The success of any brand is its claim to branding, packaging and visibility.
People and professionals working in the field of publicity, marketing and communication are well aware of how important a good publicity strategy is.
Below mentioned are the ground rules or principles that should be kept in mind while creating, promoting and exhibiting a product or a brand. They cover almost every basic needed to create an everlasting and strong market presence:
1. Law of Contraction
A brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus. When we are working on personal branding it becomes complicated to do so because we as humans are complicated and we can stand for so many different values and principles.
The mistake often people make is to build a brand name that represents services, products or company, whereas in my opinion personal branding should not be mixed with business branding. They can merge or collaborate but both need to exist individually.
2. Law of Publicity
The birth of a brand is achieved with publicity, not advertising and I believe this to be true. It takes time to work with a product to turn it into a brand. It must go through a few processes before it is published.
3. Law of Advertising
Once the brand is born and has grown, been tested and approved, it needs advertising to stay healthy. Advertising plays a very important part when the time comes to make the brand known.
This has to be done in such a way that it shows what the brand stands for and at the same time people should be able to comprehend what it means.
4. Law of Decision Making
You brand should make it easier for the customer to make buying decisions. We don’t have time or head-space to compare every feature or benefit of every make or model of anything that we are buying new days. We want it now and fast, or at least I do.
A short while back I was forced to buy a new fridge. I found myself drawn to the brands I knew. I felt safe paying a few extra dollars and buy the known brands then go for an unknown brand. For me, it meant that I was saving myself from going through, the painful experience of shopping again, at least for the next 17 years.
5. Law of Credentials
The critical ingredient in the success of any brand is its claim to authenticity. If it does not resonate with your values the chances are that it would not be a brand, customers would feel loyalty towards, and the recurring buys will not happen. It also becomes vulnerable to criticism and can easily be destroyed.
6. Law of Consistency and Singularity
A brand is NOT built overnight and success is measured in decades, not in years. When I see people who want to build a successful name very fast, it feels as if they have a shortage of time. One should start a brand with longevity in mind, not just To do so, it is very important to bear in mind the focus and single-mindedness.
7. Law of Meaning and Mortality
While a brand should strive to own a place in the mind of customers, the makers of that brand should know how long they’re willing to let it run. Since nothing lasts forever and forever is a very long time. A graceful exit or euthanasia is often the solution to this, but again it should be strategic and not abrupt.
Branding is about meaning. For anyone in business, it is the sum total of all the connotation that all your possible audience carry around in their head and heart. For people like me who think with their emotions, I like to live in people’s hearts.
Your brand should be everything that your customers and prospective customer thing, feel, say hear, read, watch, imagine and suspect and even hope.
These laws always seem relevant because anybody can launch a product or market a popular name, but the essence lies in becoming a brand that resonates with the customers’ mindset for a very long time.
