WHO: Belinda Liu – a Senior VP of Brand Strategy at one of IPG’s top global health ad agencies. She’s an undergrad in science, an MBA from Penn State, and nearly two decade’s experience in marketing and advertising for a number of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world.
WHAT IS BRANDING: Branding is a collection of visual and language elements associated with your brand that influences a customer’s purchasing decision. So how your brand looks and sounds in a marketing asset influences the target customer to choose your product or brand over other similar options. Your brand identity is more than just a logo. It’s really a collection of all the visuals, colours, imagery, font and copy (written text) associated with your product or brand.
WHAT IS BRAND STRATEGY: In the most simplistic terms, it’s who the brand wants to communicate to, what the brand wants to say, and how the brand says it. It is essentially an articulation of how you want the brand to communicate to your target audience to make them believe something or behave differently for your brand. For your organization, the brand strategy should be a comprehensive plan that outlines foundational elements like brand purpose, identity, positioning, branding, messaging. And then ultimately translating that strategy to tactics and actions to achieve business objectives. Creative decisions like branding all should ladder up to that brand strategy and be intentional. A classic example would be Nike marketing a new style of sneakers to men, which is obviously going to be very different to marketing Tylenol (American brand name for paracetamol) to parents. Each of these brands is going to have their own brand styles and tone – which all stem from a higher-level brand strategy.
WHY SHOULD YOU HAVE A BRAND STRATEGY: Because you have to know how your brand is going to stand out and differentiate from competition so that your audience chooses your brand. At the end of the day (in most cases) it’s all about achieving your business goals. A nicer way to put that would be – you need a solid brand strategy to drive towards the organisation’s commercial goals.
HOW DO YOU DEVELOP A BRAND STRATEGY: It starts with the customer, a customer insight. You have to understand how your target audience currently behaves within the market, and WHY. Are you trying to solve a problem that they have? Do they have an unmet need? What truly matters to them? Answering these questions requires an iterative process of gathering insights and understanding the marketplace. And, it’s critical to focus on a single minded customer insight, because if you’re trying to say too much none of the brand messages will stick, and you won’t be able to influence the customer’s beliefs and behaviors. Developing the elements of the brand strategy should consistently anchor to addressing that customer insight and why your brand matters. From there, executing on your marketing communications should tell a very consistent and cohesive brand story to drive at the desired belief and behaviour change.
FAVOURITE BRAND: Nettflix. All you have to see is the “N” or hear its sonic signature. Their CEO also once said their biggest competition is sleep. It has a very strong brand identity, presence within consumers’ minds, and completely redefined a category.
FAVOURITE OR STAND OUT AD CAMPAIGN: In New York City, StreetEasy (a NYC real estate website/app) ran a campaign on the subways that created painting-like scenes of “characters” in their apartments, with the headlines operating as witty descriptions of the NYC characters in their apartment scenes. Super clever in being able to resonate with their target audience with attention-grabbing visuals, and clear connection back to the brand (eg, Buy, Sell, or Rent with StreetEasy).
FAVOURITE CITY TO VISIT: Bonjour! Paris bien sûr.
FAVOURITE WAY TO RELAX IN NEW YORK CITY: Enjoying wine and laughter with friends (really she meant spending time with her cat Lucy).
