Purpose of brand vision
To earn the right level of profitability, you have to leverage your brand rightly. It is here that we start treating brand as an asset and manage that asset by having a vision.
Vision fulfills three basic purposes
Consensus among management: A bottom-up approach, it extracts understanding and consensus from management about brand’s contribution. All concerned with the brand give their input regarding brand’s potential and an effort is made to have all of them committed to the respective tasks they are to perform toward brand’s contribution.
Brand vision brings management to a platform from where they all have to agree what level of growth the brand will generate to fulfill company’s objectives. It is not a function limited to the boundaries of marketing management; it is an objective for total management to agree on one point - brand’s reason for being (why it exists?) and its potential toward profitability.
The question of why the brand exists entails detailed discussion on many exciting areas of marketing, which will be touched upon from time to time in their proper perspective throughout the course. What it essentially means is the “fulfillment of a particular need” of customers. Identifying the right need and then committing yourselves to fulfill that with the right product takes you on the journey of starting with a vision to complete development of the brand.
Commits Company to research: Consensus leads management to initiate research on so many vital research projects. Because of the commitment, no one wants to make decisions without any solid basis. The tendency to make assumptions on the ground that we know the market well and therefore there is no need for research should be avoided. Only research provides the company with grounds like: o Customer attitudes and usage o Brand attributes to maintain and change o Segmental changes; multi-segment brands o Geographical changes; new categories etc.
The list is not exhaustive. It can be much longer depending on the needs of the company at any given point in time.
Knowing customers’ attitudes offers insights into product build-up, service requirements, and any other fulfillment of customers’ requirements. Maintaining or changing product attributes relate responding to changing needs, preferences, and competitive pressures that exist and the ones that are anticipated.
You can also determine the differences among different offerings of the brand as perceived by your consumers in different segments of the market. You can make decisions about which segments are more attractive and which are less attractive. That may also take you into what geographic areas to be emphasized more in relation to strength of different offerings. Brand strength may lead the management to start considering introducing its brand across categories. What is it that took Nestle from milk to yogurt to juices to chocolates? This is a good example of going across categories.
Management can either stick to its vision and plans or change it according to the findings of market research. As you go along the learning path you will realize that almost at every step you can undertake a research project. Research does not have to be tedious, cumbersome, and expensive. Small and simple research designs can lead you to verify your hypotheses as the need emerges.
Mandates telling all stakeholders: Since vision is well thought-through and shared by all in the company, it mandates that management tell all stakeholders to know and share it as well. Sharing the vision means that stakeholders will also know the objectives that are a reflection of the vision.
The present day’s competitive pressures have made the day-to-day management very fast paced and, hence, prone to dynamic changes and adjustments. Information on past performance, recent trends, and research findings present a strong case for the brand plan and vision. Having support from all stakeholders toward your brand objectives makes the job of management less difficult. It also keeps the blame game and finger pointing from taking place if things go wrong. Going right strengthens management’s confidence.
Let us now try to develop hypothetical vision and mission statements of a fast food company that is planning to enter the category of fast food. The exercise is intended to take you through a case that offers an opportunity of developing a practical understanding of the concepts.
After you feel comfortable with the learning process, you may like to develop similar statements of any business you may envision yourself handling or heading.
Vision Statement of a Fast Food Company
“The company will enter the fast food category by introducing a range of quality sandwiches with brand name XYZ; the sandwiches will have health-food-appeal for lunch time in particular and anytime later in general. It will price the entries within the consumer friendly range to optimize the number of customers, who are professionals within the age bracket of 20-50 years. It will attempt to reach its potential customers at their door step and always stay close to where they are”.
As is clear from the statement, the company’s business model will be based on three fundamental factors of
The basic objective of this statement is to emphasize the point that vision relates the future. The statement talks about the nature of the product and how it envisions entering the category with consumer-friendly pricing within the target market. (The statement is a little longer than the usual vision statements. It is designed to basically enhance your ability to develop one independently).
We shall be referring to the implications of this statement frequently to see that every thing said in the statement has a meaning in terms of brand management. The figures 10 - 12 exhibit the translation of consumer-friendly pricing as it fits into the market gap that will allow the company to optimize its sales.
We can sum up the components of this statement into the following: o It explains the overall goal of the brand o It defines the target market
o It underlines the need to have differentiated sandwiches o It makes it easy to translate the above three components into financial goals
If you think that XYZ has to create more than one sandwich with different taste profiles in order for its customers to have choice, then your thinking is practical. If you think that XYZ should deliver sandwiches at the doorstep of its customers, then your understanding is correct. And, if you think that XYZ by saying “close to where its customers are” should also create its own restaurants, then your vision is comprehensive about the future business make-up. Should you also think that the statement will have implications in terms of specialist personnel to operate restaurants; your vision is then absolute and totally inclusive about the nature of business.
Mission being the business at hand, the statement will look like the following:
Mission statement of XYZ
“XYZ’s mission is to develop a team of delivery personnel conversant with the job of delivering food with high efficiency and low operational costs. Part of its mission is also to simultaneously develop fast food outlets with appealing but economy-driven architectural features, from where it can serve its customers through highly-trained and motivated crew.” We are assuming that XYZ has in place all requirements fulfilled for the right human resource for sandwich making and purchasing on daily basis of the requisite supplies. Sustaining the operations through excellent systems and procedures are part of the development process.
Brand Value Statement
“XYZ professes integrity of character, conscientiousness of work ethics, quality consciousness, and mastery of skills as its basic values.”
To have the quality of sandwiches as envisioned by XYZ, it is important to have the staff inculcate the declared values. It should take special training sessions and periodic refresher meetings to renew company’s commitment to the professed values.
The three figures show a grid representing on the x-axis five segments of price and on y-axis three levels of quality. The intersection of the price line and the quality line represents one particular price-quality index that basically defines one particular segment. You can have as many price lines as you may deem representing the actual market situation.
XYZ makes an entry in “mid-high market segment 4” (figure 10) and later plans to enter with different offerings into “mid-market segment 3” (figure 11) and “high-market segment 5” (figure 12) later on. The strategic moves are a translation of the vision the company developed for itself. Workings on the moves as are evident from the figures are all about company’s mission and strategies that flow out of the vision and mission.
Key point
Vision generally represents a time frame of 5 to 10 years. Once translated into mission, it stays intact for a couple of years or more. It is said that a mission statement should not be changed before two to three years approximately.
To earn the right level of profitability, you have to leverage your brand rightly. It is here that we start treating brand as an asset and manage that asset by having a vision.
Vision fulfills three basic purposes
- Consensus among management
- Commits company to research
- Mandates telling all stakeholders
Consensus among management: A bottom-up approach, it extracts understanding and consensus from management about brand’s contribution. All concerned with the brand give their input regarding brand’s potential and an effort is made to have all of them committed to the respective tasks they are to perform toward brand’s contribution.
Brand vision brings management to a platform from where they all have to agree what level of growth the brand will generate to fulfill company’s objectives. It is not a function limited to the boundaries of marketing management; it is an objective for total management to agree on one point - brand’s reason for being (why it exists?) and its potential toward profitability.
The question of why the brand exists entails detailed discussion on many exciting areas of marketing, which will be touched upon from time to time in their proper perspective throughout the course. What it essentially means is the “fulfillment of a particular need” of customers. Identifying the right need and then committing yourselves to fulfill that with the right product takes you on the journey of starting with a vision to complete development of the brand.
Commits Company to research: Consensus leads management to initiate research on so many vital research projects. Because of the commitment, no one wants to make decisions without any solid basis. The tendency to make assumptions on the ground that we know the market well and therefore there is no need for research should be avoided. Only research provides the company with grounds like: o Customer attitudes and usage o Brand attributes to maintain and change o Segmental changes; multi-segment brands o Geographical changes; new categories etc.
The list is not exhaustive. It can be much longer depending on the needs of the company at any given point in time.
Knowing customers’ attitudes offers insights into product build-up, service requirements, and any other fulfillment of customers’ requirements. Maintaining or changing product attributes relate responding to changing needs, preferences, and competitive pressures that exist and the ones that are anticipated.
You can also determine the differences among different offerings of the brand as perceived by your consumers in different segments of the market. You can make decisions about which segments are more attractive and which are less attractive. That may also take you into what geographic areas to be emphasized more in relation to strength of different offerings. Brand strength may lead the management to start considering introducing its brand across categories. What is it that took Nestle from milk to yogurt to juices to chocolates? This is a good example of going across categories.
Management can either stick to its vision and plans or change it according to the findings of market research. As you go along the learning path you will realize that almost at every step you can undertake a research project. Research does not have to be tedious, cumbersome, and expensive. Small and simple research designs can lead you to verify your hypotheses as the need emerges.
Mandates telling all stakeholders: Since vision is well thought-through and shared by all in the company, it mandates that management tell all stakeholders to know and share it as well. Sharing the vision means that stakeholders will also know the objectives that are a reflection of the vision.
The present day’s competitive pressures have made the day-to-day management very fast paced and, hence, prone to dynamic changes and adjustments. Information on past performance, recent trends, and research findings present a strong case for the brand plan and vision. Having support from all stakeholders toward your brand objectives makes the job of management less difficult. It also keeps the blame game and finger pointing from taking place if things go wrong. Going right strengthens management’s confidence.
Let us now try to develop hypothetical vision and mission statements of a fast food company that is planning to enter the category of fast food. The exercise is intended to take you through a case that offers an opportunity of developing a practical understanding of the concepts.
After you feel comfortable with the learning process, you may like to develop similar statements of any business you may envision yourself handling or heading.
Vision Statement of a Fast Food Company
“The company will enter the fast food category by introducing a range of quality sandwiches with brand name XYZ; the sandwiches will have health-food-appeal for lunch time in particular and anytime later in general. It will price the entries within the consumer friendly range to optimize the number of customers, who are professionals within the age bracket of 20-50 years. It will attempt to reach its potential customers at their door step and always stay close to where they are”.
As is clear from the statement, the company’s business model will be based on three fundamental factors of
- High quality
- Affordability
- Accessibility
The basic objective of this statement is to emphasize the point that vision relates the future. The statement talks about the nature of the product and how it envisions entering the category with consumer-friendly pricing within the target market. (The statement is a little longer than the usual vision statements. It is designed to basically enhance your ability to develop one independently).
We shall be referring to the implications of this statement frequently to see that every thing said in the statement has a meaning in terms of brand management. The figures 10 - 12 exhibit the translation of consumer-friendly pricing as it fits into the market gap that will allow the company to optimize its sales.
We can sum up the components of this statement into the following: o It explains the overall goal of the brand o It defines the target market
o It underlines the need to have differentiated sandwiches o It makes it easy to translate the above three components into financial goals
If you think that XYZ has to create more than one sandwich with different taste profiles in order for its customers to have choice, then your thinking is practical. If you think that XYZ should deliver sandwiches at the doorstep of its customers, then your understanding is correct. And, if you think that XYZ by saying “close to where its customers are” should also create its own restaurants, then your vision is comprehensive about the future business make-up. Should you also think that the statement will have implications in terms of specialist personnel to operate restaurants; your vision is then absolute and totally inclusive about the nature of business.
Mission being the business at hand, the statement will look like the following:
Mission statement of XYZ
Brand Value Statement
“XYZ professes integrity of character, conscientiousness of work ethics, quality consciousness, and mastery of skills as its basic values.”
To have the quality of sandwiches as envisioned by XYZ, it is important to have the staff inculcate the declared values. It should take special training sessions and periodic refresher meetings to renew company’s commitment to the professed values.
The three figures show a grid representing on the x-axis five segments of price and on y-axis three levels of quality. The intersection of the price line and the quality line represents one particular price-quality index that basically defines one particular segment. You can have as many price lines as you may deem representing the actual market situation.
XYZ makes an entry in “mid-high market segment 4” (figure 10) and later plans to enter with different offerings into “mid-market segment 3” (figure 11) and “high-market segment 5” (figure 12) later on. The strategic moves are a translation of the vision the company developed for itself. Workings on the moves as are evident from the figures are all about company’s mission and strategies that flow out of the vision and mission.
Key point
Vision generally represents a time frame of 5 to 10 years. Once translated into mission, it stays intact for a couple of years or more. It is said that a mission statement should not be changed before two to three years approximately.
Building brand vision is the first step of the strategic brand management process. To leverage your brand, you should build up the brand vision by considering all possible strategic factors like growth the company envisages, the ability to reach strategic goals, introduction of products and then sustaining those products.
Brand managers must start the process by seeking top management’s input on matters of strategic moves before they develop the right vision, which leads to developing the right brand picture. The whole process is very strategic and therefore must take into account why a particular segment should be served and how the company offering will best serve that segment of the market.
Identification of the right segment will enable the brand managers to develop the right product. Identity of the product, if created right, will lead to the right image that lays the foundation for the right brand picture.
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