Fifteen common branding mistakes
- Thinking that you (not your customers) control your brand.
- Branding before ironing out critical functional issues.
- Ignoring the fact that a brand means different things to people inside and outside an organisation.
- Assuming, because you are doing brand work, that you have a sustainable brand.
- Assuming that your products and services will endure without ongoing branding efforts and resources.
- Thinking of branding as a quick fix.
- Starting with a weak identity.
- Forgetting the rule of one brand.
- Failing to differentiate.
- Failing to launch.
- Failing to protect and defend.
- Believing that what you say is more important than what you do.
- Underestimating the value of consistency.
- Asking your brand to stretch too far.
- Ignoring the signs of brand aging and the phases of the product/service lifecycle.
Events that damage brand equity
- Brand promises not kept.
- A lapse in social responsibility.
- A lapse in corporate behaviour.
- A lapse in the personal behaviour of an executive, spokesperson or brand representative.
- The sudden departure or death of a senior leader.
- Product failures, malfunctions or dangers.
- Crises resulting from natural or human-made disasters or accidents.
Excuses for not branding
- It’s hard (it is).
- We’re not different from our competitors (then we must become so).
- We don’t want to limit ourselves to one thing because we do many things well (then we will be known for nothing).
- We can’t agree on one position (again, then we will be known for nothing).
- We don’t know what consumers are thinking (then we must ask them).