I had a long conversation with one of our clients Friday about branding. The company is launching a new product and we were discussing the branding strategy.
Usually in the planning process we start with the Blue Ocean Strategic steps (article) as a beginning. We can use the value proposition developed in that planning process in conjunction with our adoption plan as the basis for our core message. Of course, at some point that high level strategy has to hit the ground and this is referred to in our office as the "roll out plan." The roll out plan is where we figure out the details of when& how we are going to reach our target audience...media types, creative messages, frequency, etc.
But the conversation we had Friday was a bit different because we weren't just talking about a strict "utility" to the consumer, but a more esoteric "who do we want to be and how do we want to be viewed" type conversation.
This has been interesting so far because we are looking hard at our target market and trying to determine the common traits, interests, etc. so that the brand image can be developed to maximize connection with that audience.
The reason I call it the DNA of the business is because, once the client settles on an initial brand image (we could change based on results), all of the marketing will be developed with that image in mind. We will try to take dead aim on that image and try to capture that ground while avoiding any muddying of the message with non-correlated messaging.
***For those of you that follow along, you may be able to guess the client and if so, keep and eye out and let me know how you think it is going.
