Bob Lefsetz writes about brand management and he nails it.
The 3 key questions you need to know the answer to as a brand manager are:
- Who is the customer?
- What is our position?
- What brand codes do we use as symbols?
In Bob’s words: “Identity”.
That’s your position.
Who are you?
What are you against?
Why you?
Bob shares that you can’t be very everyone, you have to be for a specific group.
That’s targeting.
It doesn’t get any simpler than that.
You can’t be everything to everyone.
Full stop.
You may have broad appeal, but it isn’t likely that you’ll be for everyone.
That’s okay. Embrace that.
What’s unique about you?
Those are your brand codes.
Bob mentions Rachel Maddow’s love of fishing.
Want more?
The Nike swoosh. You’ll know it when you see it.
Tiffany’s blue box. That’s specific.
The Rolling Stone’s tongue! Again, who else could it be?
This is a very good primer on brand management.
It shouldn’t be hard to understand, but doing it well is hard because we all seem to fall into the trap of wanting to make things harder than they really are.
(Your logo is always a brand code…thus, the hat at the top.)