2. Maximising people's perceptive abilities through Co-Branding

Here is the second part of the article. I decided to post it on Small Business Branding becuase it is profound for website owners and small business owners alike.

All the big brands are doing it, Entrepreneur’s Journey is doing it, and even teenage school kids are doing it, but the chances of many small businesses doing it right are close to nill! Now, what on earth am I talking about? Well, today I’m going to be giving you one of the most powerful techniques which you can use to strengthen your brand with – So, strap in folks.

You are what you eat.

Have you ever seen someone only ever eating Subway and thought to yourself - “Damn… that guy is definitely on a diet or something”. Or maybe you just saw someone wearing really cool Nike gear and you presumed they were seriously sporty. These are prime examples of what psychologists and marketers like to call - proximity influenced perception. Basically, as humans, our minds store things in a particular way, which allows us to cross-reference ideas, objects and places which are seen together in any way imaginable - LITERALLY. Some might even draw similarities between our brains and the way google ranks pages. In the above cases we combined attributes of brands and PEOPLE together but what I’m going to show you is that you can combine the attributes of brands and BRANDS together.

Hang out with the baddies and become a baddie.

Mothers are so right sometimes, and this is just one of those times. Did you notice that Apple iPods have teamed up with Nike? It creates a radically different and innovative identity for the team. I can almost certainly bet you, that after visiting this website, you’ll no longer see Nike or iPods in the same way. This allows them to do several different things:

• Nike can Attract Apple’s market segments
• Apple can Attract Nike’s market segments
• They can cross-sell their customers to buy each other’s products and MAKE MORE money.
• Finally, it allows them to refurbish their brand and attract people who may be ‘in between brands’ or simply seeking innovation, with this smashing product combination.

Interested? All you have to do is find a product or service which can compliment what you sell and make sure that they have a positive brand image and are selling to roughly the same consumers. Finally, make sure that this company has a strong identity which matches yours. Now you have a company which you can team up with to develop complimentary products with.

You can do Anything… Almost

If you lived in Australia during the nineties you might remember back when Metway and Suncorp were two different banks. However, Suncorp struck quickly and took over Metway. Then to minimise the effect of alienating the Metway customers, Suncorp decided to Co-Brand the names Suncorp and Metway together - effectively creating, Suncorp Metway. As time past and people adjusted to the new Co-brand, and integrated attributes of their perception of Metway into Suncorp. Finally Suncorp is slowly removing Metway from the equation, leaving the website titled, just plain old Suncorp. Albeit, not all was taken away… when the brands merged, perceptions about the two brands also combined and they have continued to change over time. If you’re going for a takeover or your brand needs some lovin’ how about using Co-Branding to these effects:

• Increase customer perception of your service
• Diversify your market into different segments
• Increase brand recall
• Get some PR buzz flowing
• Change your brand Identity
• Steal someone else’s customers.

This may be difficult for most small businesses to achieve in a physical marketplace but it is a lot more practical on the Internet. If you happen to own a website and you buy a competing or complimentary website, why not follow what Suncorp or Nike did? In the end, if done right, you will win out with a fantastic increase in your total brand value.

Best of luck Branding,
Robert Kingston

1. What is Perception?

Perception is all to do with the processes which consumers use to collect, interpret and recall information about the world around them - more specifically, in our case - buying our products. There are basically 4 processes which information passes through and they are:

1. Selective Exposure: This is whether or not a person chooses to be exposed to advertising or not. This can occur conciously, when a person leaves the room as TV ads come on, or subconciously, when the person learns over time not to goto specific websites which are filled to the brim with 'annoying' untargeted ads.
2. Selective Attention: This determines how much attention people devote to the advertisement. As humans can only conciously process around 7 bits of information at a time, our subconcious filters out what we don't need and allows us to focus our concious mind on the things that matter. Have you ever been on a website where your attention is transfixed on a particular advertisement which you just happen to need? That's what we call Selective Attention. In some models, Selective Attention is grouped into Selective Exposure, however many empirical studies reveal that people can recall a brand which they do not conciously notice.
3. Selective Comprehension: Once people notice an advertisement, they then attach meaning to it based on their beliefs, attitudes, values, needs and experiences. So people can really see what they want to see. Maybe you know someone like this, who lives blind to the world of possibilities, or blind to the fact that everyone hates them. In their ideal world, its true. Just go out one night and pretend someone is following you - I can bet that you will find evidence in the world around you that it's true. This is great for customers because you will be able to sell them something and if you are a good enough marketer to them they will search for reasons which will make them buy your product.
   
4. Selective Retention: People can only remember so much. The closer things are linked, the better retention people will have. Thats why marketers always use mnemonics with symbols, images ryhmes and associations. This is especially important when considering co-branding in your business.

That's basically all perception is about with regards to consumer psychology. I could get a lot more detailed but this will suit our purposes more than enough.

Perceptions Affecting Your brand in the Web 2.0 World

Perceptions rule the world. If I were to ask you what you thought of George Bush, your perception would yield a different meaning than what someone else might percieve of him but the point is perceptions (although markedly different) govern the meaning and value we attribute to everything. So my job here on this blog, is to tell you what the hell it has to do with marketing and advertising in the world of Web 2.0.

Everybody in the world wants to get the most value they can to satisfy their insatiable needs as best they can. This is an underlying facet of Perception which is often overlooked and I hope to explore topics which show you how to leverage this information. I'll be writing incisive topics such as:

1. What is Perception?
2. Maximising Associative Perception through Co-Branding
3. Leveraging Brand Equity
4. Delivering Powerful Messages to 'Cut Through the Clutter'
5. Dealing with Consumer Responses to Your Brand.

These articles will highlight the extreme importance of perception and value creation and how you can leverage this information to build a strong corporate identity in the world of bloggers and information junkies.

New Issue at trendwatching.com

As you might have guessed from an earlier post of mine, I love looking at trends in the world today. This monthly briefing's theme is about innovation... Check it out here.

Regards,
Robert Kingston

Master this and you WILL become rich.

There is only one fundamental concept in marketing which cannot be denied. That is, us marketers are communicating to our customers about how our product or service satiates a particular need of theirs. It is one of the only concepts in marketing which is concrete and if you master it - you may not only communicate your product's features better to the market, but you may also convice your audience that they need WHAT YOU SELL. It sound's like pretty powerful stuff, doesn't it? Well here are a few points which can push you in the right direction:

• Take the easy road and find a product that people really do want to have.
• Build your brand to match your product and your target market's values.
• Diligently plan coodinate your marketing communication to send out a powerful and distinct message aimed at your target market.
• Hire a GREAT copy writer - Or learn to do a GREAT job yourself.
• Aim to satisfy your customers completely and then upsell them.
• Use powerful and coercive language to gain rapport and highlight the need which the customer should fulfill. (A person doesn't need something - Until they notice it, that is.)

There are so many more points I can give to you on this, please feel free to link to this post and to discuss it.