Brand reinforcement versus diversity

At a time when developing strong brands is extremely important, the physical expression of your brand values through your products is an extremely powerful tool, says Mike Ayre.

In a marketplace increasingly dominated by high quality products from low cost economies, the ability to generate customer loyalty and confidence from physical expression of your brand values is becoming increasingly important.

This article looks at different ways of projecting your brand value onto the marketplace to achieve dominance.

There are many strong brands that do not evoke a physical product - Manchester United, Virgin and Microsoft project their brand values through a variety of media and promotional methods.

Think of Audi, Dyson or Apple, however, and the thoughts that spring to mind will probably be of physical products.

At a time when developing strong brands is extremely important, the physical expression of your brand values through your products is an extremely powerful tool.

Indeed, it represents one of the main methods of competing with inexpensive products from Asia - as demonstrated by the desperate attempts of some Korean car companies to make their most expensive offerings look like a Mercedes Benz.

The physical expression of Apple brand values in the iPod range is further proof of the strength of this approach, particularly if you agree with the view that Apple products are not necessarily technically superior to the competition.

The use of industrial design to express brand values has always existed, particularly in car design, which used to differentiate strongly using grille shapes etc Although this approach faded during much of the 1980s and 1990s, it is now back with a vengeance, particularly in the very strong design statements made by Audi and Peugeot.

Although these designs can sometimes look too similar, they create very strong brand values, and enable the driver of the A3 to share the same "feel good" factor as the owner of the A8.

Compare these approaches to the disparate offerings from the Daewoo group, now part of Chevrolet.

Relative to the Audi approach, these products (whatever you think about their design) do not look like they came from the same company, and so waste the opportunity to build any brand loyalty or presence in the marketplace.

Whereas it is easy to make this point with car design, the same issues can be found in smaller, less dramatic products.

The design of domestic radios, for example, shows some interesting approaches to the physical expression of brand values.

Roberts, one of the premium radio brands, particularly in the "retro" market, sells a wide range of designs that do not share any visual qualities at all.

Sony however produces a range of products that - although not simply scaled up or down versions of each other - do share a number of visual cues and styling details which say "It's a Sony".

What is interesting about this example is that - unlike the use of design for brand reinforcement in the car industry - in the case of the radios it is the lower cost brand that has the coherence, and the upmarket product range that has adopted a more diversified approach.

Which method is best?.

To an extent, it is a debatable point, and one which will depend on the commercial culture of your company.

However, in a marketplace increasingly dominated by high quality products from low cost economies, the ability to generate customer loyalty and confidence from the physical expression of your brand values will become an increasingly important weapon.

So, how do you do it?.

To begin with, it comes down to simple things like corporate logos and colours, although it is remarkable how often these "simple" things are overlooked.

The next issue is more complex - what do you want your products to "say"?.

Are they aggressive, friendly, comforting or scientific?.

Do they want to hark back to some cosier period (beware - look what happened to Rover) or be ultra modern and focused on technology?.

Are they premium products that will be aimed at the top end, or compete on price at the bottom?.

All of these issues, and many more, will need to be considered when looking at how your brand values can be expressed through your products.

You may decide that you have two or more distinct strands in your product portfolio, which may raise the opportunity for a new brand or two (like Marantz, which is the high end audio brand of Philips, or Pye, which is the low end brand of the same company).

Whichever way you play it, make sure that your brand identity is reflected in everything you do.

This is how the most successful companies are projecting their values onto the market, and how they are achieving success, and - in some cases - dominance.

It is a lesson many manufacturing companies need to learn, and quickly.

Back to top