Brand New View

Brand Distinction-Heritage

Top brands, indeed most organizations, have unique practices, customers and traditions that distinguish them from competitors. To be simplistic, Coke and Pepsi both sell cola beverages but each has a unique brand Heritage that is manifested in their marketing decisions, which then affects and/or reinforces the perceptions held by customers. Decision making is influenced by a brand’s Heritage as well. Managers around the world know this well whenever they hear comments like “that’s not how we do things” or “we look at the world this way”. Knowing a brand’s Heritage helps companies plan and make more effective decisions. There are three ingredients that comprise a brand’s heritage: uniqueness, precedents, and core competencies. Singapore Airlines is unique-most everyone knows that and also understands the sources of their distinction: great service, the Singapore girl, exotic associations, remarkably reliable operations, on-time flights, industry awards, great food (for an airline), superb AV, and more. Precedents are the expectations and practices each generation of management passes on to the next. Rarely written, these are the informal rules that define how employees know to say “that’s not how we do things”, as mentioned above. Grupo Modelo, in Mexico, illustrates this. Their distinctive portfolio of Mexican beers is truly authentic, built on acquisitions and vertical integration within Mexico, reinforcing their Mexican heritage and ensuring that each decision reflects the traditions built from the past. Core competencies are often common across many companies. For example, most hotel companies provide service in the form of check-in/out efficiency. Four Seasons obviously goes well beyond this bare minimum approach, distinguishing itself even among the other leading premier hoteliers in the world. Their core competencies are rooted deep within the organization, and they are even a vital part of the initial steps of the hiring process. In effect, Four Seasons looks for their core competencies in each new hire well before that person is ever in front of a guest. If the core competency fit is not there, the candidate is unlikely to make it past the first interview. Of course, Four Seasons does much more than this, but the initial expectation is set the moment the new employees joins, thereby reinforcing the qualities that make the company distinctive as compared to its competitors. Thus, being Distinctive means paying close attention to and honoring important factors that have contributed to a company’s success. In essence, a brand’s heritage will guide how it will continue to be Distinctive as it continues to develop over time. Heritage is not the only contributor to brand Distinction, so we’ll discuss this more in coming posts.

Brand Distinction-Components

There are four components comprising Brand Distinction: Heritage, Context, Goals, Positioning. Those familiar with marketing vocabulary may recognize one or two of these. Collectively, they provide important insight about a brand’s history/traditions of success; the context of the environment in which it competes; a description of the goals it strives to achieve; and the unique place it owns in the customer’s/market’s mind. When you consider the qualities that distinguish one brand from another, or even one person from another, it can quickly become quite complex. Why? Well, being distinctive means that many different attributes are attached to the brand, depending on the perspective of different target audiences. Is Apple creative? Yes. Are they also cool? Sure. Irreverent? Of course. Quirky? You bet. Secretive? Yes, that too. They are also bold; dominant; confident; premium-priced; focused; design-oriented; clever; provocative; colorful; powerful; and so on. They are not boring, or unsuccessful, or copy cats. There are many other qualities we can assign to help describe Apple. The same is true for all leading brands. These qualities are the result of the brand’s heritage, context, goals and positioning. We’ll learn more about those in the next posts.