The Brand Advantage: Keys to Successful Implementation
| Category: Marketing | Date: 2001-07-27 |
Brand is an unbeatable tool for building sales and loyalty in a catalog environment. It can tie your entire campaign together, catalogs to ads, online to lead generation inserts, and, because of that, its an investment well worth consideration.
Most catalog operations are constantly balancing customer retention and new customer generation. By keeping your brand alive, vigorous and ever-present, youll find that each effort is more effective, and each contact requires less explanation. Your customers will recognize you faster when they are looking for a friendly face. Youll also discover more frequent repeat purchases. You can even generate more outside positive conversation about your catalog through brand-oriented media placement.
The key to incorporating Brand into your catalog at all levels is to deal with it from a long-term, strategic standpoint. Lets look at some of the strategies that can help you capture and communicate your catalogs brand.
1. Doing Your Homework
A. WHO are you?
Knowing what your catalogs brand looks and sounds like may seem like a no-brainer to you if youre in the middle of your operation. You know your brand intimately, or so you think. But from the outside, or even to the ever-changing flux of employees and vendors you may have, your brand may not be so clear.
When I entered the advertising world many years ago, I discovered that top-notch traditional ad agencies would work with their clients to establish a mission statement if the client didnt have one. This statement is all about what really matters to a company in terms of product offerings, customer service, and commitment to business. Yet in direct mail, and particularly in catalogs, few have taken that step to establish their companys mission or creed.
This Mission Statement is the first thing to generate. Then, to make it really do its job, it should be available, posted, for each and every employee and vendor to see. Incorporating it into your catalog is also effective, and finally, incorporating it into other media such as your website and space advertising is excellent.
The second bit of homework youll want to do is actual market research. A questionnaire to current customers, and another to those people in your target market who are not yet customers, will give you the opportunity to discover what your brand looks like from the outside.
You may be surprised when you ask people what they believe you stand for, what kinds of products you carry, what service you provide compared to what they expect, how you look and sound to the outside world. In addition to what do we look like research, discovering what your customers, and your future customers, want from you is another key to your branding. This kind of research can be done inexpensively, via mail cards, online surveys and bind-in surveys, with small gift offerings or credit coupons given when they reply.
Another key ingredient to accessing your brand, and developing awareness of it, is in your actual Database Marketing work. The finer-tuned your database, the more likely you are to be on-target in your brand effort. This is usually the Achilles Heel of catalogs, so it may be time for you to assess the control and access you have in your house list to all kinds of information, including not just demographics and buying habits, but also special interests, avocations, deep rooted beliefs and more!
B. HOW do you communicate your brand?
Once you have a clear picture of your current customer-eye-view, and you have your mission clearly established, youll know how to proceed with creative to develop your brand look and feel.
First, youll want to share each and every detail with your creative team prior to their digging into this branding assignment. The team includes the Creative Director, the Art Director or Designers, and the Copy Chief and Writers. Spread out and create a strategic chart of all the places your catalog will show up, including advertising, the catalog itself, and your communication with your customers. Review the market research, hang up the mission statement, and spend a day intimately getting to know your customer. Then, let the brainstorming begin!
Brainstorming is a conversation in which no idea is considered wrong or silly
- some of the worlds best, and worst, advertising has come out of brainstorming. Keep ideas written down, play with your brand and get as comfortable with it as your favorite pair of jeans. You and your team will need to use that comfort zone, and that complete knowledge, to create a compelling long-term brand strategy.
Following the brainstorming, your creative team will go to work, first using single flat concept boards to create ads, which later will be converted into catalog pages and other media. Again, room to play is the key to a compelling brand strategy. Follow up with internal critique. This way, you are sure to get a handle on the brand look and voice that really conveys who you are.
But what about brand within the catalog itself? Remember, in a catalog, the brand cant just show up on the cover - if this happens, the catalog looks just like what it is - an ineffectual band-aide solution on the front of the catalog, but the soul of the brand is non-existent. I recently got a National Geographic catalog, and except for one small added-value box inside, there was no brand connection carried out inside at all. Clearly, the team thought that the merchandise was symbol enough of the brand. However, many of the products Id seen elsewhere. There was no special evidence that the products were exclusive. As a consumer, I felt that National Geographic was not at all connected with the catalog, and I got no sense that the merchandise would have that same sturdy, adventurous cache of National Geographic. Worst of all, as a consumer I wondered, why would National Geographic sell the same stuff as everyone else. And why should I buy it from their catalog?
On the other hand, a catalog like TravelSmith provides enough added value in the body of their copy and added value that you see and read their brand clearly. Brand shows up in the merchandise, in the copy, in the design. Their little black dress is as symbolic of the catalog as the design style. A great example of the symbiotic brand in action.
With another catalog, Graphic Dimensions, the consistent treatment of the frames, and the details, etc., has created a brand for them that is well known in the art crowd. And of course, Talbot’s brand shows up from their red door through their mission of classic fashion, through their dedication to exclusive merchandise. One of my favorite catalogs is a small one, Cheap Joes art supplies. The catalog sprinkles exclusives (which they develop along with well known artists and companies such as Windsor Newton) with well known merchandise, and holds their brand in place with brilliant, homegrown copy, cartoons, a very present personality (Joe himself) and a clear mission of customer satisfaction. I immediately recognize Cheap Joes among my other art supplies catalogs, and look forward to seeing it as I would a painting buddy.
2. Where Are You?
Media placement plays a great part in establishing brand, and causing conversation and awareness of your brand and presence. A visit to almost any magazine is enough to make you realize, the dot-coms have discovered magazine advertising and lead generation in a big way. Yet with vigorous searching, I found only a few catalogs with space-ad presence in magazines. Beware, Catalogers...these dot-coms are taking over the lead generation customers you covet!
Despite cost concerns, space advertising for lead generation is an extremely valuable tool both to pre-test list possibilities, actual lead-generation, and just plain pure brand advertising. A few of the winners here are, again, TravelSmith, who advertises quarter-page black and white ads in travel magazines - a natural! - and REI who also uses quarter pages to support brand and generate leads.
Among the big players, Spiegel purchases full pages with bind-ins, the hardest to ignore, although media experts in DM would say the full page is overspent. Nevertheless, consistent presence and the recognizable brand look, feel, language and treatment, make space advertising in appropriate magazines an essential part of your brand strategy. L.L. Bean and Lands End also use space advertising to build brand awareness and generate traffic for their catalogs.
"But space is expensive!" you say. Well, there are ways around that, too.
Full page ads can be procured often at discounted rates as remnant space, so as you plan your budget, allow for an educated media buyer to work your contracts for these ads, and you may find yourself getting some great deals in your media.
In addition to space ad media, your presence on the web will become a more and more vital part in your branding, as well as actual sales. The work you present there needs to be brand consistent too.
3. Enrolling The Entire Team
Brand work for a catalog needs to be embraced by everyone, from the top down, to make it work. Having a brand specialist visit and educate the entire team, lead the brainstorming and create buy-in is a good step toward making this happen.
Your catalogs creative director is likely to be a key decision maker for this process, and there needs to be dialogue about budgets, strategy and how results will be measured. Consider also the impact from a budget standpoint of bringing in another member of the creative team - either a staff brand police,’ or an assistant to the creative director who can help the CD police your brand across all media. Youll be incorporating the enhanced brand look, voice, and attitude across the pages of the catalog, the web, magazine ads, possibly broadcast and even outdoor in certain circumstances.
A big challenge in maintaining brand consistency between your catalog and other materials is in the recognition of brand as being more important than the autonomy of the people working on the varied elements. While you respect your ad agency, your webmaster, your catalog team, etc. as worthy contributors, it will be up to YOU to police your brand across all media.
The solution to this challenge is to get complete buy-in as to the brand strategy from each creative person and merchandiser who works on your various elements, and to provide ample samples and statements about its implementation.
When educating your creatives about your brand, written items such as your creative brief for the project, your marketing brand statement and examples of how you got where you are can also help. Allow room for questions and dialogue, and if you have any graphic standards guides, be prepared to
provide them at the beginning, not after design has been started.
In an in-house environment, there is more chance that brand looks and voice will be consistent and strong, since usually a unified marketing team and a group creative director holds it together. When using your outside vendors, be prepared to enforce the standard aggressively.
Brand in your catalog, brand in your advertising, brand on the web and more.
Your investment in this process will pay off in dividends of stronger lead generation, higher customer retention, a more unified creative and marketing team, and less confused, more loyal customers. Sound good to you?
About the Author.
:To contact see details below.
DBMarkets@aol.com
http://www.msdbm.com
Most catalog operations are constantly balancing customer retention and new customer generation. By keeping your brand alive, vigorous and ever-present, youll find that each effort is more effective, and each contact requires less explanation. Your customers will recognize you faster when they are looking for a friendly face. Youll also discover more frequent repeat purchases. You can even generate more outside positive conversation about your catalog through brand-oriented media placement.
The key to incorporating Brand into your catalog at all levels is to deal with it from a long-term, strategic standpoint. Lets look at some of the strategies that can help you capture and communicate your catalogs brand.
1. Doing Your Homework
A. WHO are you?
Knowing what your catalogs brand looks and sounds like may seem like a no-brainer to you if youre in the middle of your operation. You know your brand intimately, or so you think. But from the outside, or even to the ever-changing flux of employees and vendors you may have, your brand may not be so clear.
When I entered the advertising world many years ago, I discovered that top-notch traditional ad agencies would work with their clients to establish a mission statement if the client didnt have one. This statement is all about what really matters to a company in terms of product offerings, customer service, and commitment to business. Yet in direct mail, and particularly in catalogs, few have taken that step to establish their companys mission or creed.
This Mission Statement is the first thing to generate. Then, to make it really do its job, it should be available, posted, for each and every employee and vendor to see. Incorporating it into your catalog is also effective, and finally, incorporating it into other media such as your website and space advertising is excellent.
The second bit of homework youll want to do is actual market research. A questionnaire to current customers, and another to those people in your target market who are not yet customers, will give you the opportunity to discover what your brand looks like from the outside.
You may be surprised when you ask people what they believe you stand for, what kinds of products you carry, what service you provide compared to what they expect, how you look and sound to the outside world. In addition to what do we look like research, discovering what your customers, and your future customers, want from you is another key to your branding. This kind of research can be done inexpensively, via mail cards, online surveys and bind-in surveys, with small gift offerings or credit coupons given when they reply.
Another key ingredient to accessing your brand, and developing awareness of it, is in your actual Database Marketing work. The finer-tuned your database, the more likely you are to be on-target in your brand effort. This is usually the Achilles Heel of catalogs, so it may be time for you to assess the control and access you have in your house list to all kinds of information, including not just demographics and buying habits, but also special interests, avocations, deep rooted beliefs and more!
B. HOW do you communicate your brand?
Once you have a clear picture of your current customer-eye-view, and you have your mission clearly established, youll know how to proceed with creative to develop your brand look and feel.
First, youll want to share each and every detail with your creative team prior to their digging into this branding assignment. The team includes the Creative Director, the Art Director or Designers, and the Copy Chief and Writers. Spread out and create a strategic chart of all the places your catalog will show up, including advertising, the catalog itself, and your communication with your customers. Review the market research, hang up the mission statement, and spend a day intimately getting to know your customer. Then, let the brainstorming begin!
Brainstorming is a conversation in which no idea is considered wrong or silly
- some of the worlds best, and worst, advertising has come out of brainstorming. Keep ideas written down, play with your brand and get as comfortable with it as your favorite pair of jeans. You and your team will need to use that comfort zone, and that complete knowledge, to create a compelling long-term brand strategy.
Following the brainstorming, your creative team will go to work, first using single flat concept boards to create ads, which later will be converted into catalog pages and other media. Again, room to play is the key to a compelling brand strategy. Follow up with internal critique. This way, you are sure to get a handle on the brand look and voice that really conveys who you are.
But what about brand within the catalog itself? Remember, in a catalog, the brand cant just show up on the cover - if this happens, the catalog looks just like what it is - an ineffectual band-aide solution on the front of the catalog, but the soul of the brand is non-existent. I recently got a National Geographic catalog, and except for one small added-value box inside, there was no brand connection carried out inside at all. Clearly, the team thought that the merchandise was symbol enough of the brand. However, many of the products Id seen elsewhere. There was no special evidence that the products were exclusive. As a consumer, I felt that National Geographic was not at all connected with the catalog, and I got no sense that the merchandise would have that same sturdy, adventurous cache of National Geographic. Worst of all, as a consumer I wondered, why would National Geographic sell the same stuff as everyone else. And why should I buy it from their catalog?
On the other hand, a catalog like TravelSmith provides enough added value in the body of their copy and added value that you see and read their brand clearly. Brand shows up in the merchandise, in the copy, in the design. Their little black dress is as symbolic of the catalog as the design style. A great example of the symbiotic brand in action.
With another catalog, Graphic Dimensions, the consistent treatment of the frames, and the details, etc., has created a brand for them that is well known in the art crowd. And of course, Talbot’s brand shows up from their red door through their mission of classic fashion, through their dedication to exclusive merchandise. One of my favorite catalogs is a small one, Cheap Joes art supplies. The catalog sprinkles exclusives (which they develop along with well known artists and companies such as Windsor Newton) with well known merchandise, and holds their brand in place with brilliant, homegrown copy, cartoons, a very present personality (Joe himself) and a clear mission of customer satisfaction. I immediately recognize Cheap Joes among my other art supplies catalogs, and look forward to seeing it as I would a painting buddy.
2. Where Are You?
Media placement plays a great part in establishing brand, and causing conversation and awareness of your brand and presence. A visit to almost any magazine is enough to make you realize, the dot-coms have discovered magazine advertising and lead generation in a big way. Yet with vigorous searching, I found only a few catalogs with space-ad presence in magazines. Beware, Catalogers...these dot-coms are taking over the lead generation customers you covet!
Despite cost concerns, space advertising for lead generation is an extremely valuable tool both to pre-test list possibilities, actual lead-generation, and just plain pure brand advertising. A few of the winners here are, again, TravelSmith, who advertises quarter-page black and white ads in travel magazines - a natural! - and REI who also uses quarter pages to support brand and generate leads.
Among the big players, Spiegel purchases full pages with bind-ins, the hardest to ignore, although media experts in DM would say the full page is overspent. Nevertheless, consistent presence and the recognizable brand look, feel, language and treatment, make space advertising in appropriate magazines an essential part of your brand strategy. L.L. Bean and Lands End also use space advertising to build brand awareness and generate traffic for their catalogs.
"But space is expensive!" you say. Well, there are ways around that, too.
Full page ads can be procured often at discounted rates as remnant space, so as you plan your budget, allow for an educated media buyer to work your contracts for these ads, and you may find yourself getting some great deals in your media.
In addition to space ad media, your presence on the web will become a more and more vital part in your branding, as well as actual sales. The work you present there needs to be brand consistent too.
3. Enrolling The Entire Team
Brand work for a catalog needs to be embraced by everyone, from the top down, to make it work. Having a brand specialist visit and educate the entire team, lead the brainstorming and create buy-in is a good step toward making this happen.
Your catalogs creative director is likely to be a key decision maker for this process, and there needs to be dialogue about budgets, strategy and how results will be measured. Consider also the impact from a budget standpoint of bringing in another member of the creative team - either a staff brand police,’ or an assistant to the creative director who can help the CD police your brand across all media. Youll be incorporating the enhanced brand look, voice, and attitude across the pages of the catalog, the web, magazine ads, possibly broadcast and even outdoor in certain circumstances.
A big challenge in maintaining brand consistency between your catalog and other materials is in the recognition of brand as being more important than the autonomy of the people working on the varied elements. While you respect your ad agency, your webmaster, your catalog team, etc. as worthy contributors, it will be up to YOU to police your brand across all media.
The solution to this challenge is to get complete buy-in as to the brand strategy from each creative person and merchandiser who works on your various elements, and to provide ample samples and statements about its implementation.
When educating your creatives about your brand, written items such as your creative brief for the project, your marketing brand statement and examples of how you got where you are can also help. Allow room for questions and dialogue, and if you have any graphic standards guides, be prepared to
provide them at the beginning, not after design has been started.
In an in-house environment, there is more chance that brand looks and voice will be consistent and strong, since usually a unified marketing team and a group creative director holds it together. When using your outside vendors, be prepared to enforce the standard aggressively.
Brand in your catalog, brand in your advertising, brand on the web and more.
Your investment in this process will pay off in dividends of stronger lead generation, higher customer retention, a more unified creative and marketing team, and less confused, more loyal customers. Sound good to you?
About the Author.
:To contact see details below.
DBMarkets@aol.com
http://www.msdbm.com
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