Optimizing Brands
We live in a world, in which we continually interact with a myriad of brands on almost every level of daily life. And we don’t only use the products and services they offer. Brands physically and digitally occupy the spaces we navigate, in constantly expanding configurations.
More than ever, choosing a brand presents not just an opportunity to select the option with the most valuable functional and tangible benefits, but an opportunity to align with specific values, experiment with or reinforce personal identity and to make statements about how you view yourself and the world around you.
Yet despite increasing investments of time, talent, money and use of sophisticated communications technologies, most companies still approach “brand” from a limited perspective. Even those with outstanding products, services and polished brand identities often don’t incorporate and leverage the emotional and psychological benefits of which they’re capable. These brands may appear integrated and cohesive but they’re not firing on all cylinders.
The strongest established and emerging brands play the brand game ambitiously. They innately understand that “everything communicates” and apply this learning not only to messaging and marketing programs, but to their entire slate of offerings and consumer experiences. They provide multilayered customer wins characterized as much by emotional and psychological advantages as concrete ones. And they recognize that less obvious benefits are essential for creating sustainable differentiation and growth when customers have multiple options and, often, an overabundance of them.