Branding

Studies have shown that – on average – around 5% of a company's stock value derives directly from the company's image.

Companies with a strong image or reputation attract more customers, retain more customers, and attract better employees. In short, branding is a key means of achieving differentiation. By communicating a clear and distinctive message and delivering against that message, the supplier can increase customer loyalty, sales revenue, prices, and ultimately profitability.

Our thoughts on the subject of branding and positioning research are shown below:

 

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Infographic: How much is your brand worth?

Determining the value of a brand is not an easy task. Here are some step-by-step analysis pointers that will help you to establish its value. Want to link to this image?...

Infographic: Pick a winner

It is all in the name. Choosing a name for your brand which is strong and memorable can be the starting point to success. Here are some guidelines for creating an effective name for your brand.

Brand Equity Research: Net Value Score - The Metric For Judging A Company's Success

Introduction – Transcending The Net Promoter Score A golf handicap, an IQ score, someone’s age – we are always looking for simple metrics that tell a story, provide an explanation, or offer...

Industrial Brand Book: The Power Of Industrial Brands [eBook]

There have been millions of words written on the subject of branding, but they nearly all relate to consumer products and markets. This is hardly surprising in the light of the megabucks spent on brands by firms like Coca-Cola, Campbell’s, McDonald’s and Levi’s. However, for most managers of businesses, the strategies of the branding gurus are as remote as the sums of money which the big...

White Paper: Identifying The Driving Forces Of Your Business

When clients come to us for research amongst their customers and potential customers, we find it helpful to know what makes them special.  We ask them to tell us about their company’s unique...

Brand Name Research: What's In A Name?

It happens to all of us. We are introduced to someone and think we have remembered their name – but we get it wrong. Everyone is embarrassed. It is only a name that you got wrong and yet to the person you...

Measuring Brand Value - How Much Are Brands Worth?

We frequently refer to 'brand values' as if everyone knows what we mean. It is assumed that there is a general understanding that a brand stands for something and what it stands...

White Paper: Getting People to Switch

What does make people switch? What is it that makes someone change their mind or their behaviour? These are crucial questions to any marketer and particularly baffling to the business-to-business...

White Paper: Differentiation - Are Product, Brand and Service Still Enough?

Marketers are constantly searching for differentiation. Unless a company has a genuine scientific or technological advantage, preferably one that can be protected by a patent,...

B2B Branding: Business-to-Business Branding White Paper

A brand is so named following the distinctive ownership mark left by a scorching hot iron on the rump of cattle. It wasn’t long before companies saw the opportunities for using similar kinds of marks to m...

Article: Business Models And Competitive Advantage

High growth depends on how you set yourself up to deliver value into the market. Colin Mason at the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, University of Strathclyde and Ross Brown at Scottish Enterprise report on how fast-growth enterprises design their business models. The commercial landscape is littered with examples of firms with innovative products or services which failed because they could not achieve profitability – typically either they could not attract sufficient customers or were based on unsound economics. A...

Article: Winning New Business

In a downturn, you have to adopt the right state of mind, says Renne Botham at Touchstone Growth Running a business is a challenge, like no other. Chances are you spend more time at work than you do at home; you can at times be more in touch with your colleagues than with your friends; and with modern technology, a need to know what is going on when you are not at work, may give you little space for ‘you’ time! Who said it would be easy? And to compound it there is the ‘R’ word! Recession is very real; however, it can also be a mantra for...

Article: How To Move A Brand Forward

Ben Harris at New Brand Vision sets out a framework for bringing all the elements in a marketing campaign together Your business is established, you’re looking to expand at home and abroad, and your attention is turning towards marketing to ensure you have all your “ducks in a row”. Agencies offer a bewildering range of services often shrouded in creative mystery and confused by industry buzz words. So where do you go and who do you ask to find out about your marketing options? The following article is designed to help create a framework and...

Article: Creating Desirable Brands

Simon Garnett of Clear USA, has six principles for creating brands that stand out from the competition In a world where brands interact with consumers across a huge number of touchpoints (web, mobile as well as traditional), there is no longer any space for brands that follow. Clear’s annual survey of consumers shows that, in most categories, the majority of brands follow category norms. These brands are less likely to create desire among consumers and, as a result, growth for the brand. Take a look at your brand and ask yourself if you stand out from y...

Article: Image Research In Industrial Marketing

Image is how others see us. It is the cornerstone of the success of any business. If a company's image is right everything else will follow easily. Image research is only one part of attitudinal research, other elements being measures of awareness and experience. If, for example, 50 per cent of buyers of office equipment are aware of Bisley and only 20 per cent are aware of Railex, it is clear that the latter is at a relative disadvantage, assuming both companies are selling a range of goods which most companies are likely to need at some time or...

Case Study: Corporate Positioning Research

Case 1 - A Worldwide Paper Company Research Objective: Our client acquired a non-woven business and needed to integrate the two operations within its own divisions. The overall objective was to understand the values of the various brand names in the non-woven industry and to use this understanding to recommend the most appropriate brands for the merged operations of our client. Research Methodology: The research project comprised of focus groups with our clients' "customer facing staff". Simultaneous with this internal...

Brand Positioning Case Study

The choice of a university as a place to study is as much to do with emotion as it is to do with logic. Therefore the brand positioning of the University is a key driver in the choice. However, not many universities have actively managed their brands. Their brands have just grown rather than been shaped or managed. B2B International was commissioned by one of the UK’s largest universities to show how it could develop its brand to gain a sustainable differentiated advantage over the competition. The following brand positioning case study...

White Paper: Keeping Your Ear To The Ground - Stakeholder Consultation

Never before has there been such an emphasis placed on understanding the beliefs, attitudes and behaviours of stakeholders for any business or organisation.  Word-of-mouth feedback from those who ...