Interbrand Design Forum Newsletter: The Cost of Working Without a Brand Strategy

8/8/2019 Interbrand Design Forum Newsletter: The Cost of Working Without a Brand Strategy

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As they navigate through changing times

and tighter markets, more companies

nd they need to seek a new point of

attack. Or rather, a stronger point of

connection in a world where customers

are nding it easier to detach. A company’s

brand is its most powerful ally in nding

and strengthening that connection.

Dened as a company’s unique way of

doing business, brand is a promise brought

to life across all customer touchpoints

which, if properly managed, creates

identication, dierentiation and value.

In many cases, brand strategy is the

missing link in the chain of events that

leads to improved performance. Because

it’s built around a deep understanding

of the customer and a keen awareness

of the company’s own values, brand

sheds light on how to renew meaning to

tired or me-too oerings. Meaning can

be turned into action. For a retailer,

the most crucial of those actions is an

engaging shopping experience.

When a company—even a highly valued

global brand—makes business decisions

stretching the brand to include GapMatern

BabyGap, Gap Kids and 1969 Jeans but

without considering how the pieces work

together. The brand meaning has been

diminished at the core and through the ent

system. “There are no really clear principles

They have lost the connective tissue that

makes the brand meaningful.”

About three years ago, another global icon

sought help with its brand to reverse its

loss of momentum. Holiday Inn recognized

its relevance was at risk, especially for the

lucrative business traveler. Like Gap, the

company began its brand renewal with an

identity change. But unlike the jeans retail

Holiday Inn created a framework within

which to develop a new brand strategy.

Business insights from the people of Holida

Inn, such as cultural beliefs and business

needs were essential in crafting a business

case for change. Ethnographic studies

assessed guest emotion and behaviors,

identifying key moments where the hotel

experience had opportunity to engage. By

aligning critical consumer touchpoints—ke

brand hallmarks—with benchmark data,

Holiday Inn was ready for the next step.

A Retail Publication

Ideations

Issue 4 • 2010

(continued on back

without considering its brand, the results

can be dismal. Gap took a beating from

the media this month when it published a

new logo, only to withdraw it amid a urry

of questions and criticism. Retail pundits

who’ve been watching Gap’s performance

weaken over the last ten years saw the

debacle as further proof that the brand

refuses to tackle the large issues in favor

of ddling with fonts, fashion-forward

images or media-focused communications.

It’s a brand without a heart.

Gap has been valued among the Top 100

Best Global Brands for ten years, according

to our annual study. However, it is steadily

dropping through the ranks and if the

trend continues, Gap could be o the list

entirely in two years. Despite its global

scale, retail experts agree the iconic brand

has lost its way.

“This is not a problem unique to Gap,” says

Justin Wartell, Director of Strategy for

Interbrand Design Forum. “It’s something

that can befall ver y successful companies.”

According to Wartell, it’s possible that the

retailer may have been opportunistic,

The Cost of WorkingWithout a Brand Strategy



Retail Observations

Retail is an industry that loves numbers.

In fact, I am frequently taken by the

singular focus on numbers—yesterday’s

vs. today’s, how many stores last year vs.

this year, the size of average cart, etc. And

as a results-oriented organization, we

fully understand why. So before you start

looking for the let knife, I assure you, we

totally get that at the close of day it’s about

sales. But your brand represents so much

more than that.

Having spent a couple decades in retail

consulting, I can tell you that retail is

no longer the strictly operations-driven

exercise it once was and sales isn’t the

single holy grail. Retailers have woken up

to managing by brand ever since brand-

led companies demonstrated they could

command price premiums.

As continued proof of that, Interbrand’s

major publication of the year has been

released to the biggest acclaim in its

ten-year history. Best Global Brands, our

annual report of the world’s most valuable

brands, is one of the three most inuential

benchmark studies read by business

leaders today. On September 15th, our

oces around the world held events to

coincide with the unveiling of the study at

the New York Stock Exchange. Joining

us were representatives from many of the

companies ranked high on the list, excited

to celebrate the ascension of their brands.

Over the years, the 100 Best Global Brands

have been compared against metrics like

that of the global GDP and the S&P 500

and found to exceed them in growth and

value. Such fantastic performance makes

the economic power of branding blatantly

obvious. When companies understand the

drivers of brand value and manage those

drivers for global leadership, the results

are irrefutable.

Retailers on the list, such as McDonalds,

Avon, Nike, Amazon.com, Starbucks,

Gap and Tiany & Co. are among the

organizations that have realized that

brand is a business asset that transcends

marketing. They have cracked the code

on the care and feeding of their brand to

achieve the kind of results that drive the

value of their brand higher and higher,

year over year.

Understanding the components of brand

value*, which include Role of Brand and

Brand Strength, go far beyond a company’s

nancials, the traditional metrics of success.

Context must be brought to the totality and

holistic interrelationships, both tangible

and intangible, that deliver the complete

power of brand. Great retail brands under-

stand rst who they are and what they

mean to their customers, and second

how to deliver on that meaning through

the shopping experience. They know that

environments can be designed to delight

and surprise, and that personal interaction

spur engagement. They practice insights-

based product placement. Their knowledg

leads to improved communication and

navigation that gives precious time back to

busy consumers who in turn shop longer

and reward merchants with more purchas

For retailers in particular, common misstep

immediately signal when a brand is not

being well managed. Among the most

apparent is a packed and cluttered sales

oor, where irrelevant merchandise gets in

the way of a shopper’s ability to absorb the

unique brand elements that distinguish it.

Brand-led ret ailers, however, make room i

the store for a unique experience that gives

them dierentiating power and lifts them

above commodity status.

Great brands are kept to a delicate balance

of dispassionate business insight and emo-

tional alignment with their customers. As

such, they require perpetual score carding

against progress on a range of contributing

elements to truly be in touch with brand

health—as well as the ensuing market

opportunities that lead to dominance and

a place on the list of “most valuable.”

*Go to Interbrand.com for the report

and complete methodology.

Great Retail: It’s AboutMore Than Sales

Bruce Dybva



The Three Ways Consumers Attachto Brands. Pick One.

Often a rst step in managing by brand is

to frame the company’s competitive set.

Conventional wisdom once insisted that

companies compare themselves only to

retailers in the same channel or the same

categories, and pit themselves against

others according to the way things like

convenience, price, in-stock position, and

customer satisfaction were managed.

But in this era of blurred channels and its

attendant “anything-anytime-anywhere”

shopping, those conventional competitive

sets are irrelevant. You can no longer

look to price, convenience, et cetera to

gain advantage. They are table-stakes.

So, as consumers’ perceptions of value

change, brand thinking must adapt to

meet new criteria.

Trust is today’s most valuable currency.

Skittish consumers, wary of putting

their faith in any one brand, have myriad

product and service choices to supply

their daily living needs, satisfy their egos

or get something done. And they seem

be loyal to none.

Success depends on cultivating

relationships with customers in a way

that leads to more potential for prot. But

before a brand can earn a place in

the life of its target segment, it would

do well to take the time to understand

how consumers attach to brands. What

are the things that make them reexively

think of you when they need to make a

purchase, or reach a point in their lifestage

where they need to acquire things?

In search for the answer to that all-

determining question, we’ve discovered

the three types of brands consumers can

form attachments to—enablers, anities

and agents—and how those attachments

are formed.

Are you (or should you be) an Enabling,

Anity or Agent brand?

Enabling brands are those that turbo-

charge the tasks consumers already do.

If you need to send a package, you not

only entrust FedEx to do it for you, but

express it at several dierent speeds

and guarantee its arrival. It lends more

intensity to an important personal orbusiness task. FedEx users are loyal

because its “superpowers” enable them

to perform a mission with the feeling of

condence.

While an Enabling brand inspires loyalty,

it doesn’t dene your personality, reect

your personal values or make you

attractive to others. That’s the role of an

Anity brand. These brands tend to be

luxury marks or lifestyle focused. Dolce &

Gabbana is an anity brand, serving as a

stylist. Carrying its handbags or wearing

its perfume is a badge that declares

your style and status. In that same

way, Nike is an Anity brand, giving its

wearer a cachet of winning and celebrity

athleticism that satises their self-identity.

For retailers, even mass retailers, there

is an interesting space between brands

that turbo-charge and those that act as

stylists. That is where Agent brands live,

curators who edit the selection according

to their customers in order to simplify

their choices. Agent brands help simplify

our lives, even to the point of creating the

kind of shopping experience that leads us

intuitively to the articles best suited to our

needs. Such brands have an important role

to play in today’s complex world of choice.

Within the class of Agent brands are

Proactive and Reactive sub-types. Apple,

for example, is proactive. It invents what’s

next. Devotees rely on it to bring them the

next thing, to the exclusion of

by Bill Chidley

Bill is constantly in search of

game-changing inspiration.

His expertise in both design

and analytics gives him a

unique perspective, a rare

understanding of how to use

insights to develop principles

that can be translated into

real-world actions. As head

of Interbrand Design Forum’s

powerful Shopper Sciences

team, he leads the creation

of intelligent and inspired

retail programs for global

brands. Bill regularly posts his

thought-provoking ideas to the

Interbrand Design Forum blog.

Guest Feature

(continued on back)

Bill ChidleySVP, Shopper Sciences

Interbrand Design Forum

A Relationship-centric approach to growth.



A Retail Publication by

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P +1 937 439 4400

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[email protected]

Bruce Dybvad, CEO

Jill Davis, Editor

Garrett Rice, Design/Production

©2010

Ideations

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Samsung and all the rest. They even allow

Apple to sort content, such as the apps tha

must pass muster. Basically, Apple curates

how to act in the digital world.

Target, with its zealous followers, is a

Reactive type of agent brand. The brand

lters the consumer culture by asking, “Isit Target?” While they are not inventing

anything new, Reactive agents are curatin

from the latest ood of mass merchandise

or in the case of a brand like Crate & Barrel,

home furnishings. There is a transfer

of values and sensibilities between the

consumer and the agent. As a result, we

trust them not to waste our time, to focus

on the things that are relevant.

Whether companies choose to become

either an Agent, Enabling or Anity

brand, at heart it’s all about building andcultivating relationships. A business needs

a strong sense of itself as well as a deep

understanding of the target customer.

Without them, chances are slim for the

long-lived emotional attachments that lea

to long-term prosperity.

Three Ways

Potential brand strategies were ltered through a rened positioning, guest needs,

experiential research, brand expression, and regional adaptation to determine which

ideas would align best with the brand and the business. Once the strategy was

determined, the rst task was updating the Holiday Inn logo which needed to

signal major change, yet not go so far outside its legacy that consumers couldn’t

relate. Next, signage, curb appeal, a calming sensory experience at the check-in

moment, bedding and bath experiences—all were redesigned guided by the

strategy, the basis of the refreshed global branding program.

The before-and-after of the Holiday Inn guest experience speaks for itself. The

entire look and feel of the space welcomes and refreshes “road warriors” with

what matters most to them.

Brand strategy provides clear, concise and quantiably supported guidance on

where to leverage opportunities, reduce in-store costs, better manage space and

reallocate resources. It eectively switches retailers from reactive mode to creative

and innovative mode. Strategy denes a distinct “voice” that consumers quickly

recognize and understand. It ameliorates inconsistencies and unlocks potential.

“The creation of a brand strategy is one of the most important exercises an

organization can undertake,” says Wartell. “Yet many companies avoid it or deneit inadequately. It is, indeed, a big undertaking, but depending on the scope of

your business objectives, there are a variety of smart methods to help you achieve

them. In terms of return, it’s a very, very wise investment. It can be much more

costly to work without a brand strategy.”

Basically, to put a brand strategy in place, three dening steps need to be

accomplished: elucidate the values that make up the fabric of the company,

understand the needs of the target customer in order to align them with the

company’s brand values, and stake out a clear, dierentiated market space.

Only then will a brand have insights powerful enough to support the work of

reviving itself.

Gap’s mistake may have been trying to design a new way to express its brand withoutthe insight provided by these three basic steps. Until that is addressed, it’s reasonable

to expect the company’s numbers will continue to slide. “You have to dene who

you are before you can decide how you look and feel,” says Wartell. “That’s why

brand matters.”

Working Without a Brand Strategy

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Interbrand Design Forum Newsletter: The Cost of Working Without a Brand Strategy

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