Five Things Every Hard-Working Brand Should Do

Brand is a term used very loosely within the CPG marketing space. Anything with a package, a label and a name is called a brand. Technically correct maybe, in the way that everyone has a “personality”. But, a real brand, of consequence, does a lot more than just exist. These rules might not apply to the biggest of the big, because they have other reasons for creating moats of scale – but they do for the rest of us. Measure your brand strength against these five simple criteria: 

ONE: Price Point In the Upper Third of the Category – Unless it’s your competitive advantage because you own the world’s biggest factory, your need to be in the bottom half of your category’s price point is a measure of weakness for a brand. Brand means someone values you above and beyond raw price. Of course, there are value brands that stand out for price as a key criteria – Dunkin, Hyundai, Aldi – but there's a difference between intention and default.  

TWO: Promotional Dollars Drive Less Than 30% of Volume – Likewise, if you are kidding yourself about the first point by charging a premium BUT running a significant portion of your volume off of price discounting (unless you’re selling window treatments which are never NOT on sale) you have a brand that is only responsive to discounting, which raises a third point.  

THREE: Customer Retention Above 60% - It takes a lot of effort to acquire a customer. If you can’t hold on to those you gain for a significant portion of share of requirements (as Nielsen and IRI call it) then you either have a bad product or a weak brand. You decide. Even “nomad” categories like Craft Beer and Haircare, where consumers are always looking for the next great thing, define winners by their ability to hold on and build loyalty which should be articulated through channels like Social Media.  

FOUR: Social Activity, Avid over Abundant– We live in an era when brands can’t be successful without some level of “community” around them. The mistake that was made early on in the Social wave was an excessive focus on numbers vs. Quality. 400,000 fans who visit you and comment about you less than twice a year is upside down. The quality of your community is what matters most – and strong brands engender strong opinions, loyalty and understanding.  

FIVE : Consistent Clarity – Can the average consumer who buys your product define the voice of your brand, what you stand for, what your “WHY” is? Can your own employees? For most brands, sadly, the answer is no. Sometimes this is just laziness. Someone just wants to put stuff in a box and sell it. But usually, it’s more complicated. Well intentioned brands with interesting roots and meaning tend to do a poor job of communicating this simply and directly. And, they tend to take advice too often when something doesn’t work and shift voice, focus and message. And no one can care about you if they don’t even know who you are.  

At RocketFuel Brands, we believe in building brands of consequence that are guided by a “single strand”. This generates more power, loyalty and even financial efficiency for those who follow this path. If you’d like to learn more, let’s talk.