Guide

Brand marketing: building a brand that lasts

Positioning, identity and the long-term work that makes people think of you first.

A brand is what people think and feel when they hear your name — and, crucially, whether they think of you at all when they need what you sell. Brand marketing is the long-term work of making you easy to remember, easy to recognise and easy to choose. Every line on the map either builds the brand or spends it.

Positioning

Positioning is the place you want to occupy in customers' minds: who you are for, what you offer, and why you rather than the alternatives. Write it down in plain words. If it could describe your competitors equally well, it isn't a position yet.

Identity and distinctive assets

Logos, colours, typefaces, shapes, characters, sounds and slogans are distinctive brand assets when people link them to you without seeing your name. They are built by consistency over years; changing them every time a new manager arrives throws away the memory you have paid for.

Tone of voice

How you write and speak is as recognisable as how you look. Define a few characteristics — plain-spoken, warm, expert, playful — with examples of what to do and not do, and apply them everywhere from adverts to error messages.

Brand building and activation

Short-term activation — offers, search ads, direct response — harvests people who are ready to buy now. Long-term brand building creates the future buyers. Research for the IPA by Les Binet and Peter Field found that a mix weighted towards brand building, often summarised as roughly 60:40, tends to produce the best long-term growth; the right split varies by category, but cutting brand investment to fund activation usually works for a quarter and costs you for years.

Measuring brand health

Track prompted and unprompted awareness, consideration, the associations people hold about you, share of search for your brand name compared with competitors, and price premium. Measure regularly with the same questions so you can see the trend.