Anyone can create a brand, or create a company today – it’s easy…but to build that brand is the hardest part and to maintain that brand position is even harder. For me, it is like losing weight but the keeping it off – is the real challenge. The hard work starts after the hard work.

A brand is often mistaken as a variety of different things and it’s important to understand its indistinctive nature. A brand is not just a logo or visual identity. A brand is not even controlled by the company behind it but how the consumer of today connects with it and has an affinity with it.

To have a successful brand of today in today’s fast paced world you need to have the customer at the heart – what they want today – might not be what they want tomorrow customer listening is key to evolve with them, some of the biggest global brands ‘of yesterday’ have learned this hard lesson.

To have a memorable brand identity you need to be distinctive. …but carry on evolving to keep that distinction. But to actually give the consumer – me, you, your friends, family what they want – so the product has to be key but that connection between your product and your customer is vital!

What goes into building a brand?

• Determine your brand’s target audience
• Establish a brand mission statement
• Create a brand logo and strapline
• Form your brand voice and message
• Research brands within your industry niche
• Outline the key qualities and USP’s of your brand offering
• A lot of hard work and years of brand story telling

I have worked with many brands over the years and just because you’re the biggest, and the best now does not mean you will be tomorrow – if you don’t make the right choices to run alongside your audience to grow with them and understand them, then forget tomorrow.

Brands are not built overnight – it’s a long term investment for companies but in our recent economy, it has proved even the biggest of brands can disappear overnight. We have unfortunately seen this recently in what many have dubbed the “retail apocalypse” with retailers such as Toys R Us filing for bankruptcy and Debenhams Announcing – it’s Closing Up To 50 Stores across the UK after record annual losses.

When brands get it wrong – Greggs – Marketing Christmas advert:

“Greggs sorry for swapping Jesus for sausage roll in nativity scene”

It showed a nativity scene with three wise men gathered around a pastry instead of Christ. This caused outrage on social media – Christian audiences were insulted by this advertising.

Twitter users said the advert was disrespectful to their religion.
“No other religion would stand for that nonsense.”

Greggs did apologise for the image, saying it hadn’t planned to upset anyone.

“We’re really sorry to have caused any offense, this was never our intention,” the firm said in a statement.

But when the same brand turns it around – Greggs vegan sausage roll

So, they have not stopped there…this year we saw Gregg ‘s keep up with their market by introducing the vegan sausage roll.

Greggs launches vegan sausage roll. The Quorn-filled vegan alternative to the traditional meat version was launched on Jan 9th – coinciding with the beginning of Veganuary, a growing movement that encourages people to embrace plant-based diets.

And the results – it was flying off the shelf..demand struggles to keep up with new product offering…

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/09/greggs-unveils-extra-profit-vegan-sausage-roll.

For me no brand in this digital – On the high street or ‘Not on the high street’ – ‘day and age’ is safe, it is about an on-going story that brands need to tell, their back story, their story of today and their story of tomorrow to keep them current and to keep us interested, interested enough to invest our hard earned money and more importantly our hard earned time!