Brand Building Recipe

Successful brand building is both a science and an art. The stakes of brand building are crucial, but it often relies on intangible elements that are very hard to define, and even harder to be worked on. 

The whole branding blogosphere is buzzing with questions such as “how to reinforce a brand ?” “How to build trust in a brand ?” “What does make a brand successful ?”

Well, there is no secret or magical recipe, but there are some key-ingredients that seem to be found in every successful brand. These elements need a specific attention and we will try to understand how to work on them. 

The first ingredient to the brand-building recipe would be brand awareness. How can a brand be successful if it is not known as widely as possible ? Brand awareness can be easily worked on through all form of marketing communication : advertising (TV, radio, posters…), social media interaction, community building, beach or ski station tours, animations in shop… depending on the targeted customers. Renewing is also a way to build awareness (new formulations, new locations…) in order to reach always more potential customers.

Now that the brand is well spread and known among customers, it has to appeal them. How can we define appeal ? What does appeal people to a brand ? I guess that what makes a brand appealing is more or less what makes a person appealing : honesty, authenticity, originality, integrity, passion, sensuality, mystery…  All this elements intrinsic to the core value of the brand make it possible to create a relationship with customers and so to appeal them.

This leads us to the following key-element in brand building : emotion. Why do we buy a brand in particular ? Mainly because the imagery it conveys matches whether the image we have of ourselves whether the way we would like to be. Therefore, buying a particular brand could be more an emotional decision than a rational one. Brands speaks to our inner personality this is why, with a precise and efficient targeting coupled with a deep understanding of the core values wanted by the target, a brand should succeed in moving and appealing a customer.  

Through awareness, appeal and emotion, a brand can succeed in creating a real relationship with its customers. Once this relationship is created, the brand needs to lead its customer to trust it. How to build something as intangible as trust ? Well, a first way would be through customer satisfaction and experience : if they are satisfied, if the product and the brand in general fulfill its promises, the customers will be disposed to trust the brand and so buy it again. 

Melted together, these four ingredients should enable a brand to grow successfully.

 We did not meant to be exhaustive in all the criteria that make it possible to build a strong brand, we tried to find out which were the greatest and newest tendencies seen on the different branding blogs.  Which stroke us the most was that it seems that companies and brands are willing to focus on the relationships they have with their customers, and to gain their love and their trust, which is probably the best way to gain their wallet.