Introduce yourself and tell us about the Pappas Group.
As the founder of the Pappas Group, I’m proud to say we are one of the Washington region's leading branding and interactive design consultancy. I’m the president and executive creative director. Most recently we have led rebranding initiatives for Blackboard Inc., Discovery Education, Honest Tea, Washington Kastles™, and Washington.org. Prior to establishing the Pappas Group in 2003, I was vice president and executive creative director of Proxicom's Brand & Experience Group where I developed and executed creative strategy and interactive marketing/design. One of my newest ventures is a column in the Washington Business Journal, Branding - the Bottom Line, where I discuss how your brand can have a huge impact on the bottom line.
Based on your experience, what makes a strong brand?
Understand what your customers want and deliver upon that need consistently. Remember you are in business for yourself, but really you are in business for your customers. Pay attention to them and learn their habits and behaviors if you want to be successful.
Your brand should stand for something. Remember, not every brand is for everyone. Put a stake in the ground; decide what you are going to do and why you are going to be in business. The people who need and want your product or service are the ones that will become your customers.
What specific advice do you have for people just starting out with a new business and trying to define their brand?
Learn about your customers, but don’t forget about your competitors. It is critical to know your competition, especially if your potential customers are already familiar with your competitors. When you’re building your brand determine what you want to stand for and build it. Show your customers that you believe in something and that it sets you apart from the competition. Demonstrate what makes you special and different than others playing in your space. For example, if you are selling jewelry you are not going to design all kinds of jewelry, you will need to refine and define yourself – maybe it’s with antique jewelry, maybe it’s made of sea glass, or maybe it has a specific cultural influence. Regardless of the type of jewelry you choose to sell, you will draw a targeted customer base and identify yourself as unique from the competition.
When I founded the Pappas Group, I researched branding agencies in the DC metro area to gain an understanding of who my competition would be and what I could do differently that would truly set my agency apart. What I found was a gap in service offerings, at the time, there were no agencies in the area that were using a strategic approach to developing brands; they were all specialty implementation shops. This gave me an opportunity to show what the Pappas Group would stand for – a complete end to end brand solution from strategy through implementation. By doing this research we were able to claim our niche and develop a successful brand for the Pappas Group.
What specific advice do you have for people who are trying to reinvent their brand and business?
For business owners who are thinking of reinventing their brand, it’s important to take a step back and ask why am I doing this? Is it because the industry is changing? Is it because your services are no longer relevant? Or is it because your image is tired and has lost momentum? What ever the case, be honest with yourself. Look at your business objectively, and admit the true issue is that is causing you to want to rebrand your business. Typically, the issue you think is the problem is really only a symptom of a larger problem. This will help you identify if you need to rebrand or if you need to reinvent. When you rebrand you establish new positioning for the company, when you decide to reinvent you create a new way of doing business, and a new way of thinking that will permeate through everything you do.
What are some effective tools that you find useful when cultivating a brand?
Take a minute to ask yourself these 4 questions. Your answers should address impacts to your brand, not necessarily your company.
- What do you want the brand to be? The answer to this question should never change over the years. For example, Disney’s brand is about making people happy, and they’ve kept that their focus for the past 86 years.
- What do you want the brand to do? The answer to this question can and should change over time. Determine goals for your business, for example you may start off by wanting the brand to showcase you as a provider of a specific product or service, after you’ve demonstrated this you may want to show that you are a forward thinking company and focus on innovation.
- What do you want people who interact with your brand to feel? Do you want your customers to feel safe? Cool and hip? Entitled? Empowered? Write down your answers, these will end up serving as the rules for your brand.
- What do you want people to say about your company? When a customer is describing their relationship or experience with your company what do you want them to say? What are the words you hope they’ll use or the stories they’ll share with friends. Do you want them to discuss how you were friendly, easy to work with, open and honest, and delivered on time?
If you write out these statements it will help your brand to become more concrete. When you have formalized your brand and have rules to follow it can influence and help drive decisions across your business.
What is a positioning statement, and what is the importance of developing one?
Simply stated, your positioning statement is everything. It outlines how you want to be perceived by your target audience and why they should choose you over a competitor. Just remember, honesty is key when you are developing your positioning statement.
How can a small business owner build brand loyalty? Can you recommend some tools to encourage brand loyalty from customers?
The way you build brand loyalty is by being honest, authentic, responsive and effective. Authenticity is crucial to survive in this day and age where information is so easily accessible. Customers can quickly run comparisons against your competitors, get recommendations and reviews, and can uncover and broadcast any indiscretions or lies your may be hiding. Being responsive and effective are reflective of the times. People expect things fast. You need to keep up with trends, deliver and respond quickly to their changing needs needs.
How can I protect my brand in the exposed world of social media?
You can’t. Social media is a channel not a thing and to be honest it’s now a major part of how things work and every day lives. As I mentioned before, be authentic about who you are then you have nothing to hide. If you are faking ratings and comments about your restaurant people will find out. Stop worrying about protecting your brand and just deliver quality products and services on time and everything will fall into place.
When should small business owners consider branding individual products in addition to the brand of their company?
Different strategies work for different companies. What I see more often is people brand their company to match the product they are selling. For example, if you sell zip lines and you name your company Zip Lines Inc. then you really don’t have much room to grow. What I’d advise when you are creating your brand is to dream big. Is it possible you’ll want to expand your business and grow your product suite with parachutes, hang gliders, and other types of airborne equipment? If so, think about how you will name and position yourself. Use those four questions I shared earlier in the interview to define what makes the most sense for your business. Really think about how you want to be known.
During tough economic times many companies turn their message to focus on value and price, what impacts can this have on the over all brand, if any?
Tricky question, relevance is important to answer this. Price cutting can have a long term effect and could potentially surface some uncomfortable questions from your customer base. They may wonder why you haven’t lowered your prices before or why your markup is so high. Take a look at companies like Niemen Marcus® or Porsche®, cutting prices is simply not an option for them if they wish to retain their brand image. These brands stand for prestige and luxury. With this in mind, a price cut would completely diminish these brands, leaving them empty and their customers searching for a true differentiator. My advice to small business owners, find other ways to thrive in this economy, for example don’t drop prices, but be flexible with payment plans, or create a referral program to help boost sales.
Any last tips or advice you’d like to share about building a strong brand?
Just because you may be small doesn’t mean you can’t build a great brand. Learn from the big ones out there. Let them make the mistakes and then follow the good stuff. Good luck with your brand objectives!