The Hayden Group Articles

WHAT IS A BRAND FACELIFT WORTH TO YOUR COMPANY?

By Victoria Hayden, The Hayden Group

Your company has a brand. Your brand is your company's identity and reputation. Your brand is the feeling your customers have about doing business with you. Your brand has a distinct personality that places your company in a unique space in the minds of your customers and the marketplace.

So how "fit" is your brand? Is it empowering revenue growth, or getting in the way? Is your brand as vibrant today as it was when you first started your company? Is your brand flexible enough to lead you through marketplace challenges you may be facing in the next six months to a year?

Do you need higher margin sales?
Are you planning any significant product changes?
Will you be making any significant pricing changes?
Are you facing significant competitive pressures?
Do you need to promote or defend against technological advancements?
Are you planning geographic expansion?
Are you moving into a new market space?
Is your business model changing?
Are you planning any mergers or acquisitions?
Are you seeing significant economic changes or marketplace demographic changes that are affecting your business?
Is your company "under new management?" "under new management?"

If you have answered, "yes" to any of these questions you should add a brand facelift to your company's planned investments. The following three case studies from The Hayden Group make the point.

Software Company (SC) Moves into a New Market Space

Situation
SC was launching a new software product to move them out of the commodity space of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and into the higher margin Customer Relations Management (CRM) space. The marketplace has a limited view of SC as a technology tools provider.

Challenge
The Hayden Group (THG) was challenged to reposition SC as a leader in CRM, leveraging their leadership in IVR for credibility.

Brand Facelift
THG quickly crafted an updated positioning for SC, through their Fast-Track Branding Workshop™ process. Pulling through the updated positioning, THG created a fresh brand "look and feel" for SC. The new brand "look and feel" focused on benefits to the end customer, rather than on SC tech. The name and logo for SC were retained due to their positive equity. SC's refreshed "look and feel" was extended throughout an integrated marketing campaign around the CRM product launch. Elements of the campaign included:

Sales kit
Capabilities brochure
Targeted metro ad campaign in national thought-leader pubs
Direct marketing
Web overhaul

Additionally, on a tight time frame, THG face lifted an exiting trade-show booth and developed supporting, "buzz-worthy" trade show collateral. Equally importantly, the new campaign was extended and embraced internally to further effect the transformation of SC from a technology tools provider to a CRM company.

Results
How did SC's investment in a brand facelift pay out? The facelift paid out both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Revenue was up by 20% year over year.
The average price of a sales transaction went up by 40%
Service revenues—their highest margin business—increased by 25%
Customer satisfaction ratings increased 20%
Strategic acquisitions and alliances were facilitated with SRI, Stanford and Edinburgh University.
Star employee recruitment, as well as employee hire-back and retention, were enhanced.
The sales force gave a standing ovation at the sales kick-off meeting.

Financial Company (FC) Gives Old Product a Facelift

Situation
In the face of considerable competitive pressure to provide annuity data online, two companies in the annuity data sector merged under a new name. One company brought to the merger the flagship data resource product line of the annuity industry. That product, Product V, became the cornerstone of the new company brand.

Product V had been the source for annuity data for brokers and corporate investors for years. Product V began as a publication, then evolved to licensed software with both data and computational capabilities. Now FC wanted to offer Product V online.

Challenge
The main challenge was to re-brand Product V as the "better than ever" product line now offered online by the new larger company, FC. The equity of Product V needed to be protected, while convincing the marketplace that the old, tried-and-true Product V was still best in class in its online form.

The face lifted brand for Product V needed to be synergistic with new FC company brand. Remember also, that, as a newly merged corporation, FC had employees who had never sold Product V. It was important, then, to create ownership among those employees who had not sold Product V before the merger.

Facelift
Through the Fast-Track Branding Workshop™, THG refreshed the positioning for the V product line. A new product naming architecture was developed for V. The names leveraged the valued equity of the old V brand, while communicating a sense of "new and improved." A series of integrated visual branding icons was created for the V product line to stimulate visual interest as well as clearly communicate that each product was part of the V line. As part of an overall marketing campaign, we extended the new Product V brand to:

Sales presentations
Trade show booths, and
Direct mail to drive traffic to events.

Having completed the re-branding process for Product V, THG created graphic branding standards for all Product V marketing materials (brochures, data sheets, case histories) so they could be efficiently produced and revised by in-house staff.

Results
A little more than a year after Product V was re-branded, FC was acquired by its largest competitor. Since then, Product V has been has been bought yet again by a leading financial brand. Three years later, the Product V branding system THG created endures.

Printing Firm (PF) Re-Invents Itself as High-Margin Business

Situation
PF was a 40-year-old, family-owned printing business that used a high quality but declining silk-screen process. Their core customers were blue-chip retailers that relied on well-produced in-store marketing materials. Printing was becoming a commodity and not an art. Digital printing technology was driving costs down. Marketplace demand for production quality was diminishing. PF's largest customer, a blue-chip clothing retailer, was going to cheaper printers. Both revenues and margins were dropping for PF.

Challenge
PF wanted to leverage its retail experience to reposition itself as an in-store marketing agency that offered higher-margin marketing services, supported by in-house production.

Facelift
THG crafted a new positioning for PF through its Fast-Track Branding Workshop™. An updated brand look and feel was created, starting with a new logo and tagline. The new look and feel was pulled through every marketplace touch point:

Business cards and stationery
Building signage
Trucks
Web home page
Sales brochure
Sales sheets
Sales folder
Dimensional mailer
Direct mail postcards
Premium items

THG created an integrated marketing campaign to re-position and drive leads.

Results
The direct mail campaign more than paid for itself in incremental revenue. And in keeping with a longer-term goal, PF was sold to an entrepreneur for the asking price.

So You Think Your Company Might Need a Brand Facelift?

Here's some free advice from The Hayden Group team of branding experts:

The secret to creating an effective, enduring brand is positioning, positioning, positioning.
Branding is much bigger than your logo.
New is not always better; leverage your brand equity.
Your true marketplace brand may reside in a product brand rather than a company name/logo.
New brands must speak in a new voice; don't bother to make changes if you are not going to present those changes "front and center" to the marketplace.
The secret to keeping an effective, enduring brand is consistency, consistency, and consistency.

For more information go to www.thehaydengroup.com to order the "The Hayden Group Marketing Launch Work Book," which can help you with branding or re-branding your company or product. Or contact Victoria Hayden at victoria@thehaydengroup.com, 650-473-9200.