By Flavio Andrew do Nascimento Santos/PhDc is Lecturer at Berlin School of Business and Innovation (BSBI)
Creating a brand is a process that can often be painful, and we have the notion that everything good has already been created, and that there is nothing else left for the new brands.
With this feeling of exhaustion, there is a fantastic article written by Jennifer Murtell on the American Marketing Association´s blog, asking the question: Do we really need more brands?[1] In short, there is no clear answer to this question, but facts are facts: over 60% of consumers look for brands they can trust before they look at the price. Therefore, if your brand is your voice, we should build a brand that people can trust.
To do so, here are four simple tips for strong brand creation. And here, a ‘strong brand’ is a brand that people can trust, especially after the pandemic, where trust has a very different meaning. Janet Balis[2], in the 10 Truths About Marketing After the Pandemic, from The Harvard Business Review calls our attention to an important shift: the old truth is that your brand should stand behind great products. The new truth is that your brand should stand behind great values. Creating great value leads to our number 1 tip: it needs to be clear.
1. Clear
Having a clear message is important to build trust. Consumers are making purpose-driven decisions and your message should be clear and as short as possible because the clear ones are the ones that stay in consumers´ minds.
2. Distinct
Consumers have contact with so many different brands every day and with social media, this amount is only growing. Your voice (or brand) needs to be strong, and have a personality, differentiated from the ones in the market. You can start with the cliché question: what am I doing that no one else is doing? If you have this answer, you should make sure that it looks obvious in your brand to the customers.
3. Relevant
Continuing with this idea that ‘consumers are purposefully making decisions’, your brand needs to speak up about the relevance of the product or service. If the consumer values are now different, it is preferred to connect with brands that (at least show) the relevance of their being.
4. Credible
The last tip is a friendly reminder that if you make a promise, your consumers will remember it. Keep in mind that, after the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers are skeptical of the market and the brands, and we, as consumers, curse brands that are not delivering what they promise.
And credibility leads to our EXTRA TIP ✨: be authentic!
Michael Platt is a professor of neuroscience, marketing, and psychology whose research demonstrates how our perception of brands influences our decisions and defends: “we relate to brands in the same way we relate to people”[3]. In these terms, our consumers will know if you are not creating an authentic brand with a credible, relevant, distinct, and clear voice in the middle of all the other brands.
It is important to remember that identity and community are somewhat related to brand creation. Consumers are using one brand over another to show community affiliation and identity connection. This mindset is powerful if your brand creates a sense of community and identification with a purpose that people trust. And, unfortunately, there is no magic to creating a great value brand and a brand that people trust, the only way to do so is by hard-work and consistency in the everyday life of the brand.
Finally, from an educational perspective, there is a role that institutions should play to help companies increase their brand trust, even in societies where we can check that institutions are losing trust over years. Effective communication & transparency are at the center of this relationship among educational institutions, companies & their brands, and consumers.
About The Author
Flavio Andrew do Nascimento Santos/PhDc is Lecturer at Berlin School of Business and Innovation (BSBI)
Flavio has more than 11 years of professional experience in tourism (3 years in management positions) working on diverse hospitality companies, revenue management, tourism agencies, market research, consulting projects, and as a university MBA professor.
[1] https://www.ama.org/marketing-news/does-the-world-really-need-more-brands/
