Building Strong Brands, By Bola Akingbade - 2008-10-20

At the first Global Marketing Network (GMN) Conference organised by M2, Nigeria's foremost Marketing + Business Intelligence weekly, one of the nation's most outstanding marketing professionals, Mr. Bola Akingbade, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer, MTN Nigeria, delivered the keynote lecture, which touched on how to build a strong brand and develop a global marketing strategy for it.

Before now Akingbade was in 2004 Corporate Affairs Director of Nigerian Breweries Plc. In 2001, he was at Heineken International with the responsibility for building the Amstel brand across the African continent. Prior to this international assignment, he served as the Marketing Director of Nigerian Breweries Plc., where he recorded notable achievements including the transformation of the Maltina brand into a sectoral market leader, the rebirth of Star and Gulder brands, the conception, development and launch of Amstel Malta  the first and only low sugar malt drink in Nigeria. He has also worked for Nestle as a Product Specialist in charge of the culinary range of Maggi Seasonings with Cadbury, UK., before he was appointed Production Manager on promotions in 1982.

Mr. Akingbade was awarded a Master's degree in Biochemical Engineering from the University College, London in 1978. He started his career as a Trainee Brewer with Nigerian Breweries with a B.Sc degree in Food Technology from the University of Ife in 1975.

He has been a notable contributor to intellectual discourse in Nigeria, especially in marketing where he is acknowledged as one of the nation's leading authorities. Ralph Tathagata was there at Sheraton Hotel, Lagos, venue of the epoch-making Global Marketing Strategy Conference tagged Nigeria 2008 and provides an overview of the thought-provoking lecture delivered by the guru, who recently became part of the global faculty and and advisory board of GMN. He is also Honorary President of GMN Nigeria

Brand-building

In any context, the subject and process of brand-building are among the most important issues in any progressive business concern. And this is because over time, the brand becomes the soul of business.

The sustainable success of any enterprise is based on the strength of the brand that is required to build the personal base which is very necessary to support the market share, revenue and profit aspirations. A weak brand is synonymous with weak pillars; they will crumble very easily under any measure of appreciable pressure. It is therefore inappropriate for use in any business context.

On the other hand, a strong brand with robust credentials is like a rock upon which a strong and profitable business can be built. The very first step in the process is therefore the need to have a distinct understanding of what a strong brand is and what it takes to create one. Without this knowledge, there will be no basis for any optimism about what the future holds for any business, particularly if the business must rely on the brand to succeed.

Steps and Processes of Brand-building

The first step is to establish and identify the needs and aspirations of the customers you want to target through the determination of the market spaces where the brand can feature as a major player in the market. If you have at the back of your mind the need to develop a strong brand, then, of course, that strong brand must be a major player in the market.

You also need to envision the length and breadth of the brand relevance over the long term. We are here talking about developing or building strong brands that can eventually transform into global players. So if you don't envision at the developing stage, you might not, in fact, build the kind of ambition that will make it possible when the time comes.

Positioning and targeting are also part of the intrinsic essence of brand-building, especially targeting customers with brand relevance that cuts across geographies.

You need to establish a Value Proposition Development. This means the establishment of the basic component of the brand that will be necessary to induce a compelling desire for sustained adoption and usage amongst your target customers. The components they usually feature in typical value propositions are as follows: Your products and packaging which are the vehicles of the consistent delivery of these values in a recognisable and consistent manner over time. The prices need to be offered and of course, other engagement initiatives that will be necessary to reinforce ability to the brand and bring loyalty in the long run.

Communication of the value proposition, via both conventional and unconventional media, is also very important.

Value chain management, which has to do with coordinating the chain process from mediation to technical development, to production through the distribution team and brand and marketing management to the end consumer, is one of the vital steps in the building and management of a solid brand.

Strategic marketing know-how, if it is to be demonstrated in brand-building, must revolve around each of the points mentioned above.

The Constitution of a Solid Brand

A strong brand is an asset that conveys values, ethos and purpose all within a context that must have appreciable significance and relevance in its ability to meet the basic needs and aspirations of the target customers. As a rule, a strong brand must be underpinned by a concept statement that barely indicates the manner in which it intends to meet the intending needs of customers.

You should also consider the heritage dimension that reflects the strength of a brand's ability to hold and claim high grounds on certain ethos and cultural images that target customers can find appealing and attractive. There should be a personality dimension that will present the brand as an entity which is alive and as one who has a soul, a conscience as well a discernable character trait. There is also the symbol and graphic dimensions of a strong brand. Every strong brand should be able to stand on these four legs, otherwise known as the 'four pillars'.

I suppose that those who have mastered Aaker and other authorities in brand-building and management will understand better and that better understanding will allow you to build and manage your brands better. For example, if they are weak, you will be able to strengthen them and if they are strong you will be able to manage and maintain them.

One of the things that make branding so complex is that even a quality brand, if not properly researched, could be copied by competition which makes it vulnerable to early attack in the market after a huge brand spend.

The concept of a brand must be seen in the purpose it exists to serve. Every successful brand must have its reason for existence. And this must be well thought out and properly articulated. It should be well researched and established in such a way that relevant customers will find strong enough to address on current mechanics. The brand must indicate the tangible and intangible benefits it intends to give customers. The product and service delivery should be well managed to have iconic associations which will, of course, distinguish the brand from other brands. Professionally, a good product is expected to represent the concrete essence of the brand.

In terms of heritage, I think we have to make people have an awareness and appreciation of their heritage. If you take a look at the Amstel brand, especially if you go to the Western world, what you see in its differentiation is that it is from Amsterdam. Of course, an ordinary man will be wondering what that means. But to many people in the West, Amsterdam stands for some kind of exotic things that can associate some people with the brand.

Commoditisation as an Issue

It is not every time that a product and service must be so different from that of the competition before you begin to talk about differentiation. And that is the beauty of the Four Pillars. In fact, it is getting more and more difficult to differentiate some product lines in many areas of business. In the telecoms area, voice has been commoditised. And that is what we don't even do well enough. For example, tell me why you would choose MTN rather than Glo, Zain or even Etisalat that has just come. The only reason is the quality of service. It is not unusual for Nigerians to own four different phones. Whichever one works is the one that will serve the purpose for that occasion. If your quality of product is good, the quality of your service should also be very good to substantiate your brand promise. So you have to build your brand very well because it is a foundational issue. A bad brand can even destroy your heritage. You really have to differentiate your brand beyond mere visual and graphic levels and that is where brand heritage comes in.

Take, for instance, if you want to develop a local brand in Nigeria and you want it to have global relevance in the future. And you ask yourself, 'What can you say about this brand from a heritage perspective?' If they say it's from Nigeria; globally, Nigeria today, unfortunately, does not have the kind of associations that are very positive. But when you look deeply into what Nigeria really is apart from the word 'Nigeria', there are things you can get that will reflect a kind of beauty that could positively position the Nigerian brand at the global level. If you can identify those things and use each to differentiate your brand at the global arena, particularly now that there are not very many Nigerian brands beyond the shores of this country and if it is the type that people will appreciate, that Nigerian brand can compete with any existing global brand at the moment.

Heritage Values of the Local Market: The Heinekens Case Study

The job of branding and marketing people is to begin to look at the heritage values of the local market in Nigeria. What are they? Is it your rivers? Is it your culture? Is it your people? If you look at the Heineken example, you will see how Mr. Heineken decided to use the heritage values of Germany and Holland to establish the kind of heritage values upon which the Heineken brand is built. And when this happens, of course, it could equally be what Nigeria as a nation might decide to do to position her as a respectable country internationally. But in all of this, it requires a lot of thinking, particularly for a country like ours that is still strongly associated with things that are negative. It is difficult to establish what is positive about us, but let us know what it is.

If, for instance, a brand is from Egypt, and you want to bring it to Nigeria, with all the Taliban associations and things like that, you can start wondering whether it is good enough. Egypt does not have a lot of heritage values that they can really present, though they are doing a lot to promote tourism. But apart from that, you can actually look beyond Egypt as a country. If you begin to see Egypt as a core part of the Mediterranean with exotic associations and evocations and position her in that direction, you are not telling lies. In fact, that will even give latitude to manage and promote the brand within a context that people will find very exciting.

The Brand Personality

In terms of personality, your brand personality must be distinctive within your product category. You cannot call your brand a strong brand if it really cannot evoke positive images at the mere mention of it. It could be an animal, it could be anything. And it cuts across customer end value aspirations. It must possess admirable identity and it must endear the customer with these values. But, in all, we need to work together. At the same time, if your product or service is not good and you want to talk about a heritage that has quality connotation, there will be a mismatch. Again, if the quality is good and you present a heritage that is ugly or if the product personality is handsome and the quality of service is bad, then there is also a mismatch. And if the positive values the brand is noted for are not consistent, that means you really do not have a strong brand.

This is an area where in the brand-building process, you really have to think long and hard in order to build and manage a local and strong brand that can really sustain consumers' unending appeal.

Now that we know what a strong brand is, how do we make it happen? It is one thing to have the knowledge of what a strong brand should be and another thing to apply the knowledge in ways that are appropriate. This knowledge should have to be demonstrated in the management with applicable major steps as mentioned in the early part of our discussion. Now you have to talk about the needs and aspirations for the establishment of a strong brand.

Here, what is needed is what I call modern market research, the one that allows imaginable understanding of consumer motivations. Most of the time, when we want to understand the needs of our customers, there is a traditional research process that teaches us how their needs can be met and we just ask some basic questions that are very lenient: “Do you like this?” “Why don't you like that?” And so on and so forth. And the person says, “Yes, I like it” or “I don't like it.” Often times, all you just want is for the person to answer your questions so you can leave him alone. And then you base your strategic planning on the research alone, which is why most products fail after launch. It is not because researches were not conducted but because the right researches were not really conducted.

Traditional market research has over time failed to address this major obvious fact and often leads to marketing failures.

The New Coke Case Study

We all are witnesses to the monumental failure of 'Excel'. Why did the first car that was a product of extensive customer research become a byword for failure? In fact, the name 'Excel' today in the US is synonymous with failure.

We all are familiar with the attempt of Coca Cola to launch 'New Coke' some years back. They failed and quickly ran back to where they were. And I am sure it's not because they did not research the idea very well. I mean as a brand, Coca Cola is the most valuable brand in the world. So I am not too sure the management of that brand would want to mess around with it and jeopardise over $500 billion worth of the brand value. I want to say that if you don't do these things well, you can actually destroy values of unimaginable proportions. Of course, we all know what happened. It became an abject lesson for misunderstanding of what customers perceive in the product they buy.

Most customers act based on the subconscious. So the definition of brand perception at this level can only be unraveled when you get under the skin of the customer to have a good knowledge of who they are and what motivates them. The truth of the matter is that genuine insight can be generated only when you get under the skin of the customer.

The Role of Psychodynamic Research Approach

It is insight of the latter description that can generate proper knowledge of the genuine nature of customer needs and aspirations. This is why a very good knowledge of motivational market research is absolutely crucial in successful brand-building.

The key to determining what the correct questions are is the form of the marketing research that adopts what we call psychodynamic techniques. It deals with understanding individuals within their specific consumption environment. It helps in measuring consumption behaviour in a general way. The psychodynamic research approach does not initially provide numbers. It is a qualitative research technique actually. But it provides a richer understanding of motivations and satisfaction strategies that can attract customers to specific products or brands. This kind of research can be conducted on a global basis because the fundamental basis of human nature is the same around the world. What can make you unhappy in Nigeria might equally make somebody unhappy in Holland. There is really no major difference in the psychological underpinnings of human beings. The moment you get it right, moving it out beyond your geographical shores as an international brand would not be a difficult thing. But if you don't get it right, it will be very difficult because the brand would not be sitting on the very well defined pillars on which you can carry it beyond your shores.

Finally what you get from such psychodynamic research analysis describes who the people really are. Such research will tell you whether they are the type of people who seek conviviality, people who want to be individualistic, people who seek success or people who are pluralistic.

Motivational Market Research

Motivational market research enables product development that is based on those ingredients which can deliver desirable results among target customers across cultures. It enables correct identification of values that are truly personal, which underpins customer needs and aspirations. It enables businesses to properly communicate brand relevance and benefits in ways that appropriately and adequately mirror the end value aspirations of the target customers across the globe. Psychodynamic research is not a kind of research that is limited to your local market. It will enable you build your brand on foundations that can take it anywhere in the world. If you are thinking of building a strong local brand that you can take to the global arena hereafter, this is the kind of research that must underpin all your decisions in that process.

Motivational research also allows marketers to identify these ends (i.e. the aspirations of the customers in their true forms) and therefore facilitates the ability to construct the pillars and the strategies that you need to deploy to meet these ends.

It is not an academic exercise, even though it has academic underpinnings. It allows fundamental understanding of consumer motivations instead of just measuring outward behaviour or taking superficial answers as a basis for strategic marketing decisions. This is the most important know how that you need to build strong brands.

Strategic Market Positioning

Knowledge of market space analysis and strategic decision taking is the very key for success. However, armed with the necessary motivational research tools, it should be possible to map the market on the basis of different motivations governing customer behaviour and preferences within a variety of product categories and cultures. The essence of this exercise is to facilitate the establishment of motivational gaps that need to be filled with the appropriate components of your four brand pillars. This brand pillar component constitutes the foundation of any new brand-building aspirations and so is subject to the number of options that are consistent with a plethora of techniques to fill the gap analysis.

What this means is that with a profound knowledge of your customer aspirations, it becomes easier to predict the kind of product he or she can be predisposed to and the kind of heritage values that you can use to support it.

Each option should be evaluated via post-motivational and quantitative research; propensity to buy at different price levels, usage behaviour and reasons, strength of preference vs. alternatives and so on. In strength of preference vs. alternative, you need to make sure that what you are coming up with is an alternative. You need to make sure that what you are coming up with must address those needs in a positively different manner. For brands with aspirations to international players' status, motivational research as well as post-motivational quantitative research should be carried out in each of the key countries where the brand is expected to debut, at least for the short time. The market space of choice should be the one where the best combinations of the characterisation of the four brand pillars have the best course on each.