Lesson 6 (Lessons From Brand Management)

This lesson is a very special one. It is an online lecture, where students & lecturer contact through online interfaces, like forum. In another words, this means no school today.

This lesson will be delivered through a set of power-point slides that is incorporated with the voice explanation. The deliverables are; what exactly is a brand, the 5 disciplines of branding, and brand & design. All revolve how to create a popular brand and design so that it will attract consumers.
“Brand” is not a logo, not an identity, and not a product. It is a person’s GUT feeling about a product, service, or organization. If there are enough people arriving at the same GUT feeling, a company is said to have a brand. A famous brand requires one key factor, Trust. “Trust” = “Reliability + Delight”.

The 5 disciplines of branding are, “Differentiate”, “Collaborate”, “Innovate”, “Validate”, and “Cultivate”. “Differentiate” means to know its “focus”, filtering out irrelevant information. “Collaborate” refers to the brand that best fits in its given space, “Survival of the FITTINGEST”. “Innovate” is a design, not a strategy, that ignites passion in people. “Validate” means to have feedback from research groups or the targeted consumers, so as to design products that best suit their needs. While “Cultivate”, I think it’s the experience of people and then they tell others. It’s a never-ending process of a living brand.

As for brand and design, I personally feel that it should satisfy the most needs of the customers, so that this will drive positive feedbacks from the customers, where in turn, will result in good brand loyalty for the products. This in turn will attract more customers.