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May 16th, 2017

Before You Market Anything, Develop The 5 Ps Of Brand

If you studied any marketing before the digital age—70s, 80s, and early 90s—you’ll be very familiar with the 4 Ps of Marketing. Product – Price – Place – Promotion. The premise being that if you had these covered, you had a well-rounded framework for successful marketing. Over the years this model was pushed and prodded by adding elements like Position, Presence, People, and Promise, but the idea remained basically the same. It was all about marketing and having the right product, promoted in the right place at the right time, at a price people could be persuaded to pay. If you did this, then your company stood a good chance of achieving its revenue and margin goals.

It’s a pretty valid approach, even now.

But here at BOLTGROUP, where our purpose is to “Create Brands and Experiences People Love”, with the intended consequence of turning our client’s brand into a high-performing asset, we propose that a vital ingredient is missing from this classic product-centered model of marketing. That ingredient is Brand, and the Brand Strategy to leverage this highly valuable asset, that you alone own.

This is where our 5 Ps of Brand come in. It is how we advocate our clients build their brand so it is prepared to perform at this highest of levels.

BOLTGROUP’s 5 Ps of Brand

(IMPORTANT NOTE: These 5 Ps of Brand should always be developed from a basis of well-informed research and thorough market analysis).

Brand Purpose

The Brand Purpose statement answers the question of why your brand exists with respect to the positive difference it aims to make in people’s lives.

From the blog: Brand Strategy and Brand Purpose. Brand purpose should be at the core of everything your brand does. It should inform how the brand thinks and makes decisions. It should be the reason for every action the brand takes. And it should seek to further that purpose with every experience. A brand’s purpose is its raison d’être—its reason for being. Your brand’s strategy must start and end with that purpose.

Brand Pillars

These are the three or four compelling truths of your brand. They can be  adjectives or phrases that represent the core beliefs, values, and culture of your brand. Once formulated, they must be present at every touchpoint with your customers and market. When combined, your pillars uniquely represent your brand. For instance: the truths (pillars) of our brand at BOLTGROUP are: Design Excellence, Strategic Innovation, and Thoughtful Leadership. Elements we strive to deliver through every experience of our brand.

Brand Position

This statement describes the unique position of importance and value your brand seeks to hold in the hearts and minds of your target customers, as well as in the marketplace where you do business. It is the position that, over time, you want to hear customers use to describe your brand in open conversation.

Brand Personality

Who is your brand and what is his / her / its point of view? This statement is written in the first person and defines the voice, tone, and manner of your brand. It portrays who your brand is and how it can be expected to behave. It conjures up imagery of your brand’s attitude and offers a glimpse into its spirit and soul.

Brand Value Proposition(s)

Each of these statements lay out the sum total of benefits your brand promises to deliver to each uniquely targeted customer segment. Each is based on the prioritized importance (and value) of your brand pillars to each segment. For more perspective on how vital these propositions are to your brand, see Brand Value Is In The Eye Of The Beholder.

With this foundation formulated, documented, disseminated, and embraced throughout your organization, you will be in a position to develop and implement your unique brand strategy.  It will be aligned with your business goals, and you will be fully prepared for the next step—creating your Brand Ecosystem. This ecosystem will change behavior—internally and externally,  it will begin to develop culture, and will create unmatched value in your brand. The kind of value that should be expected of any high-performing business asset.

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