Branding and Complexity Don’t Mix

Everyone is overloaded with information. Too many sales pitches, too many ads, too many pop-ups and banners on Web sites, and now we are even receiving spam on cell phones. However, few things are more powerful than a brand. A brand is a promise and a relationship. Most of all, a brand is a short name for something you can buy over and over with confidence.

Some people say that small companies can’t develop a strong brand. Tell that to the founders of Crocs^®. Crocs^® was once a small company, but one whose product and message was clear and distinct. Small companies can just as easily—and sometimes more easily—create a distinctive brand as large ones. The essential element in creating a brand is to have a clear and easily communicated idea of what the brand stands for. Unnecessary complexity in this area can cause confusion, and confusion turns off customers.

For those in the service businesses, a word of good service spreads easily by word of mouth—you’re lucky! But everyone has also heard that news of bad service spreads faster than good service. Few things are more valuable than a good reputation, and nothing builds a good reputation faster than giving consistently good, responsive service.

There are several steps to developing a brand, whether it’s for a small company or a large one. The first step is to clearly understand why people who have chosen your product or service picked it over the competing options. Nothing proves the worth of a brand more than customers “voting” for it with their money and buying the product associated with the brand. Often, service businesses can exploit an intangible advantage—responsiveness and speed—better than product businesses. If the organization’s culture is one that believes in customer service in the fullest sense, the word will spread to others.

One of the important steps in developing a brand image, especially in small companies, is to make sure there is no conflict in the promises delivered by the product or service, its promotional materials or its advertising. If a service is supposed to be fast and convenient, then it should be—and hours of operation should also be convenient for its customers. Nothing is a bigger turn-off than a convenience outlet with the wrong hours, or an insurance program that doesn’t cover the most common kinds of claims.

The next rule for small companies is to define a narrow target market with a narrow brand for your product or service. Most small companies have small budgets, and the only way to break through the clutter in a market is to be a larger relative voice in a very small niche. Get good and well-regarded in one niche and then move “next door” to another, similar one. Grow and spread like a vine, creeping into customers and market categories that value what it was your original buyers liked.

Finally, a brand is a relationship. Always live up to and honor that relationship, which is something a small company can often do far better than a large one. That’s why the largest growth engine in the US today is small businesses—and small businesses grow into large ones if they are managed well.

John L. Mariott (www.mariotti.net), former President of Huffy Bicycles and Rubbermaid Office Products Group, is President & CEO of The Enterprise Group, and author of eight business books and hundreds of articles and columns.

Two-Way Street Spells Branding Success

There are a variety of branding options available for companies to choose from, but for State Auto, co-op branding is the best route to success.

State Auto’s concentration is in the Midwest, with Ohio taking the lead as the state with the most business, followed by Indiana and Kentucky. However the company currently operates in 33 states, according to Bob Restrepo, State Auto’s CEO. To keep its brand focus in states throughout the country, the company relies on co-op branding efforts with independent agents.

“Our goals are two-fold—to build brands locally with independent agents and secondly to build recognition in areas where were have proportionally greater business concentration and employee concentration,” Restrepo says.

Part of State Auto’s effort to leverage its brand includes subsidizing area agents’ advertising. The company recently put up billboards in Columbus and Louisville and sponsors a sports initiative in Nashville.

“Our focus has always been to do it in conjunction with independent agency partners’ branding initiatives and keep it local,” he says. “Our goal there is not only to make our name more recognizable, but also to get our name out in the community.”

State Auto joined Trusted Choice^® in Fall 2006 and the company has used the affiliation to emphasize its branding goals.

“Trusted Choice^® ties in two ways by compliment the two goals. It reinforces and leverages our goal to co-brand with agents…We believe if agents are successful we will succeed as well,” Restrepo says. “The second is to build a Trusted Choice^® brand in communities where we try to sell products, but also where our employees are living.”

—Michelle Payne