The term data-based brand management describes the ability to combine big data and artificial intelligence (AI) with brand-strategic expertise and use them in brand management. It is about the merging of human talent with learning machines to make the best possible decisions.
How important is data-based brand management?
In a nutshell: Doing business without data may make a company's life easier—but it will definitely make it shorter. There is just no getting around data-based brand management these days. Fact-based knowledge is replacing the good old gut feeling.
Companies using current market and consumer data for their brand management have a decisive advantage. Because based on these data, they can predict developments and act with foresight.
Such companies use up-to-the-minute facts for their decisions. They don't analyze the past—like many organizations still do—to set their course for the future. This gives them a superior position in operative marketing and strategic brand management. They gain an edge over companies practicing conventional, primarily experience-based management.
Is the Net Promoter Score enough for brand management?
The current holy grail of brand managers, the Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures hypothetical behavior—not real actions. It is an unrelated snapshot. The NPS is not an observation over time that could indicate a certain development. It only shows the effect of things past, but not the causes.
How do I recognize companies that are practicing data-based brand management?
Platforms like Zalando, Chrono24, Tesla, AirBnB, Uber, or Netflix show us how it's done. They have easily pushed the old top dogs out of every sector. Companies like Daimler, Otto or HolidayInn are painfully aware of the effects of these competitors.
Such data-focused newcomers change markets permanently. Their dominance results from superior knowledge, not so much from new products. They don't re-invent the wheel, but address the needs of their existing and potential customers.
Taking advantage of enormous amounts of data, these young companies get a clear picture of the market. They can do without opinions or moods. They don't think in terms of silos like sales, product or marketing, but create a brand experience that is perfectly tailored to the user.
Data-based brand management means ...
What happens when a company decides to do without digital brand management?
Despite the apparent urgency of having to change: In our experience, most companies are far from reacting adequately—in terms of both technology and culture. The effects analysis of brand-marketing-management is often more wishful thinking than fact.
These days, however, it can be absolutely fatal for a company to make decisions about target groups, competitors, media and the like based on yesterday's information. Not everything that was good and successful in the past will necessarily be so in the future. That's a fact that brands like Nokia or Kodak learned the hard way.
Costs, effort, time, competences—the reasons for the lack of transparency are understandable, but no longer acceptable. This is what companies need to know:
A word on our own behalf: BrandTrust supports data-based brand management
We at BrandTrust are convinced: Brands have to start immediately to generate and understand market and consumer data, and use them to make decisions. To do that, we have developed a method of analysis, our "Performance Branding". It is based on artificial intelligence (AI) and takes just a few clicks. It requires no elaborate processes and provides insights in real time (not after a long period of waiting). But: We don't trust these "ones and zeros" blindly. We evaluate them additionally using our expertise from more than 1,000 brand projects.
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A strong brand can be perceived and experienced at all brand touchpoints. Brand-based design thinking helps make it happen: It is a powerful and stimulating method for optimizing the brand touchpoints in line with the brand and guaranteeing results.
What exactly is brand-based design thinking?
The method combines the central idea (positioning) of the brand with creative methods of design thinking. Design thinking was developed in California, and many successful startups and Silicon Valley corporations are using it.
Brand-based design thinking has 5 phases:
Finally, the tested prototypes are presented to a jury of executives. They decide whether a prototype should be implemented.
Brand-based design thinking, then, combines the brand with innovation at the brand touchpoints. It makes the brand tangible and—as a side effect, so to speak—makes the organization more agile: because ideas are developed locally by employees and brand ambassadors and taken to the decision-making level as a visible object.
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The term describes the brand-centric orientation of geographical areas, such as tourism destinations (definition BrandTrust).
The goal is to position the destination brand attractively, credibly, and distinctly in the tourism market by means of a clearly defined brand identity.
The challenge of this special form of branding is its complexity: Destination branding has to bring a multi-layered range of services containing the individual performances of very different stakeholders to one common brand level.
The term digital brand experience refers to the overall experience a consumer has with a brand at all digital touchpoints. Those can be for example: website, blog, social media channels, apps, chat bots and augmented reality.
The further digitalization advances, the more options emerge for brands to establish contact with their customers digitally. More and more digital touchpoints shape the customer experience.
Also, at more and more touchpoints the boundaries between the digital and analog world are becoming blurred. This is called no-line experience. One example is Nike's app Sneakrs Stash. Nike uses the app to publish locations in large cities. Fans then flock to those locations. The reason: Anyone who logs into their app at that location has a chance to buy exclusive and limited sneakers, on a "first come, first served" basis.
Nike is very good at staging this experience. Brand-specific management of digital experiences is the job of digital brand management and digital branding. Creating a consistent and specific experience in this digital world is crucial for a brand's credibility.
The brand, its values and its positioning form the strategic framework for digital brand experiences. They are the guiderails for creative implementations like Nike's Sneakers Stash. Some companies develop specific digital guidelines for their brands to address the special challenges of the digital world.
There are lots of factors to consider: What digital touchpoints do we really need? How do we talk online? How do we react to user-generated content? What type of persons do we want to reach? What are their desires? How does our brand look online? Do we need a voice and music for our online appearance?
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Learn more:
5 Rules for more Brand Loyalty in the Digital Age
Customer Experience: The central success factor in the digital transformation
Why Brand Touchpoint Management is the better kind of Customer Experience Management
Digital branding serves the strategic building and development of a brand in a digital context. Why? Because consumers want to experience brands digitally as well – even those that were originally analog. To make that possible, the digital design possibilities must be checked for brand fit and managed accordingly.
Companies who have an integrated cross-channel understanding of their brand use digital brand management to create a consistent and brand-conforming appearance. They work on merging the online and offline worlds of their brand.
Why is digital brand management important?
Analog and digital touchpoints have to be perfectly interwoven, at any time in the customer journey, so that consumers can clearly perceive the brand. They will take away a strong impression only if there are no contradictions or breaks.
Consumers are always looking for orientation and values – they want to trust, offline as well as online. That means: A brand cannot diverge from its performance promises in the digital context. On the contrary: Because digital transparency makes brands radically comparable, they have to work on their unique selling points with complete consistency. Only a clear and unmistakable positioning gives them the necessary brand strength.
Closer to the customer with digital brand management
Digital brand management offers broad opportunities for getting to know customers better than before, for "snuggling up" to them – for instance by watching a brand community, offering co-creation or an ecosystem that satisfies consumer needs. Brands that find out what life scarcities they can address have the best starting conditions for a strong trust relationship.
Digital branding, then, is no island solution. That means:
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