Brand Vision. How to Energize your Team to Drive Business Growth. David Taylor

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4 By the same author The Brandgym: A practical workout for boosting brand and business Brand Stretch: Why 1 in 2 extensions fail and how to beat the odds

5 Brand Vision How to Energize your Team to Drive Business Growth David Taylor

6 Copyright 2006 David Taylor Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 8SQ, England Telephone (+44) (for orders and customer service enquiries): Visit our Home Page on All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP, UK, without the permission in writing of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 8SQ, England, or ed to permreq@wiley.co.uk, or faxed to (+44) Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The Publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the Publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Other Wiley Editorial Offices John Wiley & Sons Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA Jossey-Bass, 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA , USA Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH, Boschstr. 12, D Weinheim, Germany John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd, 42 McDougall Street, Milton, Queensland 4064, Australia John Wiley & Sons (Asia) Pte Ltd, 2 Clementi Loop #02-01, Jin Xing Distripark, Singapore John Wiley & Sons Canada Ltd, 6045 Freemont Blvd, Mississauga, ONT, L5R 4J3, Canada Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Taylor, David, Brand vision : how to energize your team to drive business growth / David Taylor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN-13: (HB : alk. paper) ISBN-10: (HB : alk. paper) 1. Brand name products. 2. Product management. 3. Employee motivation. I. Title. HD69.B7 T dc British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN-13: (HB) ISBN-10: (HB) Typeset in 12/15pt Garamond by Laserwords Private Limited, Chennai, India Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire This book is printed on acid-free paper responsibly manufactured from sustainable forestry in which at least two trees are planted for each one used for paper production.

7 To Mark, for giving me my break in branding, being a great mental sparring partner and giving me the kick up the bottom to start the brandgym

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9 Contents Warning:don treadthisbook Tools brandgym network brandgym.com wheresthesausage.com The Oscar Acceptance Speech xi xi xi xii xii xiii Introduction: be a brand CEO, not a strategy tourist 1 We re busy. Do we really need a vision? 1 Why so much strategy sucks 6 The strategy tourism guidebook 10 The T-Mobile story 15 Fits all sizes and shapes 26 Over to you 29 Checklist: Introduction 31 I. SEARCH FOR TRUE INSIGHT Create an insight springboard 37 Research-itis 37 Competition: what market are we really in? 38 Consumer: opening the door to your brand 42 Brand: look back, look forward 52 Company: where should we fish for growth? 56 Checklist 1: Create an insight springboard 58 II. THE VISIONING JOURNEY What are you going to fight for? 65 Bland not brand 66 The brand manifesto 67

10 viii CONTENTS Writing the story of your brand 69 Checklist 2: What are you going to fight for? Where s the sausage? 77 Brandicide 79 Back to why brands were born 84 The power of the product 85 Searching for truth 89 Sharpening the vision 95 Checklist 3: Where s the sausage? Sizzle that sells 101 Leave the ladder in the garage 101 Pasta sauce or Prada? 103 Selling your product story 106 The Geek Squad 109 Brand personality devices 113 Bringing your personality to life 115 Put some pizzaz in your personality 117 Checklist 4: Sizzle that sells 118 Handover Big brand ideas beat brand essence 123 What s the big idea? 123 Your brand story takes shape 127 Eureka moments 129 Checklist 5: Big brand ideas 129 III. BRING THE VISION TO LIFE Test drive the vision 135 Consumers are not marketing directors 135 Think less, do more 135 Exploration has its limits 137 Bring your vision to life 141 Getting the most out of research 144 Time to sign up 147

11 CONTENTS ix Make it real 151 Checklist 6: Test drive the vision 153 IV. BRAND-LED BUSINESS Beyond brandwashing to true engagement 159 Brandwashing 159 Focus on fundamentals 163 Step 1: Hire the right people and treat them right 164 Step 2: Make it easier to do the right thing 168 Step 3: Lead by example 171 Step 4: Sell the cake not the recipe 171 The 5-month itch 175 Checklist 7: Beyond brandwashing to true engagement Create hero products 179 Kill the dwarves 179 Start close to home 181 ipod: the hero of a new vision 187 Virtual venture capital 189 Elastic brands 190 Family ties 196 Checklist 8: Create hero products Communicating without ego tripping 203 Brand ego tripping: the movie 203 Getting a killer mix 206 Design: The face of your new vision 211 Communication with cut-through 213 When you hit gold The Tyskie turnaround 224 Checklist 9: Communicating without ego tripping 230 Brand Vision to Action Toolkit 231 brandgym network 251 References 253 Index 255

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13 Warning: don t read this book Brand Vision is intended as a practical toolkit you use day-to-day rather than a theoretical textbook you read from cover to cover. So, rather than starting to read from the front and running out of steam after a few chapters, you may want to focus on the areas of your vision that need most work, and skim through the other chapters. It has been designed to live on your desk or in your briefcase, rather than to sit on your bookshelf. The greatest complement I had on the last brandgym book, Brand Stretch, was seeing a copy of it on a client s desk, full of highlighter pen, with corners of pages turned down to mark the bits of most interest. Here s hoping that you ll do the same to this book. The Toolkit section at the back has tools, tips and expert partner contact details that have been road-tested on over 100 projects over the last 15 years. Tools One of the key features of the book is a set of practical tools that you can use yourself. Wherever you see the tool sign, a blank copy of the template can be found in the toolbox at the end of the book. Some of these were used in the first two brandgym books, but many of them are either totally new or upgraded versions. brandgym network A new feature for this book is details of some of the best partner companies the brandgym has worked with over the last 5 years. Rather than build our own factory full of different types of consultant, the brandgym only has a small number of senior coaches who work with a brand team and their agency. We pull in experts on a flexible basis, depending on the needs of the project, a bit like a Hollywood film producer who selects the best talent for a movie project (though creating a brand vision for pasta sauce is not quite the same as working on the latest Tom Cruise blockbuster).

14 xii WARNING: DON T READ THIS BOOK brandgym.com Our virtual brandgym has all the tools and, if you want extra copies, you can download them from there. And a final warning. If you are expecting some revolutionary ideas or breakthrough concepts you may want to put the book back on the shelf or send it back to Amazon for a refund. Rather, this is one small part of a bigger quest to help you cut through the bull**** and buzzwords of branding so that it adds more value for your business. It is light on theory and heavy on practical tips, tricks and tools to help increase the chances of creating a vision that actually has some impact on your business, rather than gathering dust in a frame on the wall or sitting unused in a cupboard. wheresthesausage.com This is my blog on branding, with loads of interesting, topical brand stories. You can dip in and out or sign up for weekly updates

15 The Oscar Acceptance Speech Thanks to Claire Plimmer and all the Wiley team for helping create the brandgym series of books that allows me to share my branding tips, tools and tricks with a global audience. Thanks to the people who read The brandgym and Brand Stretch andtookthetimeto write and tell me that you liked them and found them useful. Your positive feedback kept me going when the going got tough. Thanks to all the brand CEOs who have the balls and brilliance to create the brand stories that make this an interesting read, and who have been nice enough to give me projects over the years. A special mention to Phil Chapman of T-Mobile; Mark Sherrington and Elaine Whitlie of SAB Miller; Cees Talma, David Arkwright, Andy Porteous, Alain Loss and Helen Lewis at Unilever; Thom Albers, Louis Rippen, Frank Galestein and Yvette van de Meerakker at Friesland Foods; Nic Yates at Kraft; Tom Allchurch of Fresh Italy. Thanks to my guinea pig readers, Jonathan Davies of CNN and especially my brilliant partner David Nichols, who yet again helped me pull out the killer point that became the central, unifying theme of the book.