How to build brand power:The new 5 P’s of marketing

There are lots of ways to describe what a brand is...

A collective perception Present in the minds of millions of consumers

A relationshipBased on past experiences and future expectations

A definitionOf functional and emotional benefits

An intention To influence consumer behaviour

An assetThat can and should be actively managed

A financial valueBrand equity contributes to estimations of a company’s worth

The important thing about brands is what they do.

“Brands help simplify and accelerate decision making.”

Source: Martin Weigel, Canalside View

A brand is a special intangible - that in many businesses is the most important asset.

Brands influence choices of customers, employees, investors and government authorities.

In a world of abundant choice, such influence is crucial for commercial success and creation of shareholder value.

But that still leaves big questions about how to grow one.

Why do some brands acquire market share at a quicker rate than

their rivals?

Why is the marketing of some brands more effective than others?

What makes a brand powerful?

We believe that powerful brands can be built using a new ‘5 P’s’ of marketing

Powerful brands have purpose

Powerful brands focus on penetration

Powerful brands build their prominence

Powerful brands create participation

Powerful brands develop portfolios

1. Purpose

Purpose means a reason to exist over and above making money.

To refresh the world & inspire moments of

optimism

To create a better everyday life for the

many

To make it easy for people to do themselves

some good

To benefit society through the pursuit of

impossible dreams

To make the world’s information

universally accessibleTo inspire & nurture

the human spirit

Purpose-driven organisations financially outperform their rivals

The Stengel top 50 identifies brands with the clearest core idea or statement of purpose.

Source: ‘Grow’ by Jim Stengel

Purpose-driven activity drives growth

*Brands that achieve all three drive 3x more volume long term vs. promotions and command a price 14% higher.

Source: Millward Brown

Purpose drives “share of mind”

“To liberate parents & childrento live creatively.”

Persil’s purpose helped them transcend the laundry category - and move into a conversation about child development. Instead of worrying about ‘opportunities to see’ they created more ‘opportunities to be thought of’.

Purpose inspires innovation

Google’s innovations are driven by their purpose of making the world’s information universally accessible - not by how they can optimise their core competency of Search.

Purpose beats process

Process is seductive as it promises efficiency gains.

But having a strong culture is much more efficient - it builds trust, attracts and retains top talent and empowers decision makers.

US retailer Nordstrom knows that if you have a clear purpose, you remove the need for huge staff handbooks, length induction processes, countless meetings and corporate diktats.

2. Penetration

Rather than being loyal, consumers buy from a range of easily interchangeable brands in any category.

A brand’s success is not based on its ‘fans’ but on a broad base of light buyers.

Powerful brands focus their efforts on expanding this base.

Too many marketers navigate by their current ‘loyal’ consumers

“Focusing only on your current consumer base is unlikely to drive true growth potential.

Brands grow by increasing penetration - reaching as many category buyers as possible.

Penetration-led strategies are highly likely to result in growth.”

Source: Byron Sharp, How Brands Grow

Even for Coke, the average annual purchase frequency in the UK is just once

Twitter’s active users represent less than 30% of total registered

The key to driving penetration is not functional USPs but emotional,

purpose-driven activity

Functional USPs like price, size and quality appeal to the brain’s “System 2” decision making process - the mind’s slower, post-rationalizing mode where reason dominates.

Emotional messaging appeals not just to the brain’s “System 1” fast, automatic, intuitive approach BUT also often dictates the second.

Cadbury’s ‘Gorilla’ scored poorly among women on measures of “awareness” and “brand appeal”, and average among men.

But it scored the highest emotional-intensity marks (viewers felt happiness and surprise) of any advert to that point.

ROI = 3 x average for packaged-goods marketing campaigns.

Emotional activity is more effective

Sell to the market, not a segment

Nike might supply apparel to professionals in multiple categories, but their mission is always to inspire athletes - which by their definition includes everyone.

Don’t navigate by existing consumers

It was only when Honda stopped worrying about ‘alienating their core’ that they created more exciting, more effective work capable of recruiting record numbers of new drivers - an additional 20,000 cars were sold over the first 2 years of the campaign.

Compete with culture

From “What do we want to say?”

To “What do people want to hear?”

During the 2014 World Cup, Paddy Power stopped ‘shouting the odds’ and instead got behind the England football team - generating incredible amounts of patriotic buzz using the Amazon rainforest to show their support.

3. Prominence

Prominence means that a brand is easy to think of, choose and find.

Powerful brands use their marketing to make themselves famous - making it easy for consumers to bring them to mind.

Companies often ignore fame as an objective - yet it’s the most effective

Source: Binet and Field, IPA Effectiveness Databank analysis

Unlike awareness, fame can’t just be bought

Source: Binet and Field, IPA Effectiveness Databank analysis

Fame is not the same as simple exposure or awareness. Fame is not a state of knowledge, in the way that awareness is.

Fame - best measured by shares, recommendations, ‘copycatting’ and conversations - is the phenomena of on- and offline buzz that contributes to a “a perception of authority in the category.”

Fame, unlike awareness, is not something that can be bought.

Pursue salience, not ‘USP’ differentiation

If Lurpak had focused on USPs - rather than the category truth that butter makes good food taste even better - they would have ended up with a campaign about their light white colour and ‘lactic’ flavour profile.

Be consistent and coherent…

2009

2012

2014

...not erratic

2007

2011

2013

Know the value of design

A sales drop of 20%in one month.

By sacrificing their famous ‘straw in an orange’ icon, Tropicana made it too difficult for people to instantly recognise their product in a busy supermarket aisle.

After sales plummeted, they switched the design - approved by focus groups who said it looked ‘premium’ - back to the old version.

Know the value of UX

For technology brands, design is much more than a shiny wrapper - it is the brand. Microsoft and Foursquare proved that huge overhauls in UX can create outrage - despite ‘upgrading’, users felt they were using an entirely new (and worse) product, not just a new interface.

4. Participation

Campaigns give brands a short-term sales uplift by prompting consumers to purchase.

But sustained growth comes from sustained engagement.

Powerful brands create experiences that give consumers the opportunity to interact with them more deeply and more frequently.

Participation drives trial

Consumers don’t use the brands they like.They like the brands

they use.

With iTunes, Apple created an opportunity for millions of PC users to trial an Apple product for free - something people had previously avoided as they worried about Apple being too expensive, complex and incompatible.

Participation creates networks to market to on a lower cost basis

Brands that offer consumers free experiences (that don’t require upfront purchase) can create networks of fans - who are much more likely to interact (and purchase) regularly.

Participation creates data enabled relationships

By creating valuable experiences for consumers, brands can create a reason for them to share their data - about their identities, attitudes and behaviours.

5. Portfolios

With falling costs of production and media, the “portfolios not plans” mindset - spreading resources across a range of opportunities - is as relevant to the development of marketing activity as it is to venture capitalists.

Make many small bets and scale success

Mondelez’s experiment:25 insights;

4 campaigns;launched in 6 cities;

across 4 different countries.

6 months from insight generation to campaign evaluation

Over a 6-week period, these campaigns generated a significant sales uplift in grocery after years of

non-stop decline.

A/B test everything

Awareness

Consideration

Conversion

Loyalty

Advocacy

Successful brands A/B test everything across the whole marketing ‘funnel’.

They apply a ‘test, learn and iterate’ mentality to all of their marketing - their comms, page layouts and price points - not just prototypes of early stage products.

Budget for experiments, don’t bet the farm

Recap: The new 5P’s

Purpose- Purpose-driven organisations financially outperform their rivals- Purpose drives “share of mind”- Purpose inspires innovation- Purpose beats process

Prominence- Pursue salience, not ‘USP’ differentiation- Be consistent and coherent, not erratic- Know the value of design and UX

Penetration- Emotional activity is more effective- Sell to the market, not a segment- Don’t navigate by existing consumers- Compete with culture

Participation- Participation drives trial- Participation creates networks to market to on a lower cost basis- Participation creates data enabled relationships

Portfolios- Make many small bets and scale success- A/B test everything- Budget for experiments, don’t bet the farm

For more information please contact:Matt BoffeyFounder & Managing Directormatt@londonstrategyunit.comwww.londonstrategyunit.com