“People are brand†says William Arruda, also called the Personal Branding Guru. Last week, with a group of Company Directors, we derived great pleasure and more importantly gained much insight for our work when we attended a seminar conducted by Helene LACROIX-SABLAYROLLES the dean of marketing of the prestigious French Business school: HEC.
Author of several business books of which the latest “Etes vous vraiment orienté client?†Helene enthused the participants of the seminar. She was given an evaluation score of almost 5/5 by the participants. She replaced the perspective of clients back in haze of Marketing buzz words, techniques and models particularly in today’s fast changing, finicky, volatile environment of zapping. She gave a new meaning to “Segmentation†of products as well as of customers. I found that the practical tools she proposed to extract from, express to and exude our customers in its entity to be most useful.
Bearing in mind that all enterprises should possess a distinctive Brand, she insisted that the enterprises has the duty to deliver on the promises of the Brand values.
We may take the question at a personal level. What Brand are you? Just like in your enterprises you would ask: who are we? What are our values, beliefs goals? How to our customers view us? Are we delivering our brand promises? I invite you to visit a web site which will name the brand you are, once you give your values and goals. Try it out.
This latter part seems very much akin to the exercises of knowing who we want to be and making it happen; I used to conduct in the 7 habits seminars.Looking back to those days. I still feel great joy and thankful to the yonder days and to participants who taught me so much on humans and their interactions.A special note of appreciation to a lady, now living in Australia Perth who assisted & accompanied me through a vast number of such corporate seminars.
5 comments ↓
Branding is indeed an essential component of business today, one of it’s driving forces.
Kapferer was and still remains the guru of branding imho. You would probably be interested in reading also Wally Ollins on Brands (got it at the British Council) who is in the corporate coms/advertising business and advocates that branding should rest on solid products and quality service first and foremost. Increasing attention should also be devoted to criticisms of traditional brands (see Naomi Klein’s book No Logo).
I personally feel that branding is only part of the process, albeit a very important and trendy one. It should form part of a continuum from R&D, design to after-sales service. Unfortunately, many people think that it’s sufficient to invest in branding even if the rest is faulty and this is clearly flawed as brand names are the cherry on the cake. The genoise had better be good for us to appreciate the cherry…
As for the whatbrandareyou website, that’s just a fad/gadget. Surely a farce!
Thanks for your comments which indeed are pertinent.Very true. Branding is one of the elements of total package to be provided to our customers.
Helene Lacroix nous a tenu en haleine avec les outils et moyens proposes, a mettre en place pour se centrer sur nos metiers respectifs en vu toujours et avant tout dans une creation de valeur pertinente a chaque client.Les maitre-mots etaient seduction,retention et fidelisation.Un jeu de role analogique par les participants sur le cas marital et les tensions conjugales demontrait avec brio les elements de strategie a mettre en place pour le trio infernal seduction,retention et fidelisation.
Yes whatbrandareyou was a teaser which I am glad you found out. HAHAHA!
Ever heard of Seth Godin and his book ‘Permission Marketing’?
Though he did not really invent the concept, he drew attention to the fact that the customer should be ‘dated’, that businesses ought to ask them permission to woo them in order to engage in long-term loyal relationships.
In fact, I teach branding to Yr2 students in ‘Integrated Marketing Communication’ and ‘Advertising’ modules. My refs include Medill’s Journal of IMC, the brandchannel.com site, Kapferer, Ollins, and various other resources. Though I teach the subject, I sometimes cast a critical eye on the area which is, I think, often cluttered with buzz and fads…
I had a good laugh at the whatbrandareyou! No need to say I tried different combination just to see what they will come up with. I agree with Christina, branding just like marketing starts from R&D to After Sales. It affects all areas of a company even the employees themselves. Here is a website that might be of interest to you : http://marketing.about.com/cs/brandmktg/a/brandingaura.htm
Seth Godin is great. I read the summary of Purple cows few months ago and I regularly read his blog.Helene Lacroix analogy of seduction of the customers is a great idea, just like in marriage, fidelity has to be continously nourished.
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