Whether you are new to the world of branding and marketing, or you are a well-versed and seasoned member of the industry, we all tend to throw jargon and buzzwords around without really thinking about what they actually mean. Then again, brand management spells itself out, right? It is the managing of a brand, simple as that. But, what does it mean to ‘manage a brand’? We’ll cover the industry explanation of what it means to manage a brand, but also give you a more distinctive and detailed description from our brand management grandmasters.
The industry definition of brand management
According to Investopedia, a world-leading source of business content on the web, brand management is a function of marketing with the sole purpose of increasing the perceived value of a product line or brand over time. It allows the prices of products to rise and builds customer loyalty by creating positive associations with the brand.
Or simply put: brand management is the continuous process of keeping all content, products and other brand expressions in line with your brand identity, to inspire growth and greater loyalty within your target audience and organization.
What do we think?
Once upon a time, keeping your branding consistent was easy. Nowadays, with the thousands of possible on-and offline touchpoints and channels, it has become increasingly complex to keep control over all brand assets that are created.
To be successful at this it is important to have a strong foundation and clear overview of your brand identity, as well as how it gets translated into sensory expressions. This overview should consist of:
- Brand strategy: purpose, brand essence, positioning statement, target audience (your buyer personas)
- Style guide: all sensory design elements relevant to the brand like logo, fonts, photography, sonic branding, print grids, digital grids, and the tone of voice (profile and practical do’s & don’ts).
So, if you don’t have the basic building blocks listed above, your first task should be assembling them. Most of the time, it’s a matter of sitting together and defining them together with the marketing team, the creatives, and your C-level executives.
Once you have all these branding aspects, your job consists of making sure everything that goes out is consistent and aligned with the brand strategy and design principles.
When we say everything, we really do mean everything. From the packaging of your products, graphics on brochures, the radio jingle or in-store scent to written content like blog posts, social media profiles, and press releases. Any sensory aspect of a touchpoint needs to be on-brand for any type of stakeholder, whether it's a customer, a supplier, or an employee.
Of course, you aren’t the only one responsible for all these touchpoints, which is why the main activity of a brand manager is making sure your entire internal team and any externals know how to implement the brand identity.
So, it always comes down to 3 jobs:
- Make sure you have all the necessary building blocks for a strong brand
- Enforce those building blocks in any sensory aspects of your stakeholder touchpoints
- Make sure all stakeholders have unlimited access to the building blocks (like Kadanza offers unlimited users)
Sounds easy enough, right? But, how are you going to manage all the branding materials?
Then, you will need a Brand Management Platform to make sure you’re keeping all branding materials in one place and give permission to the right people to use the content in a right place. So, using a brand management platform should be the fourth bullet point of your job.
For example, Kadanza allows you to create, store, organize and work on the assets with your team within the given permissions, meaning that it does everything you need for the brand management of your unique business.
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