365 days; 8,760 hours; 5,25,600 minutes and 3,15,36,000 seconds.
This is the time for which we stay surrounded by millions and zillions of brands and if you were to ask me, I am certain that each of these brands would aspire to carve out a niche or a differentiated space for itself in the market. For this purpose, marketers tend to utilise branding prospects to set out definite imagery, tonality, and position for their respective brands.
Philip Kotler, the father of Modern Marketing defines branding as attributing a “name, term, sign symbol (or a combination of these to a brand/product) that identifies the maker or seller of the product.” A lot of Companies think and feel that their brand building is done once they have established a brand’s name and logo i.e., the brand identity. However, the actual task begins right here, i.e., conveying and communicating the brand’s identity, architecture, position, persona, and purpose to the end-user or stakeholder. An authentic brand will always strive to reflect its true branding across its range of efforts- be it in terms of marketing, communications, or public relations.
Also, I strongly feel that the exercise of branding goes on forever as the brand and its elements experience constant evolution with the changing times. It is here that PR & Corporate Communications professionals become significantly important to ensure that they integrate the brand’s metamorphosis well into whatever they set out to communicate with the concerned stakeholders.
A Corporate Communications professional acting as the voice of the brand, in a way, ought to know the essentials of branding. When we integrate branding with communications, it becomes a successful recipe for not just a brand’s reputation management journey but also for the brand’s authentic connection with the consumers.
- Know your Company’s Brand Architecture
Brand Architecture is a system that organises brands, products, and services to help the audience access and relate to a brand. There are various models of brand architecture, namely branded house, house of brands, and hybrid.
A branded house majorly consists of an umbrella/parent brand under which sit a lot of sub-brands/products, marketed and operated in liaison with the parent brand. A good example of this is Google and its sub-brands- Google videos, Google books, Google maps, etc. A house of brands means home to numerous brands, each with its independent audience, marketing, look and feel. P&G & Unilever are great examples of this. A hybrid model, as the name suggests means the blend of the two, and a very well-known and most famous brand following this architecture is none other than Coca-Cola.
A Corporate Communications professional must first be thorough with the brand architecture of their respective Company. It is only this understanding that will help them convey their Company’s story most effectively. Not just this, they are supposed to know how each brand/product or service is catering to the Company’s core business objectives and pillars.
- Know your Brand’s Image & Tonality
Brand consistency is a company’s ability to maintain communication and positioning in line with its values and the elements that make up its identity. If this consistency breaks away, there’s bound to be serious repercussions for a brand. Consumers highly value consistency and they get confused when they are spoken to, in different imagery and tones.
In PR & Corporate Communications, there comes a multitude of opportunities for a brand to integrate its image and tonality with the story that it wants to tell the world. Media pitches, Press Events, Award functions, and so many other platforms are there for a brand to showcase what it stands for and how it speaks for that purpose. A well-rounded Communications professional will leverage all these opportunities to make their brand story consistent and valuable.
- Know your Brand’s Persona and Lend a similar voice to your Leaders
If you are into Corporate Communications & PR, you must spend most of your time and strategic thinking right here in this segment. Brand personification is quite simple to be explained. Imagine your brand to be a living entity and visualise in your head everything that you could associate with this being. This awareness will guide you to lend a voice to not just your brand but its stakeholders as well. A Company’s spokespeople and leaders represent the brand and its purpose in the external world. These key personnel needs to derive most of their thoughts and meaning from the brand’s persona. As Communications professionals, we must strive to study the brand and its elements inside out to be able to lend that perfect voice to a Company’s thought leaders.
The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.
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