The inside-out brand-development approach is the only one that guarantees success.
'We Need to Rebrand Ourselves!'
When sales are down, when more competitors encroach our territories, or when customers pick up on the scent of a competitor's secret sauce, countermeasures are typically launched in the spirit of retaining those customers and disarming immediate threats.
The marketing department is usually called in by the CEO to launch the best campaign in the company's history to shove competitors aside with brilliant messaging and spectacular creative. A highly tactical maneuver.
The more strategic maneuver usually involves pulling the brand into the garage for a much-needed perceived overhaul. And it usually starts with research to gauge customer and non-customer perceptions of the brand, identifying buying motivators, uncovering buying criteria and discovering through creative questioning how the brand could be a better value in the spirit of building loyalty and winning new contracts.
Once this intelligence is acquired, the president or CEO calls a meeting to go over the results and subsequently starts a movement from the top down to change and adapt to what customers want and are asking for -- a perfectly logical next step.
Next? Marketing is instructed to change messaging across all marketing, public relations and digital communication channels to ensure that everyone knows that the company is customer-centric and is prepared to meet and exceed customer expectations in product quality and service delivery.
And this is usually where branding ends.
