This article is meant to help leaders look at their brand and organization through a productively critical lens. In doing so, perhaps they will see new opportunities more clearly. You will not find answers in this article. You’ll find a lot of questions, and some important insights. Ask yourself these questions and you’ll reveal the answers you need to start your Brand Turnaround.
A Brand Turnaround Requires a Turnaround in Thinking
If you want to turn your brand around, you’ll need to think of it differently. As a leader, you’ll need to lead the way with innovative thoughts, generating insights that drive positive change.
Brands can bring on their own decline by not adapting along the way, prioritizing profitability and avoiding risk. The following are some counter-intuitive questions designed to help you see a different perspective on your brand. The answers will reveal the first steps of your brand turnaround. (We suggest that you record your answers. Ideas in writing are much more powerful.)
“Change is inevitable, growth is optional.” – John Maxwell
Don’t think about your brand or company. Think about what’s going on in the industry – not just your current competitive set but a larger, much broader competitive one. Ask yourself:
- What are the most innovative things going on in your product categories? Is your brand evolving as quickly as the market has?
- Are you aware of the most advanced communications technologies? Is your brand using the most contemporary tools?
- How have the consumer’s habits and usage changed? How is your brand shifting to adapt to these new behaviors?
- Where is industry growth coming from? What trends are driving this?
“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is – it’s what consumers tell each other it is.” – Scott Cook
Go back to the beginning. What got you here? Brands are often born and grow with a single focus, and that success often leads to broadening, dissolution and distraction. Can you recall:
- What was your brand’s original focus that made it successful?
- What is your brand’s current focus?
- What product offerings are currently at your brand’s center and why? Has that evolved?
“Success demands singleness of purpose.” – Gary Keller
Don’t think about your product. Think about the big idea behind it. Profitable brands need to own an idea that satisfies people’s desires. That idea needs to align with a marketplace need, not just physically but also intellectually and emotionally.
- Rather than think in terms of what you make, ask yourself:
- What idea do you truly own, and who are the people who are passionate about that idea?
- Rather than think about who your customers are, ask yourself:
- What defines the people that respect your idea?
- Rather than what those people spend money on, ask yourself:
- What are these people really after?
- What is the psychological reason why they choose or don’t choose your brand? What is the benefit(s) that they seek?
- Rather than assume that people need what it is that you sell, ask yourself:
- Why should they care about what we sell?
- Rather than ask what people know about your brand, ask yourself:
- How do people feel about my brand?
- Why is my brand relevant to its key audiences?
Forget the problems that confront you every day. Rather, envision an ideal Futurescape scenario. Imagine that your brand has become everything you wanted it to be. Imagine that it is growing in new ways and becoming a more important part of the consumer’s life. Ask yourself:
- What would you be selling and at what price point?
- How would your brand be engaged with its users?
- What niche does it fill?
“You can’t fix what you can’t measure.” – Peter Drucker
Don’t think about what is broken, find what is working. A successful brand is like a chain. Every piece should add significant value. Can you identify:
- What elements of your marketing materially contribute to sales?
- Where do your leads, sales and profits come from?
- Which products and audiences are growing and which are shrinking? How quickly?
“What got you here won’t get you there.” – Marshall Goldsmith
Now, envisioning your turnaround Futurescape success, assess what it will take to make that happen. Ask yourself:
- What does a team with clear ideas and skills to take the brand to new promising places look like?
- Full-time employees
- Vendors
- Partner companies
- Automation and technologies
- Will the business model, programs and products you have in place address needs of the future? How must they change?
- How can you reach the customer of the future via marketing technology?
If you’ve come this far and asked yourself all these difficult questions, you’ve uncovered many of the key insights necessary to chart a new, more successful course. If you need help consolidating that into a Futurescape Marketing Plan and brand turnaround, STIR is standing by to help.
