Proper Product Branding

Something I really enjoy is evaluating the strategies companies use to market their products. I spot and pick apart the technicalities of the campaign. Needless to say, I stumble across some strategies that challenge common sense. For example, one day I was checking out an aisle of a sporting goods store when I noticed, in the kayaking corner, a sight that I will never forget

I saw a Bic kayak. Standing out as noticeably as possible was the Bic logo you know, the tiny ball-headed man holding a writing utensil prominently displayed on the top of the boat.

Apparently Bic Sport was created around 1979 to sell less costly surf boards. By 1997 they had created one million surf boards. I don't know about you, but I didn't know there was that high of a demand for surf boards.

Bic Sport has a trendy website that's dedicated wholly to water sport equipment. The brand apparently means "economic quality." Contrary to what the rest of us thought Bic meant, which is "cheap pens."

Nearly all studies of big corporations on the topic of brand illustrate that a brand is most successful if it only represents a single meaning. I trust this report and have demonstrated the principle in my own businesses. But we ought to be aware of a couple fundamental myths concerning branding.

Myth one. Only one solitary product can be represented by your brand. No, the meaning of your brand ought to be concentrated in its meaning, yet broad enough to be put on several products that can raise the sales volume of your business. For example, if Tide meant, "It gets the dirt out when nothing else can." You could then have Tide vacuums and cleaning equipment and chemicals. Tide is an incredibly successful brand of laundry detergent. They've allowed their brand to remain pure and concentrated on washing clothes. Businesses like Proctor and Gamble and Johnson and Johnson spin out numerous single product brands, which is a method I like.

Myth two. Everybody around the globe knows the meaning of your brand. In reality, the Earth s markets are vastly fragmented. Every little niche is a society within itself with its own publications, opinion leaders, and trade associations. Seeing that our lives have grown to be exceedingly high paced and we have so little time, people have become really selective as to what they pay attention to. In most cases, each community is fairly ignorant of the other communities. Consider the rodeo cowboy community vs. the soccer player community. So a single brand may have many different meanings in different communities.

I wouldn't advise altering your brand name meanings. I encourage really focusing the meaning of your brand name so that it can encompass a broad variety of products.

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