The Brand Analysis, Positioning and Development Methodology is a simple two-step process.

First we have a marketing strategy meeting with you, your vendors, staff, and distributors to determine your company’s core benefits and their perceptions of your current positioning in the marketplace. Then we focus on external sources of information (customers, potential customers, and past customers) to identify their perceptions of your current positioning in the marketplace. And finally, we identify your customers’ and potential customers’ emotional hot buttons and obstacles to purchase.

We take the information derived from step 1 to establish a Creative Platform that appeals to your prospect on an emotional level. Because this platform is based on both cognitive and emotional appeal, derived directly from interaction with your prospect, your organization realizes an optimal brand position for your marketing team to execute.

STEP 1:

What are Inside Insights© Research Focus Groups? How will it benefit your company? Focus Groups. Good, but...
Not Just Focus Groups — Inside Insights© Focus Groups
Focus groups should be aimed at a key "deliverable" to uncover a prioritized list of key strategic benefits. Inside Insights© is a proprietary, custom designed Benefits Testing and Consumer Insights Research Program. It will systematically unveil the strategic “hot buttons” that lead to more favorable attitudes/usage intent for your Brand. It also identifies consumer barriers to attitudinal changes. Unlike some traditional focus groups, Inside Insights© Focus Groups are not aimed at finding “nice to know” information. It is a system that uncovers “need to know” insights about target users.

Deliverables: what Inside Insights© will uncover:
· A clear understanding and priority ranking of consumer benefits that are key drivers of customer purchases.
· The drivers that motivate prospects to choose your company over other competitors.
· Consumer perception of your principal competition and their strengths and weaknesses.
· Example translations showing identified consumer benefits as advertising/communications for your company.

How Do Inside Insights© Focus Groups Work?
The Inside Insights© system is designed to obtain both "private" assessments from each participant, as well as significant group interaction.

If six Inside Insights© Focus Group sessions are conducted with the target, the study has the benefit of highly significant statistical sampling. At each focus group, our senior research strategist probes participants for strongly held attitudes, feelings and perceptions — for 1 hour and 45 minutes. This approach creates valuable information that is timely and actionable.

Note: The entire Inside Insights© Focus Groups process will be implemented by our senior research strategist — from creating the Moderator’s Guide and Benefit Statements with your company, to conducting the Inside Insights© Focus Groups, to writing and presenting the final report. Because of this total immersion in the process, our senior strategist moderates these groups with comprehensive knowledge of the client’s product and benefits.

The final presentation references video emphasizing key findings and significant focus group excerpts.

STEP 2:

What is a Brand Creative Platform and how will it benefit your company?

Creative based on cognitive and emotional indicators:
A Creative Platform consists of conceptual messages that leverage a product’s unique benefits (customer hot buttons) in a manner that appeals cognitively and emotionally to the customer. These messages are communicated in a tone/manner, look/feel that elevates the Brand promise consistently across all advertising media.

The Process: Rare and Effective.
Utlizing the information gathered from conducting Inside Insights©, our Creative Director wil:
· Review and prioritize your consumer benefits.
· Identify the media vehicles in your marketing program.
· Develop a Creative Platform Brief, which confirms key messages, tone and manner, copy points, design direction and customer profile.
· Create the consumer benefit concept/messages in black marker on white paper. This process allows you to focus on the message or idea uninterrupted by design. If a concept is weak, it will reveal its weakness, naked of design. An idea that passes this test will only improve with professional art direction.

Once the ideas are selected, the design begins to arrive at the Brand Platform “look and feel.” We compile a list of items surrounding the benefits, manufacture, and use of the product to identify textures, colors, etc. We then present three unique and distinctive design options for the Brand Creative Platform, prepare to integrate into your marketing materials.

Deliverables in Step 2, “Brand Creative Platform:”
1. 3 creative concepts for each medium involved in your marketing.
2. The Corporate Brand look and feel executed in one item per media vehicle within your marketing campaign. (TV is taken to storyboard only with production/director instruction)
3. A Brand Platform Blue Print Guide (Graphic standards for your agency or in-house department to follow).
4. Corporate ID, Logo Design or refinement, and company-wide integration.
5. Positioning Statement / Tag-line Development.

How does the Brand Creative Platform benefit you?
• Your advertising and communications will be focused on and leverage your most meaningful product benefits.
• Your creative messages will create an emotional bond with your customer, leading to brand loyalty.
• Your communications will sell your product and benefits in concepts that will touch your customers’ emotions, making them laugh, cry, and think. This gives your communications a higher recall rate, which translates into increased return on your marketing dollars invested.
• Your corporate culture, tone & manner, and product features will be incorporated into your communications design to create a distinctive “Brand Look” that clearly differentiates from the competittion.
• Your Brand identity will become recognizable and familiar to your customers.
• Your design and conceptual messages are rooted in sound strategy and positioning that is defined by your customer rather than a creative designer.

There is a significant difference in the Creative Platform that comes from this Branding exercise compared to a clever creative/design that is produced by in-house or agency designers.

The Creative Brand Platform is a highly disciplined process that results in a marketing campaign foundation of conceptual messages and a Brand look.

Your in-house marketing department’s designer or current advertising agency can then follow the guideline instructions or graphic standards and carry the look, feel, and messages into all marketing components.