Blog
Jörg on Brand
Find that point of difference that makes customers choose your brand, and even pay more for it. Once you have found your differentiation, make it into a good story: your brand story
Singapore: where a globetrotter can stand out yet fit in
From Düsseldorf to London, and Beijing to Hong Kong, advertising and branding veteran Jörg Dietzel has lived and worked in major cities across the world. But it was only when the German arrived in Singapore in 2001 that he felt he had truly found home. “I’ve lived in a few places around the world and …
Singapore: where a globetrotter can stand out yet fit in Read More »
Has the pitch process become self-destructive and obsolete?
If you read your online news, you might be excused for thinking the brave new world is already upon us – with digital channels outperforming traditional ones, artificial intelligence moving driverless cars and robots about to replace your job sometime soon. It’s just that in branding and advertising, this change has gone unnoticed. And the …
Has the pitch process become self-destructive and obsolete? Read More »
Brand Values
When you developed your brand positioning, you probably thought about heritage, cultural factors and how you are different from the competition. And that’s all good. But if someone asked you for your brand’s mission, what would you say? Make money for the shareholders? Sell as much as possible? Nothing wrong with those goals, and everybody …
Personal Branding
In previous episodes, we talked about touchpoints – those occasions where the consumer meets, or touches, the brand. We looked at logo and naming, at uniforms and front line staff, at storefronts and how to talk on the phone. On top of all this, there is still one important touch point we haven’t talked about …
Communicating your brand
So you found the right positioning for your brand (relevant and differentiated), made sure all touchpoints are consistent and got all your staff of the board. Now it’s time to tell the world. But how, given there are so many channels and, always, a limited budget? The answer takes us back to an area we …
Internal Branding
So you’ve built your brand, found a differentiator, looked at all touchpoints – now it’s time to tell your brand story to the world, right? Wrong. Before you tell everybody outside the company, you need to get everybody inside the company on board. Why? Because every single person that works for your brand, not just …
Touchpoint Management
When you think about branding, what do you think about? A name? A logo? A portion of the budget sitting in your marketing department? You’re not wrong, but branding is much more than that. The thing is, we tend to work in silos. Someone looks after production. Another one is responsible for logistics. HR. Finance. …
Learning from the best
When building your brand, it’s often a good idea to look at how others did it before you, especially if they were successful. One of my favourite brands in Singapore is Eu Yan Sang. It has everything a great brand needs: a great and long history – the story of how the founder came here …
Telling your brand story
Hello. Every brand needs to be relevant to its customers’ lives, and it needs to be differentiated. But how to let the public know about how are you different? You need to write your brand story. Maybe your brand already has a story – you did not start if from scratch but inherited it from …
How to build a great brand
So you have a business. You thought about your product or service, about pricing and where you want to sell it. You have a business – but do you have a brand? Think about how you make decisions about which clothes to buy. Or which watch. What resort in Bintan to choose for your next …
We need to fundamentally change the way we think about advertising, marketing and channels
The life or a marketer has never been easy. These days, it’s almost impossible. Yesterday, in a meeting with my publisher, we spoke about book titles. I suggested something with ‘Mad Men’, my favourite TV series of all times. “Nah,” he replied. “Most people are too young to remember.” Sad, but true. Gone are not …
Christmas Unwrapped
Christmas is one of the most successful global economic tools of all time. But are we looking too much at its commercial side? Christmas. Presents. Decorations. Dinners – with colleagues, friends, family. Travel. Holidays. Parties. If someone had invented Christmas as a global stimulus for the economy, they’d deserve the Nobel prize for economics. North …
Good country branding helps country brands
At a Masterclass this week in Manila, I looked at how a good country positioning will benefit the brands from that market – if they play their cards right. On Tuesday, I held a CEO Masterclass in Manila’s Tower Club called “Asian Sunrise – How to build a winning brand in the Philippines”. The class, …
Free: Branding for Non-profits
Non-for-profit brands that work with marginalised groups, the environment, in healthcare – they need branding, too. Because they move in the marketplace and compete for talent, time and sponsorship money. Here’s a new idea to build and support their brands – for free. The idea is simple: First there are the Non-Profits with a need. …
Singapore Airlines – stuck in the past?
National airlines are unique brands: They need to compete with other airlines in the market place where – in times of shrinking travel budgets – value, price, routes, service and product count. At the same time they will always be seen as a representative of their country of origin; it is often assumed that the …