What is branding? Is it limited by the definition- a unique design, sign, symbol, words, or a combination of these, employed in creating an image that identifies a product and differentiates it from its competitors? Do great brands all have something in common? What makes one brand thrive, while others survive and others die? What Great Brands Do, authored by Denis Lee Yohn provides answers to these questions. Denise Lee Yohn is a leading authority and sought-after speaker on building and positioning exceptional brands.
According to the author, a brand is more than a company’s image. “Your brand is what your company does and how you do it. The brand is the central organizing and operating idea of the business. The brand informs every decision that moulds the operations, culture and customer experiences.” Yohn recommends brands to be used “as management tools to fuel, align and guide every person in the organization and every task they undertake.” She further adds, “Companies must operationalize the brand. This is what Yohn calls, “brand as business.”
The book further elucidates 7 brand-building principles that separate the best from the rest. They include:
Great Brands Start Inside. For Yohn, creating a brand-building culture is the first step in putting the brand at the heart of the company’s strategy and operations. Every stakeholder must embrace the notion that everything they do needs to align with and express the brand.
Great Brands Avoid Selling Products. Companies must not depend solely on products, even great products with superior attributes. They must find ways to connect emotionally with customers.
Great Brands Ignore Trends. Trends are tempting but short-term. The best companies anticipate and even help to create broad and important cultural movements.
Great Brands Don’t Chase Customers. A brand that tries to please everyone inevitably loses its brand identity, according to Yohn. Focus on your best customers and the unique value you bring to them.
Great Brands Commit and Stay Committed. It is very tempting to veer from one’s brand identity in the pursuit of short-term growth and profits. The goal is to gain your competitive edge through a brand platform from which you never compromise.
Great Brands Never Give Back. Yohn asserts that great brands don’t need to “give back” to society because they never “took” in the first place. “Great brands manage to use the power of their brands to inspire change and have an overall beneficial impact on society,” she writes.
Great Brands Sweat the Small Stuff. This principle forms the core methodology of the book and sets the pace of turning the theory of brand as business into real-world practice.
Unlike most branding books, What Great Brands Do goes beyond the ‘How is it applicable in practice?’ It is thoroughly practical about brands.
