Marketing: Up Close With Brand Strategy Guru

The Edge, October 16, 2006, by Harmandar Singh

Following the success of the previous forums, the Global Brand Forum popularly known as "The Davos of Branding" kicks off in Singapore on Nov. 6 and 7 at the Ritz Carlton. The Global Brand Forum brought together for the first time in Asia, the world's most famous business leaders and brand icons like Rudi Giuliani, Francis Ford Coppola, Warren Bennis, Al Reis, Deepak Chopra, Anita Roddick, Lee Kuan Yew, Tom Peters, Scot Bedbury and many more.

This year, Global Brand Forum will bring together a formidable speaker line-up comprising the world's most powerful brand gurus such as David Aaker (world's most influential brand strategy guru), Faith Popcorn (the world's No 1 brand trend forecaster), Martin Lindstrom (technology branding guru), Jack Trout (the man who created brand positioning), and many more luminaries in brand thought leadership on one platform.

ADOI magazine gets up close with Aaker

ADOI: How should small and medium enterprises go about devising brand strategies? Is it even necessary for them?

Aaker: Yes, it is as important as a large firm, maybe more. It starts with understanding your customers, segmentation strategy, competitor strengths and strategies, market trends and your business strategy. With that background, you need to decide what your brand should stand for, what associations you want it to have, your brand identity in my terms. It should be multi-dimensional, differentiating and compelling. It is also important to create brand portfolio strategies so that each brand has a defined role and they create synergy, clarity and leverage.

ADOI: How should small and medium enterprises measure brand value?

Aaker: A brand value will depend on its visibility, relevance to the customer, image and loyalty levels. All these can be measured by customer research. It's hard to put a financial value on a brand, and usually not very worthwhile. However, a brand value is obtained by placing a value on the business driven by the brand and partitioning that value into tangible assets, brand value and other intangible assets (like distribution, IT, people, and so on).

ADOI: How do you encourage brand loyalty other than providing good quality and prompt delivery?

Aaker: By creating links to your best customers through programmes that involve them with the brand. Some categories like motorcycles, beer and cars have brands that create intense loyalty that can be influenced by programmes. For example, Harley-Davidson, the motorcycle firm, has biannual parties where 100,000 Harley riders gather, and a website where pictures of riders trips can be posted. So, Harley does much more than provide good quality and delivery.

ADOI: With a low advertising budget, how should a company go about branding its products?

Aaker: Advertising is actually less of a factor for all firms than it once was because of media fragmentation. So, the importance of alternative ways to build brands is increasing. The most important in some markets is the Internet, sponsorships and promotions.

ADOI: Local small and medium enterprises are stereotyped as enterprises that have difficulty attracting good staff, offer limited prospects for career development, have limited financial resources and are not tech-savvy. A smaller firm can offer more of a generalist position, one with broader scope and more responsibility. In a larger firm, you can be stuck with a very specialised job with little chance of quickly gaining a broad set of experiences. What advice would you give to such small and medium enterprises for transforming or branding themselves into "employers of choice"?

Aaker: I would attempt to be employee friendly, become a fun place to work. I would also attempt to inject energy into my firm and its brand because energy attracts.

ADOI: This whole definition of what a brand means is a puzzling one. To some it is tangible, to others it is an abstract. What's your take?

Aaker: A brand identifies who is behind the offering. The important thing is to know that the offering is more than just attributes and functional benefits. It includes emotional, self-expressive and social benefits as well.

ADOI: Tell us a little of the magic you'll bring to the Global Brand Forum.

Aaker: I will talk about the major reasons to transform a brand to gain differentiation, energy and relevance, and how to accomplish each.

ADOI: What does it take to become a brand strategist?

Aaker: In addition to a knowledge of brands, brand strategy and the products involved, you must have an intensive interest in and knowledge of customers because customer insight is a key driver of brands and business strategy.

ADOI: What are the ramifications of digital convergence in the field of marketing and branding?

Aaker: It will expand the options for brand building.

ADOI: In your experience, what lessons could Asia, in terms of its diversity and dynamics, teach the rest of the world on issues of branding?

Aaker: I might be wrong, but my impression is that Asia is behind the US and Europe on brand building and is very focused on functional benefits.

ADOI: How will technology impact brand building in time to come, particularly as consumers' attention span keeps coming down?

Aaker: Technology can drive innovation and market trends and is one factor to look at when analysing markets. The big change in brand building is the reduced role of the mass media.

ADOI: Why are Asian companies lagging behind their western counterparts?

Aaker: I look forward to learning more about Asian companies on this trip, but I suspect they are too focused on functional benefits.

ADOI: You created the concept of Brand Equity. How would you define it?

Aaker: Brand equity is a set of brand assets and liabilities such as awareness, image and loyalty linked to a brand that add to or subtract the value provided by the product or service.

ADOI: What separates great brands from good and mediocre ones?

Aaker: It depends on the category. For high involvement categories, the great brands have high loyalty levels. For low involvement categories, the great brands have points of differentiation and high consistency.

To see and listen to David Aaker and other brand icons in person, go to www.globalbrandforum.org, or call Ruby on 03-7726 2588.