What's in a brand?

— Posted Thursday 20th May 2010 by Rachel O'Connor under Stuff worth knowing

I make no bones about the fact that I am passionate and probably a little obsessed with brands.  Last night I settled down to watch the new Jo Malone (High Street Dreams) programme. It was great TV and I watched it because (as a PR!)  I love Jo Malone products, I think the brand and packaging are delightful and because of this I was interested to see the person behind the brand in action talking about business and helping other deserving fledgling businesses get off the ground.

I wasn’t disappointed. Counter to my expectations, Jo started life with very few privileges, living on a council estate and it was her raw passion and belief in the brand and product that drove her success. Initially she explained, Jo Malone was the brand and then with success and growth, the brand became bigger than Jo Malone the person. She stressed to her business protégés that although now much bigger, many of the original values that she founded the business on remain central to how the business is run. This of course is a strong brand.

At one point another great brand in his own right, Lloyd Grossman, said to the Singh family that a Brand is all about emotion. This got me thinking…….How can travel brands create positive emotion successfully?

What is a brand?

Ultimately, a brand is the heartbeat of your company/organisation. It defines how you run your business, they way you deal with customers and how you operate.  It’s your own personal signature and calling card, a way that you leave a memorable imprint with all your key audiences, employees, customers, suppliers and stakeholders.

A strong brand is clear in all that it offers, how it behaves, what it stands for and who and how it talks to people. When we think of brands – we often think of super brands – Kellogg’s, Virgin, Dyson, BMW, Apple etc. And yet all businesses have a brand (something that is the heart of an organisation) which initially may be one or two people who start or run this business, but like Jo Malone and many others, as a business grows it must become less dependent on the individual and more dependent on the brand, which sits at the heart of the business and become the glue that replaces the passionate people that start or run that business.

So in travel what’s the role of the brand?

Increasingly as trading become tougher and choice greater, in the business of travel, more and more emphasis is placed on the brand. The brand is the entry point to the service experience; the website is the window or shop front to the brand’s soul. In a world which is now so crowded with vanilla value driven experiences, selling the same hotels, resorts and holiday packages, it’s the brand that defines the customer’s choice.   The more appealing a brand is to me, the more it talks and I can identify with it, the more likely it is to get my business. Vanilla brands, are those businesses and brands that you cannot differentiate from the other. So I fervently believe that by pairing back and simplifying your offer and brand you can become more, not less successful.

In travel we often sell dreams – I have heard this so many times around the business and at conferences and presentations.  But in fact a dream is intangible and rarely can anything live up to a dream’s expectations. By clarifying what your tangible offer is, being more targeted and single-minded about who your product is for, you will achieve greater success, and a greater return on investment.

A successful brand promise

At the very least in travel – the functional element of a travel experience; that the company gets you there efficiently; and without delay and when things go wrong they manage the situation well…. is imperative.  Knowing that you have a plan in place for eventualities, preparedness when things go wrong is a business basic.

The slightly darker art of creating the all powerful emotional piece around how your service and way of doing business makes people feel, the place that you build the relationship with a customer is all about the brand and it’s this piece that is the most valuable. Often consultants, agencies and marketing departments will present all sorts of weird and wonderful ways of working and creating brands. Fundamentally, and simply it’s all about clarifying what your business proposition is; who it’s for and what the brand (organisation) stands for and then ensuring that your business delivers on its promise and if possible exceeds that expectation. This delivers the brand equity that is so difficult to buy or create.

When a dream turns to a nightmare

So as the entire industry worked tirelessly to manage the impact of the Icelandic Volcano, there were real winners and losers in all of this. The winners were those businesses and brands, which customers had elected to travel with based on trust, and the trust that deepened throughout the long journey home. Even when the tour operator, airline or cruise company could not wave a magic wand and get people home, these businesses continued to communicate and to manage the expectations of their clients. They were seen to be working creatively to get people home and ensured that people were not left high and dry without local support.  

The losers were those who simply did not do this well. They were unclear of their responsibility towards the customers. They were unprepared for such unprecedented eventualities; they did not know how to act and failed to communicate with their customers in an appropriate way. Of course, there are hugely significant differences in business models and a significant factor in the whole crisis has brought to the fore the importance of clarity of consumer protection and the responsibility of airlines. But ultimately the organisations that won out communicated well, what was and was not possible. So when a dream turns to a nightmare, how a business is perceived to react can deliver significant dividends.

The emotion around travel when things go wrong is so much more powerful than the emotion around simply delivering what you promise in normal trading times, but fuel bad emotion in a disaster and you lose a friend for life, create a good emotion around a time of crisis and you have a friend for life.

Customers, clients, passengers etc will usually forgive most things when they think they understand a situation and know what is and isn’t possible. When they are left unclear about a situation and how it impacts them it causes significant stress, unease and disappointment.