Be First ... Even If You're Not
Still in Gulko's session on brand differentiation .... more notes:
Be first, or at least be perceived to be first. IBM wasn't the first company to sell computers. Google wasn't the first company to offer contextual search advertising. But they might as well have been.
What "words" are owned by your brand? FedEx is overnight, Domino's is delivery ... when your members or potential members hear "XYZ Association," what word or concept comes to mind?
Leaders educate. Followers do not underwrite studies, leaders do.
Don't dilute your brand. Create sub-brands instead. Levi's makes jeans, and failed when they tried to launch Levi's brand khakis. So they created the Dockers brand. Same company, both pants, different kinds, different brands.
Understand your target's mindset. Lexus, which now sells more cars than Mercedes and BMW in America combined, sent its managers to the Four Seasons for the weekend so they would have a better understanding of the kind of service demanded by their customers.
We can't measure quality. We can only measure the perception of quality.
Two components of a brand: rational and emotional. Rational is important, but emotional is a lot more important.