cola, the world’s most valuable brand, is worth US$69 billion, according to international branding consultancy Interbrand. Not bad for a fizzy drink.

Creating a strong brand is considered essential to the success of major corporations, but many SMEs put the issue in the too-hard basket. It’s too time-consuming, too expensive and too difficult, they say. Such a dismissive attitude may be a mistake because even the smallest business can benefit from greater market awareness and goodwill.

So, how can an SME build a brand from scratch? Dale Renner, a brand strategist and director of GSG Iconic, says branding must be treated like any other business asset-it requires planning.

“Often organisations get into trouble when they make decisions at the last minute or think about branding simply as an end result, such as the way their logo is designed,” he says.

A brand should be treated as a strategic tool that is integrated with an overall marketing strategy. Renner advises three steps:

First, identify the unmet needs of the market through research-that process may be as simple as asking friends or present customers about what they want-and work out the company’s sale proposition and how to communicate that to customers.

Second, develop a positioning concept. How can the business present a product or service that is different to competitors. For example, if there are five banana shops in your city, selling cheaper bananas may form the core of the brand strategy. “Branding mostly boils down to a process of differentiation,” Renner says.

Third, think about how to deliver that proposition and communicate it. A brand, Renner notes, is a “promise delivered”.

Carolyn Stafford, of Connect Marketing and author of the book Small Business, Big Brand, believes many organisations misconstrue what branding is about and focus on logos, names, colours and other physical attributes.

“They don’t pay attention to the soft, intangible parts of the brands. We really need to reverse the whole concept of branding and not look at it from a visual and physical context but from an emotional viewpoint and create a community around our brand.”

Stafford cites the Harley-Davidson brand, which is now about more than just motorbikes. “Their brand values are about freedom, rebellion, all those sorts of things.”

SMEs, she says, can also try to create a positive experience around their brand despite having fewer resources than multinationals. “It’s feasible for any business. For example, most businesses get their customers through referrals and word-of-mouth, so they have to provide a great brand experience. It doesn’t matter how gorgeous or sexy your brochures look or your logo or website.”

Stafford even suggests that SMEs should take their branding cues from large corporations rather than merely trying to emulate the campaigns of like-sized rivals. “Businesses need to do stuff that is different, and the best way is actually looking at businesses that are outside their area and the big brands that are doing it exceedingly well.”

McDonald’s, Microsoft, Google-it is hard to believe that such iconic business names were once unknown startups.

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