Branding for Your Customer
Do you know what your Brand�s DNA is, its Uniqueness? Is it the core competencies of your organization, the quality of your product or service, the brand�s heritage? If you use any of these differentiators to define your DNA, you could be standing on thin ice.
For one, all of these definitions sound very manufacturer-oriented. My competencies, my organization, my product, my quality, my heritage. Does your consumer even care? Enough of the breast-beating! Find the DNA that stands on a uniquely relevant consumer meaning such that when your brand is mentioned, heartstrings pull on the purse strings.
Research is a great way to know how your Brand can differentiate. Aside from reducing the guesswork, research moves planners from sympathy, which is merely thinking we know what our customers want, into empathy, which is actually being able to trade places with them.
When Pilot Consulting celebrated its 10th Anniversary a couple of years ago, I took the occasion to review the business and discovered that there are two industries where we had the most number of clients: Education and Financial Services. I realized that what was common between these two industries is the old paradigm of �build and they will come.� In that paradigm, banks tend to believe that whenever they open a new branch, depositors will come lining up at their doorsteps. The same goes for schools who likewise believe that their business expansion comes automatically just by simply opening up a new campus. The reality is, today�s customer is truly king, so empowered to choose among many, many options.
We were introduced to one particular university by award-winning film director Peque Gallaga, who was being tapped by the owners to create an advertising campaign for them. Their Marketing Challenge: declining enrollment for ten years and running. While Peque was excited by the thought, as he always is, of creating compelling advertising, he wanted us to do a Diagnostic Study first, to determine whether in fact advertising was the key to the university�s problems. Thank God he did!
According to the Usage, Attitude & Image Study we conducted among High School students, it was the 15-16 year olds who were making the decision on which university to attend. The problem was the client university was talking to their parents! Their communications were focused on technical facts such as CHED de-regulation status, which the typical teenager was not interested in. Furthermore, the university was perceived as old, staid and downright boring compared to its competition.
We employed one focused strategy : DOWN-AGE! We revamped the image of the university from their communications materials, events, website, facilities. We went on a sales blitz with their recent graduates as spokespersons, employing the services of rock bands and playing games like the Amazing Race, to entice the high school prospects to experience the university in a whole new light. We also Brandwashed the school�s organization and trained the front liners in Customer Service skills, to shift their attitudes towards the students, and to treat them like true customers and aim for their total satisfaction.
From the 10-year declining enrolment, the university registered a 20% increase in enrolment on the 1st school year following the youthful, hip and cool campaign, another 12% the following year and 5% more just last year. Today, despite approaching capacity enrollment, the university continues to down-age itself; consciously looking at their business from the point of view of the students they serve. On their own, they have implemented programs, from foreign internship programs which deploy Hotel & Restaurant Management students in hotels all over Asia, to renovating their campus canteen into a food court which the mall-going teeners are much more comfortable in.
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