Brand Transformation Toolkit

5 Jan

Most people like to keep this close to their chest in case their competitors or prospects use it without them. I don’t care. If you borrow it, find it useful and it works for you then let me know as that would be awesome. Some may not have the time, willing or knowledge to implement certain aspects or any of the below, that’s why they hire people like me (or you reading this) to do it for them.

This is the combination of over 20 years of marketing experience. I’d love to hear anything you feel I might have left off. I tend to update the working version of this monthly or when I learn something new that works.

Research

BRAND ECOSYSTEM - Understanding the entire brand landscape including all employees, associates and shareholders related to the company.

DISCOVERY SESSION
1. Who, What, When, Where, How, WHY?
  1. What is the problem you are hoping for me to solve?
  2. Who are you?
  3. Who are your customers?
  4. Who else is saying what you are?
  5. What do you do?
  6. What do your customers do (good for digital products)?
  7. What problem do you solve for your customers?
  8. What is different about you?
  9. When do you do it?
  10. Where do you do it?
  11. How do you do what you do?
  12. How do you serve and add value to your customers?
  13. Why should customers care?
  14. Why might customers not buy from you?
DESKTOP RESEARCH
1. SWOT Analysis
2. Good v Different
3. Competitor Audit
4. Cultural Audit
5. Brand Architecture Audit
6. Experience Touchpoints & Journey Map
AUDIENCE - Who are you talking to & how well do you know your customers?
1. Independent qualitative research
2. Independent quantitative research
3. Archetype Development - Behaviours
4. Personas Development - Goals | Motivations | Frustrations | Channels
5. NPS - Net Promoter Score
6. Empathy mapping
7. Do people know about the brand? If yes, what role does it play in their lives? If no, what do they know instead?
8. What is the Customer & User Experience like?
POSITIONING - Where does the business stand in the minds of:
1. Consumers / Beneficiary
2. Employees
3. Partners
4. Suppliers
5. Competitors - map this out on a graph
6. Media
BENCHMARK REPORT - Distil all the research findings into a full and short version report that you can use to benchmark success.

Strategy

MANIFESTO - Setting out the statements
1. Purpose - Guides you
  1. Why you exist beyond making money? (never changes)
  2. Why your organisation has begun a journey, guided by the deeply-held values and beliefs that inspire it to make a difference.
2. Vision - Inspires you
  1. What are you hoping to achieve?
  2. A shared picture of mission success (5-20 years)
  3. A one-sentence statement that articulates the end-goal of the brand.
  4. These are their hopes and dreams.
  5. Could be a problem statement flipped into reverse to be optimistic. Imagine if…
3. Mission - Drives you
  1. How are you going to get there?
  2. A master plan for creating value (5-20 years)
  3. What problem are you solving for your customers
  4. What do we do? For whom? How? And Why? One sentence statement.
  5. “I do X for Y through Z because of A”.
4. Goals - Short term objectives to achieve your mission (0-5 years)
5. Value Proposition - These are the things that make what the brand offers good - USP.
6. Brand Character - Personality traits (what are you like) - 5-10 adjectives that explain the brand personality as if the business were a human.
7. Values - Words that are attributed to how you see yourself. These should hold common traits with you and your customers. They must ring true and so you must be able to use them in context when talking about yourself e.g. Independent | Diverse. NB. Avoid words that are expected like ‘Integrity’. If you didn’t have that you wouldn’t be in business. These should be unique and true to you now and not idealistic.
8. Culture - Words that are attributed to your brand’s culture. Ideally, these are the same as your values but in large corporations, it is common to have separate culture/internal values as well.
9. Value Statement - A sentence stating your values as sayings e.g. ‘Be Bold’ ‘We are customer-obsessed.’ ‘We act like owners.’ ‘Innovate don’t imitate.’ ‘What would MacGyver do?’ ‘Fiercely Independent.’
10. Brand Archetype - The Ruler, The Hero, The Caregiver etc
11. Proof Points (reasons to believe) - Anything to support their claim? Stats to validate? Testimonials? Awards
12. Key Offerings - These are the actual products/services the brand provides - Benefits to the customer over Features of Product/Service. (Bucketed out with paragraph of subtext underneath)
13. Key Pillars - 3-4 things the brand stands for (Bucketed out with paragraph of subtext underneath). e.g. Environmental change | Economic Transformation | Social Justice.
14. Zag Statement - Our brand is the only_______that________.
15. Focus Test
  1. Who are you?___________(Core purpose)________.
  2. What do you do?_______(Category or niche)______.
  3. Why does it matter?______(Point of difference)_____.
16. Brand Story (about us) - A few paragraphs on the back story.
BRAND ARCHITECTURE - Is there (need for) one?
1. Corporate / Monolithic e.g. Virgin Media / Virgin Holidays etc
2. Endorsed e.g. KitKat a Nestle company / Aero a Nestle company
3. Branded e.g. Procter & Gamble - Gillette / Fairy
OKR (Objectives & Key Results) & KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
1. OKR & KPIs of the Company
2. OKR and KPIs of the Brand
BRAND BOOK - Collect all of the above together in a Brand Book.

Design

CREATIVE BRIEF - Distil all of the above into a brief

CREATIVE - Core Idea
1. Brand name
2. Tagline
3. Visual Ideas - Moodboards and roughs only
4. TOV - Initial thoughts only
5. Content & Message - Accessible / Believable / Consistent
DESIGN BRIEF - Update the Creative Brief to include the new ideas
INITIAL BRAND DOCUMENT including:
1. Logo
2. Colour Palette
3. Typography
4. TOV of Voice - Finalised
5. Image / Illustration style (reference only)
6. Digital (mock-ups only)
7. Print (mock-ups only)
8. Video / Animation / Audio (Mood Film only)
TEST - Test all done to date on positioning candidates
1. Does what you have done to date match their desires?
2. How does it compare to the Benchmark Report?
3. Does it align with the Manifesto?
4. Are the OKRs and KPIs right and achievable?
5. Consider opening up to a wider audience, especially if you are as big as GAP.

Planning

CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAP & CX - Customer Touchpoints: Activities, Feelings, Experience, Expectations. Map the customer journey from awareness to brand loyalty and note the touchpoints along the way.

MEDIA & CONTENT - Paid | Earned | Owned
1. Advertising
2. PR
3. Other - Events / Experiential
4. Internal Content
WEBSITE
1. UX & Design
2. User Testing
3. SEO
4. CMS
5. Integration with internal systems
SOCIAL
SALES FUNNEL
CHECK visual & written cohesion in all of the above
CAMPAIGN PLANNING at key points in the year
RESOURCE & BUDGETING - Who have & who do we need?
MONITOR, MEASURE & ANALYSE - Weekly, monthly, Quarterly, Annually (See Section 5)

Implementation

BRAND COLLATERAL

BRAND GUIDELINES - Finalised with all the other elements included
BRAND FILM - An inspirational film that encompasses your brand.
INTERNAL TRAINING
1. Social
2. SEO
3. Tone of voice
4. Visual elements (Design, Photography, Illustration, Video style)
5. Sales Funnel

Monitor, Review & Change

UNDERSTANDING the organisational benefits and needs of Brand Monitoring.

MONITOR
1. Sales Funnel (Weekly)
2. SEO (Monthly)
3. OKRs & KPIs (Monthly)
4. Content & Creative (Monthly)
5. Website (Monthly)
6. Social and online mentions via Google Alerts (Monthly)
7. UX (Quarterly)
8. CX (Quarterly)
9. Customer Feedback (Bi-annually)
10. Social (Weekly or Monthly)
11. Brand against 1.4 Benchmark Report (annually)
CHANGE
1. Product
2. Place (Environment/Market)
3. Price
4. Promotion
5. Processes
6. People (or Behaviour)

BrandCX

Joe Lygoe http://joelygoe.com