Building Brand ethos to express Brand DNA

Authored by Ankoor Dasguupta

One of my favourite topics in marketing is the evolving consumer journey. What basic premise I have learnt is that if we understand who our audience is today and who will be they tomorrow, it becomes much easier to figure out how to put your Brand’s DNA to use. For ant brand, building a legacy is important and that takes consistency in visuals, copy and communication.

Think of your Brand in terms of a Key that has the potential to unlock human side of these four aspects -desire, want, aspiration and need. The ability to clearly distinguish between these four could be the first step to penning ‘what is my brand solving for my customer’. Then putting down the problem statement that clearly defines the ‘pain point’ of the customer.

By identifying and defining problems properly, we make things lucid. This is the area where many miss focusing. At times, Founders get so excited about their solution they forget to explain why it is so important.

Here is some simple aspects from my Brand Key that could help think through your audience better in terms of the parent Brand and the core product or service. These points will also help in strategic brand partnerships. For instance, some products just go together: bagels and cream cheese, smartphones and data plans, or game consoles and video games. But one brand would not have any credibility extending into its complementary product category; a bread brand would not have any credibility if they decided to make cream cheese. Strategic brand partnerships imply that both brands have something to bring to the table. There is no payment from one company to another; otherwise, that would be considered brand licensing.

Before we convince anyone with a Call to Action for instance ‘sign up for a demo’ or click ‘buy now’ or ‘pay now’, we need to target all these layers using the psychology of marketing. Why your customers buy into something or why they don’t buy will intensely depend on the activity in different layers of the brain.

Hence think of these eight points as something that will help with both – business strategy and marketing strategy.

External Conditions (Tip and Cuts of the Key)

• Competition – the market and other choices , relative brand offers ‘as seen by the consumer’
• Target - Person for whom the brand is always the best choice, defined in terms of attitudes & values and not only demographics
• Insight - All you know about the target consumer & their needs upon which the brand is founded

Brand DNA (Bow and Shoulder of the Key)

At the centre of the key is the essence

• Essence - The distillation of the brad’s genetic code into one clear thought
• Values & Personality - What the brand stands by & believes in and /or personality
• Benefits - The differentiating functional and emotional benefits to motivate into conversion
• Reason to Believe - The proofs we offer to substantiate the positioning
• Discriminator – this is one of the most important factors which is the single most compelling reason for the target consumer to choose our brand

The above will lead to the Brand Expression which is a combination of Visual Identity, Products & Services, Marketing channels, Marketing Communication, Behaviour of the consumer and Experience with the brand .

This exercise helps a brand become consistent in their tone, copywriting, character and purpose. Having worked on plethora of brand campaigns ad projects I understand the inherent need for this exercise which entails a lot of brain storming sessions which in turn leads to authenticity in storytelling. To sum up, there are two broad options for any brand in terms of business theory- either be in the uncontested market space by bringing in ‘innovation in value’ (easier said than done) or strive each day to beat your competition to be in the mind-space of your consumer. Only then the metrics such as ROAS will become more meaningful for long run.

My thinking is to have our brand in the sweet spot with the interplay of performance branding thereby consistently building on the brand ethos.