In last fortnight’s blog we shed light on the four emerging themes among the challenges our clients are facing at the moment, and took a deep dive into the first two of these pain points.
These themes included:
In this week’s post we will be addressing the final two key themes: No clear story and uninspired design; and sharing our advice for addressing these themes to drive efficient marketing outcomes, and, ultimately, business growth.
As the saying often goes, speak to everyone and be heard by no-one. How can we ensure that we are communicating our offer in a way that is tailored to the exact needs of our customers without diluting our brand and re-writing our messaging each and every time?
BrandMatters was appointed to address this challenge for a financial services client recently.
This client operated within a complex, frequently misunderstood asset class with low awareness, and our client’s brand had limited recognition and understanding.
In addition, the team found it difficult to clearly and consistently articulate what it was that the business stood for and what benefits it could bring to its clients. This was particularly challenging given its diverse customer base, from private investors, to financial advisers right through to large institutional investors and private debt issuers.
To commence this process, BrandMatters undertook a rigorous research program including stakeholder depth interviews and qualitative and quantitative research with current clients and prospects. This, along with relevant market data, was distilled into key insights that provided a foundation for brand development.
Find out more about conducting a research project by downloading our Guide to Brand Research.
We then conducted workshops with internal stakeholders to define the client’s point of difference and recommend a brand positioning that would help the client achieve its business goals.
This positioning was used to inform a series of customer value propositions (CVPs) for each of the clearly defined target audiences. These CVP’s established the exact offer and benefits for each individual audience, giving the prospective client a reason to choose our client that was aligned to their personal needs, but also tied back to the broader brand positioning.
By consistently referring back to and using these CVPs as the starting point for all client communication, our client has significantly improved customer and prospect brand awareness and understanding; as well as streamlining the communications process at every level – marketing, pitching and ongoing client relationship management.
We recently partnered with an FMCG client who was facing exactly this issue.
This client was facing heavy competition that offered the same products, at similar prices. This, coupled with the fact that there was very little separating their own two brands, and much of their marketing collateral looked very similar, meant their potential customers had little reason to choose them over any of their competitors.
BrandMatters needed to create a compelling positioning and visual identity that both set them apart from the competition, but also that clearly differentiated one brand from the other.
After conducting a large quantitative and qualitative research process, we drew out insights that informed the development of two clear and differentiated brand positionings for each brand.
In order to bring the brands to life, BrandMatters developed overarching visual identity concepts for each of the brands. For this particular client, the logos did not require updating – they just needed a strong suite of supporting elements in order to more effectively communicate each brand.
Each identity concept included a colour palette, fonts, secondary design elements to help highlight products and specials, and a photographic style. The two concepts that were chosen made a strong visual connection to the core characteristics of each brand, and each concept was boldly and obviously different, helping to carve out an obvious separation between the two brands.
Following the development of the identities, each brand was brought to life across sample posters, catalogues, uniforms and digital advertisements, and each look and feel was documented in a comprehensive set of brand guidelines to ensure the consistency of the brand identity moving forward.
The newly defined brands were successfully launched at a national conference. At the conference, the brands were brought to life using two especially created brand videos. Each video told the story of the brand’s unique offer and brand promise, and used the newly created brand identities.
Find out more about developing a compelling brand identity by downloading our Guide to Brand Identity.
Feedback at the conference was universally positive with the audience, who were each excited by a much clearer brand proposition. Sales people were pleased with the degree of separation for each brand and the fact that they could tailor promotions much more effectively. Manufacturers and distributors also described the clarity in which the proposition was made and how this would help guide their ranging and instore promotional activity.
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As marketers we have a toolkit at our disposal – a toolkit that we can leverage to solve brand and marketing challenges that present in a rapidly evolving marketing landscape. Knowing which marketing lever to pull – whether it be research, brand strategy, brand messaging or inspired visual design – and having the right partners on hand with the expertise to assist you, will ensure that you continue to drive business growth for your organisation.
If you are experiencing any of the challenges we’ve described, or can think of another business that is, we’d be happy to meet to discuss potential solutions for solving the business challenge and aligning your marketing results with your business growth objectives. Contact us to arrange a discussion.
