The brand imperative for start-ups

The Indian economy is abuzz with a lot of entrepreneurial activity in the ‘for profit’ as well as ‘social entrepreneurship’ domains.  It’s great to see much activity and the intention of entrepreneurs to redefine value creation and development by venturing out to explore new opportunities and market niches.

All successful businesses have at their core a unique long lasting proposition for their customers and have successfully managed to communicate it and deliver on this proposition, which in the brand consulting circles is  referred to as the Brand Promise or the brand’s essence or its reason to exist, etc.

Most businesses that have the first mover advantage tend to be successful and also have a greater chance of being the leader. Yet how does one be the first or find a niche or differentiate themselves in a crowded market and position themselves as the first or only choice? 

Most entrepreneurs like to believe they have a great and unique idea on hand and that it’s a game changer, and jump into it without thinking it through, and end up failing because

• they have overlooked a few fundamental aspects of the business strategy or
• were too lost in the grand scheme of things or
• they lost the plot by not being consumer centric. 

It’s important to have control over aspects that are within the start-ups purview, chief amongst them is brand development and marketing. 

The greatest founders and CEOs have understood the power of brands and seen the immense value they create by imbibing a brand oriented culture.No matter how great the idea is, unless it’s marketed well, the chances of success are slim. An ordinary product when marketed well stands a better chance of success than a great product that has not been marketed. This is the crux of the problem.

Many start-ups seem to neglect marketing and more importantly brand strategy and it’s the last thing on their agenda, while according to me it should be the first task they should address when building a strategy and venturing into entrepreneurship.  This does not mean one spends months on end getting the strategy right, its about getting a  fundamentally strong blue print in place.

In an ever flattening world where access to technology and expertise is not a constraint, the only thing that can set a business apart is the brand and its value proposition. Please remember a brand is not a logo or a tag line. It’s a lot deeper. They are just external expressions of a brand and its promise, a means to identify. Mind you they are important but come in at a later stage of brand development.  

So what is the brand imperative for a start up?  Well, it’s about developing a unique, relevantly differentiated concept – an idea that can stand the test of changing technology or competition and about developing trust or anything else it promises, that no one else can satisfy quite like it and develops into a relationship with the consumer based on trust, comfort or anything else.

 It’s about developing and communicating the promise of your brand to the relevant set of people. Does it end there? No, it actually begins by developing a business strategy around the brand concept. What’s the point in communicating a hollow promise if you cannot deliver on it? Sooner or later your customers will find out and will then desert you for someone who can or for someone cheaper.

Just having a good business strategy is not enough, nor is it enough to only invest in an illusionary exercise of brand creation and development(read logo, tag line, colours). It’s important to bridge them and one begins by developing the brand and what it will stand for, what it will do and how it will ‘wow’ its customers. If one gets these aspects right by investing a little in consumer research and a brand consultant, one would have at least laid a strong foundation or got he ball rolling for success.

Building and marketing a brand is not as expensive as it is made out to be. Marketing and promoting a brand is not about investing loads of money into main stream advertising. There are a lot of affordable, inexpensive and free platforms which startups can tap into or utilise to promote and advertise their venture. 

Another aspect is that a strong brand orientation allows start-ups to attract like minded talent who are keen on joining and contributing to the organisation’s success and objectives. A strong brand orientation is reassuring to potential candidates as they are aware that it can only improve their career prospects in the near future.

In conclusion, a good brand strategy has the power of bringing in focus and tremendously aids in decision making and in streamlining operations, by identifying activities that feed into delivering on the brand's promise or those that don’t.