Karen’s efforts were incredibly helpful. Through her facilitation, we were able to identify the things we do every day in a manner that culminated in clear messaging of our specific competencies.

The best way to define a sustainable brand is to explain what a non-sustainable brand is. What is not sustainable is for a company to think it can maintain a brand through advertising when it fails to deliver on its brand promise—not just through its core product but through every customer touch point. Unfortunately, too many in the business of branding have not evolved their definition of branding. They are stuck in the old Madison Avenue view of branding that should have been retired with the three-martini lunch.

Social media has delivered a wonderful wake-up call for companies stuck in the past. You can’t hide your deficiencies or bad behavior behind a slick ad campaign. You may get a boost in brand awareness, but you won’t build brand equity or value until you deliver on the expectations for your brand. Why? Because millions of people are getting in on the brand conversation through Twitter, Facebook, and a myriad of online forums. Advertisers and mass media no longer control brand communication in a one-way stream.

Brand is a marriage between the rational (your competitive positioning in the market) and the irrational (the emotional response to you). Building a unique position forms the foundation for a sustainable brand. You need to target a key customer segment that has a problem that your product can solve better than any other. This is your positioning strategy.

Then you need to develop an emotional connection with your target customers. This is best done by consistently delivering a great brand experience—for instance, your product works, your service is friendly and responsive, your website is fun to navigate and maybe you have a personable and helpful social media presence. The stuff that most people think branding is about generally falls into the category of building the emotional connection. You know, like a logo, brand messages, brand symbols and images.

In the Branding Pyramid graphic above, the hierarchy in building a sustainable brand starts at the bottom of the pyramid. Here are the key steps:

1) Positioning and Brand Strategy. You’ve got to know where you are headed to achieve your goals. Without a good strategy, your ship will be rudderless and it will take you a lot longer to achieve success, if ever.

2) Whole Product. Well before you think about advertising, make sure you have developed a differentiated product that 1) works and that 2) customers want. Then, make sure you take responsibility for the “Whole Product”—that is, all the elements and partner added-value that the customer needs to receive full value from your offering.
3) Positioning Leadership. For a brand to be sustainable, you need to establish credibility in the market—though sales momentum and through the third-party endorsement of people who’s opinions carry weight (the market influencers).
4) Brand Experience. The brand experience that you deliver is your opportunity to wow customers and to have them keep coming back. How consistent are you in terms of brand behavior, visuals, and the tone and voice of your communications?
5) Brand Value. If you have done all these things, then you have probably won the loyalty and good will of your customers. You have a sustainable brand. With proper care and feeding your brand should live a long and rewarding life.

How close are you to achieving a sustainable brand? Find out by taking the interactive Brand Pyramid quiz on my website home page. I developed it somewhat tongue in cheek, but I think you’ll find it a valuable diagnostic tool. Let me know how you fare!

Recently while doing a Personal Branding seminar at Stanford University, I was was surprised by the overwhelmingly favorable reaction to my Karen Kang Consulting website video (http://kang.com/?page_id=2), which was shown as an example. Basically, the room full of Continuing Studies students, which included entrepreneurs, real estate brokers, job seekers, a policeman and a professional matchmaker, said that they LOVED IT!

The students said that the video humanized me on my website, that they felt they knew me, and understood what my JumpStart Branding methodology delivered. In short, I seemed approachable and gave them confidence I could do the job. These were the simple objectives I had for the video. And, it looks like I succeeded.

Is the video perfect? By no means! However, you don’t have to produce a “perfect” video to create a favorable impression, which is what a video should do. There are tons of low-cost videos on You Tube that do an amazing job of educating, entertaining or promoting. But, you need to understand who your audience is, what message you want to convey and do it in a style that is appropriate.

Has the video helped my business? Yes, I even signed a new client sight-unseen because the CEO said he saw the video on my site. I can’t guarantee the same results, but in an age where Personal Branding is key, video can be a great way to help people to get to know you.

P.S. I’d like to give a shout out to The Spring Agency http://TheSpringAgency.com, a digital agency in San Francisco, that transformed my talking-head video into a much-improved final product with graphics.

Some of my Twitter friends have recently changed their profile pictures. It was somewhat disconcerting for me because I recognize their posts by their pictures, not their harder-to-see Twitter names. But, it got me thinking about branding—brand visuals or symbols to be exact.

Here are some of my thoughts on the importance of associating symbols or visual image with a brand:

1) Personal Branding. In social media, the first brand association for you is usually your profile picture. What does it say about you?

If you use Twitter primarily as a socially engaging entertainment platform, then having a whimsical, funny or even kooky profile picture makes sense. You want to show this side of your personality and your interests.

However, if your main motivation to be on Twitter is to brand yourself professionally and to grow your Twitter following in your area of expertise, then think critically about what your profile picture is conveying. Say you want to be known as a marketing consultant. If your profile photo is a fuzzy shot of you with a fishing rod, one’s first reaction might be that this person does not do a good job of marketing himself.

Remember that in branding, consistency is key. Changing your photo regularly will make it difficult for your followers to find you in the Twitter stream.

2) Corporate branding. Never a day goes by without me shaking my head about the symbols, pictures or look and feel that companies use to represent their brands. So often they are totally wrong for the image that they are trying to convey.

I have had clients who were enamored with a certain look without regard to whether the look matched their stated brand personality and strategy.

One client wanted all black business cards with red and white accents that had a distinctly macho Las Vegas feel. Only when reminded that their largely female customer base might be put off by this visual machoism did this professional services client back off from the gangster look.

A long-time acquaintance of mine just launched PetAirways, the pet-only airline, and when I went to their website, I literally said, “Yes!” Not only was the logo and tagline spot on (see the graphic), but the entire site was simple, sincere and exuded pet-friendliness.

This is just one of so many examples of companies doing it right with their brand. Based on my knowledge of the Pet Airways founders, I’m sure they are living their brand and delivering on its promise.

Visual branding can confuse your audience if done poorly, but when done right, it reaffirms everything we want to believe about a brand. What are your favorite brand symbols and why do you think they work?

1)Branding without positioning.That’s like building a house without a foundation. Positioning makes clear your target audience, category, value proposition and differentiation. Without it, your brand will have no rational support—no reason for being.

2)Branding without a strategy.That’s like building a house without an idea of whether it is the Taj Mahal or a one-room cottage.Without a strategy, how will you determine what your brand personality, emotional connection, and brand experience should be?

3)Focusing on advertising before your product is ready to deliver real value to the market.Advertising will only shine a big spotlight on your deficits.You may get brand awareness but you won’t get brand equity.

4)Branding without consistent implementation—in your visual branding, your messaging, your actions, your products and your relationships.Branding is dynamic.You need to prove yourself everyday.

5)Branding without engaging the influencers.You need to condition the market before throwing your brand over the wall.Let key influencers understand and participate in what your brand is all about.Online and offline, they will help you accelerate adoption of your brand.

This list is probably different from most that you’ll see because other lists of branding mistakes usually focus on brand implementation.My focus is the strategy that drives implementation. What do YOU think is a strategic branding mistake?I’ll post the best comments in a future blog.

I met with my financial advisor recently, and he asked me why I was doing so well in this terrible recession when other consultants were hurting for business. My answer: Marketing and Branding.  I know we marketers will always say marketing works, but we are often the worst offenders.  That is, we are the cobbler’s children who run shoeless in the neighborhood.

I was recently one of the cobbler’s children—okay, maybe I was wearing one shoe. At the beginning of the year, business was light and the phone was rarely ringing. I decided that I would take this lull in business activity to refresh my brand, redo my website, launch some new services, get active in social media, educate through public speaking, and expand my networks online and offline. I did all that and can happily say it worked. I am now busy with some great new branding clients with a good pipeline of new business.

It helps if you have a good product and a strong position to start with, which I do. There are many marketing and branding consultants out there who will give you a laundry list of all their services. When you walk away, it’s lucky if you remember one of them. I have positioned myself as a positioning and brand strategy expert—a focused specialty—with a differentiated JumpStart Branding™ methodology. My value proposition: rapid delivery of high-value strategies with team consensus,

The moral to this story is that when economic times get tough, don’t batten down the hatches and wait for new business to come floating by, you have to invest in marketing to make your opportunities happen. I did, and can happily say that Branding Pays. :))

This is the year of Personal Branding. The perfect storm of economic crisis and social media adoption has led to a Tsunami wave of interest in personal branding for career advancement.

My calendar has been very busy with Personal Branding seminars adapted from my corporate branding methodology. These events have included my recent lecture at Stanford University, workshops with the Asian Business League, my SD Forum seminar and my upcoming workshop which APWT is promoting as follows:

“Brand New You” – Create an Effective Brand Image that Boosts Your Career

APWT (Asian Professional Women in Technology) presents a practical workshop by marketing and branding expert Karen Kang, CEO and Principal of Karen Kang Consulting. Learn how to brand from inside out, starting with an analysis of your current brand versus your desired brand. Think strategically about your personal brand development plan, and develop actions that can jumpstart your personal brand today. Understand the concept of portable branding in an era of social networking and media.
This workshop will include personal branding templates and exercises in an interactive setting, including small breakout sessions. Take charge of your professional destiny by attending this unique personal branding workshop!

Date/Time: Saturday, July 11, 2009, 12:30 PM : 4:00 PM
Location: Alzheimer’s Association
1060 La Avenida (across from Microsoft campus)
Mountain View, CA 94043
Agenda:
12:30 – 1:00 PM: Registration and networking [Light refreshment]
1:00 – 4:00 PM: Brand New You Workshop

Register at EventBrite: http://apwt-branding-workshop.eventbrite.com/

Hope to see you there!

Myth #1: Social media and personal branding are synonymous.

It’s true that social media can amplify your personal brand quickly. But, whether it does it effectively is dependent on your decisions about the value you want your brand to deliver. For instance, are you trying to entertain or are you trying to educate about your area of expertise?

Personal branding also works offline, and has for years—it’s just that people didn’t call it that back then. A brand is a reputation. So make sure you act in accordance with how you want your brand to be perceived—in person or on the web.

Myth #2: Personal branding is about how you look and what you wear.

Wearing a power suit might send cues that you are a professional. But, if you are not smart and competent, you’ll soon be known as an “empty suit.” Looking the part can help with first impressions, but you need to deliver on the brand promise of value. Better than buying a new suit would be developing a unique skill set or deepening your professional experience.

Myth #3: The more people who follow or friend you, the stronger your personal brand.

Certainly numbers can help. But what’s more important is having the right friends with whom you have a real connection. A small number of strong relationships with the right people will always trump a mass of people who don’t really know or care about you. When I recommend people, it’s people who I like, know and trust.

Myth #4: Ubiquity builds a strong personal brand.

You don’t have to be on every social media platform. You don’t have to tweet 20 times a day. Be generous with your ideas, your expertise and your support of the community. But, don’t post just to post. It’s fine to let people know what you are doing (so birds of a feather can flock together), and to show some of your personality. Just don’t clog the system with mindless blather. On a regular basis, post something of unique value that adds credibility to your brand.

“Karen’s services in our vision and branding process were invaluable. In a short amount of time, she got extraordinarily well prepared, then guided our faculty very successfully through the workshop process and the following vision statement drafting process.”

We recently hired Karen Kang to do a positioning project at Quindi, on the recommendation of a colleague. Karen proposed her “MINI” format for the project, and it worked perfectly for us. In an intensive series of meetings she was able to help us focus and articulate key positioning elements, and the process itself was fun and invigorating. I can recommend Karen absolutely, without reservation, for companies with similar needs.