Importance of Brand Development

Brand is one of the last business moats. Brand = Reputation. The market’s critical-mass gut-feeling about a company. What creates reputation? Everything that's perceived & judged by others over time. “When you create a brand, you’re not creating one brand—you’re creating many. Each customer or audience member has a different brand of you. That’s OK as long as you have it corralled mostly where you want it." —Marty Neumeier Building brand is a function of these components in harmony: Culture: Underpins everything Product: The core element Environments: Places people learn about the product & purchase Communications: Marketing & content This leads to: First impression conversion: Is this brand so interesting that I MUST try their product once? Perceived value: Is this more or less valuable to me than direct alternatives? Audience affinity: Do I want to associate with this brand publicly? Duration of recall: Did this brand make a mental impression on me that will last long-term? In a global market inundated w/ marketing, where product becomes commoditized—companies must answer: "why should I care or trust you?” “Getting people to pay more for the same old sh*t is not a rational thing. It’s emotional. The key to pricing power is to get people to feel strongly about your brand, to disengage the rational & make people want the thing at any price” —Les Binet —— Why Brand Matters: 95:5 heuristic: Only 5% of potential buyers who see your content are in-market to buy now. That means 95% of buyers you reach are out-of-market & won’t buy for months or years. More efficient funnel: Building the brand in the consumer's mind increases the probability that they will choose you when they are in-market, rather than spending more time in the consideration phase & potentially buying from a competitor. Creates revenue resilience: Aim for 50-70% of new customer acquisition to be generated organically—rely less on promotions & direct-response advertising to hit revenue goals. More efficient GTM: A larger “owned” audience leads to a stronger ability to lean into innovation & product diversification. Gross margin expansion: As brand builds, price sensitivity wanes, allowing for new products at higher price points & margins. Better partnerships: Ability to reach adjacent audiences more efficiently. —— 2024 Principles: No mediocre products. Pre-internet, brands could wrap mediocre products in glamorous “look & feels.” Today, mediocrity is rapidly outed. No mediocre content. Build this as a core competency—make stuff that's truly entertaining instead of sales-focused. Leadership as an angle. Dr. Squatch, MUD\WTR, NUDE PROJECT & Stan leverage their founders in content, humanizing the brand. —— Brand KPI's: -Repurchase rate YoY -% of Revenue on Discount Decreasing YoY -% Revenue from Organic Sources -Contribution Margin Lift YoY -Branded Search Lift QoQ -% Traffic from Organic Sources -Content Engagement Metrics -Reduced Price Elasticity

I spent most of the time on the road to Chubbies' IPO thinking “Brand” marketing was B.S. However, these 5 ideas changed that. They helped me gain confidence that: 1) Brand building is something modern consumer brands NEED to do 2) There IS a way to connect brand building to financial results 3) Doing so generates MORE PROFITS than direct response alone Cliffs notes on the 5 ideas and what you can do about it: IDEA 1: The 95/5 Rule EXPERT: John Dawes; Ehrenberg-Bass Institute CONTENT 1: The 95:5 rule is the new 60:40 rule URL: https://lnkd.in/grVu7-KS POINTS: - Only 5% of buyers are in-market to buy right now. - Effective marketing increases the probability the brand comes to mind when the buyer goes in-market. ACTION: - Focus on the 95% - Make creative that gets remembered. IDEA 2: Physical and Mental Availability EXPERT: Byron Sharp; Ehrenberg Bass CONTENT: How do you measure 'How Brands Grow'? URL: https://lnkd.in/g3Rvswmu (translate 2 English) POINTS: - Brand growth comes from growing the following two things a) Mental availability: buyers think of the brand when in the market to buy. b) Physical availability: buyers can buy the brand when and where they’re ready. - When you build mental availability, you increase the likelihood people buy from you without being prompted by a conversion ad. ACTION: - Building mental availability is priority numero uno. IDEA 3: There's an optimal split btw Brand Marketing and Activation marketing to maximize profits EXPERT: Les Binet CONTENT: The Long and the Short of It: Balancing Short and Long-Term Marketing URL: https://lnkd.in/g2fbT3JT KEY POINTS: - Objective data support a 60/40 split of brand building & conversion as the ideal mix of base sales growth and sales spikes TOGETHER. - Brand and DR creative is v different. ACTION: - Determine if ur current split is ideal IDEA 4: Connecting Brand building to financial results is possible EXPERT: Dominique Hanssens & Prof. dr. Koen Pauwels at UCLA & Les Binet CONTENT: Consumer Attitude Metrics for Guiding Marketing Mix Decisions URL: https://lnkd.in/gXGm7YKa POINTS: - Measuring the financial impact of brand marketing is a 2 step process: 1) marketing activities impact consumer attitudes 2) consumer attitude changes lead to future revenue changes ACTION: - read 5 below IDEA 5: Measuring digital behaviors is the modern method for doing idea 4 EXPERT: James Hankins & Les Binet CONTENT: Share of Search - a new way to track brands advertising URL: https://lnkd.in/gm5CAGVU POINTS: - Digital behaviors like share of search predict future sales ACTION: - Identify the digital behaviors that lead to the largest future $ impact - Focus brand building on increasing those metrics And there you have it: How to turn Brand marketing from Bull Sh*t to Holy Sh*t

𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗸𝘀, 𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝘀. (Sure, your brand looks busy. Cool.) 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲? 𝗟𝗼𝘆𝗮𝗹𝘁𝘆? 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀? (That’s a whole different game.) Throwing money at marketing without a branding strategy is just paying for attention. Think of all those incredibly over-the-top Super Bowl commercials that get millions of views and praise… but don’t actually drive revenue. Like when Mountain Dew’s Puppy Monkey Baby ad went viral; sure everyone talked about it, but no one suddenly felt the need to chug a neon-green soda. Why? Because no one was sitting around thinking, “You know what my life is missing? A Mountain Dew-energy drink hybrid.” What your brand actually needs is 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀, 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁, 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀 because attention alone doesn’t translate to sales. The difference? 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗱. 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲. Take Patagonia, no slick gimmicks, just purpose. Their Don’t Buy This Jacket campaign told people to buy less, proving their commitment to sustainability. The result? 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁, 𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗮𝗹𝘁𝘆, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝘂𝘆—𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲. It’s not just about showing up; it’s about building trust, meaning, and a connection that lasts. Because in the end, the brands that win aren’t just seen. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆’𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗻. #MakeMeCare #PurposeDriven #Branding #Strategy  #Sustainability

Are you building a Brand or still optimizing for ROAS? Every single one of my conversations with our advertising partners has undertones of this question. Recently, Craig O'Boyle, shared this great rapid-fire style hypothetical (but all too real) conversation with me, authored by Preston 🩳 Rutherford: "The Widening Disconnect Between ROAS and Business Results, Misunderstanding What Brand Means, And The 'Brand = Short Term Revenue Drop' Myth" Most CFOs have - what I call - "short-termitis". In other words, CFOs are telling CMOs "Show me results in 90 days, or else, abort [your crazy brand idea]!" We’ve worked with MMM specialists at Nielsen and Ekimetrics to do a meta analysis that uncovers the long term impact of marketing beyond the usual windows of measurement. What we found in the study is that if you are only measuring the impact in the short term, which we defined as first 4 months, you are potentially missing 50% of the effect! 50% of the credit! 🫣 Half of your incremental sales generated by marketing happens in the long term, between the fifth and the twenty fourth months after the campaign. Turns out, long-term impact is just as powerful as the short-term. To make truly informed budget decisions, we need to shift our focus and look at the big picture including short & long term. #brand #brandmarketing #valueofbranding #google