Branding Fundamentals

Hi,

General Electric, AT&T, BMW.

At one point, brands were just labels. They were nouns, in other words, names of things. They were products—like Frisbee, Yo-Yo, and Kleenex—and they were entire companies like Nike, IBM, and Boeing. Brands were often represented in simple terms, usually by a recognizable corporate logo or product logo. Can you recall the logos for Apple, Levi’s, or Coca-Cola?

Once brand names become very well known they acquire a certain power of their own. They have the power to generate sales simply by associating a brand name, or a logo, with a product or service. Think of all the t-shirts and caps that have been sold because they carry the name Dodgers, Yankees, or Red Sox. Think of the number of toys that sold because they have the Walt Disney or the Star Wars logo. Do you think the quality and durability of those t-shirts, caps, and toys were responsible for those sales? Or is the brand name imprinted on them--and all that stands for--the reason people purchased them?

As industry recognized the power of brands and logos to sell products and services, they wanted to find out why. They wanted to know the associations people made between brands and products, and the satisfaction of consumers who used them. They also wanted to figure out how powerful brands became powerful. If they could discover the formula for creating a powerful brand they could repeat market success more reliably. By studying the secrets of brand development, “branding” became a new verb—a set of action steps companies could take to increase their market success. And it works.

The purpose of this post is to tell you that the key concepts of branding can be distilled and made them useful and real at the salon level. You can take action to create your brand and then invest in it until it becomes a powerful force in your market.

We don’t have to be marketing experts, or trained in business strategy, to benefit from the work that has gone into understanding how strong brands are created. We can understand the basic principles of branding and put them to use building your salon’s business. By recognizing a few important concepts, and looking at your salon through the lens of branding, we can increase the probability of your market success.

If you would like to learn more about how to transform your salon into a brand please contact me for more information.

Jim Lucas
Séva Education
gojimlucas@sevastyle.com
(925) 980-7871


© Copyright Jim Lucas 2009-2010 All Rights Reserved