1.2 The Brand Development Process

While we call this a marketing class, it’s actually a branding class. If you don’t first build the essential foundation for a strong brand, marketing—what you do to promote your brand—is scattershot and inefficient. Brands are developed through careful planning and strategy. A successful brand requires years to build and involves management with consistent execution.

This book uses the blueprints of the brand management process developed and perfected by the Procter & Gamble Company and its brands over the past fifty years. P&G is the industry standard for branding and marketing excellence.

Branding Overview

A brand is a platform from which recognition, loyalty, and revenue are driven. Branding is similar to conducting a symphony orchestra. Just as the conductor needs to make sure the violins come in on cue and the drums are on beat, marketers need to both write the music (brand strategy and brand positioning) and coordinate all the many different marketing components—advertising, packaging, promotions, websites, apps, email, and more. All of the marketing pieces need to play the same tune perfectly and in perfect time. Our marketing symphony must move consumers to purchase!

The Brand Development Process

Brand strategies are not created overnight. It usually takes months of research, customer insights, competitive analysis, and strategy discussion to define how our product or service will be able to fit into the life of the customer in a way that will make their life better. This brand strategy defines how you are different, better, and special to consumers.

From the brand strategy, we develop the rest of the brand components—defining a target audience, the brand positioning, the brand identity, and the brand platform. While all these terms may seem a little like learning a foreign language right now, don’t worry! We will go over each in detail later, and you’ll find it’s actually pretty cool when you get all the pieces laid out and you can see how the puzzle fits together.