Branding: Creating and Managing Your Corporate Brand

Learning objectives include:

• Define what a brand is (particularly a strong brand) and what branding is about
• Define various types of brand architecture and brand extension
• Identify your brand’s products, the features of those products, and their values
• Write a mission, vision, and style statement for a brand
• Describe the basics of positioning a brand
• Understand the basics of creating a visual identity, including a brand name, slogan, and logo
• Help your employees live the brand by empowering them to be ambassadors and creating strong brand touchpoints
• Effectively plan an internal and external brand launch
• Monitor and evaluate your brand, and understand how to respond to the results

Course Overview

• You will spend the first part of the day getting to know participants and discussing what will take place during the workshop. Students will also have an opportunity to identify their personal learning objectives.

Defining Branding

• To begin, participants will explore what a brand means and what branding is all about. Participants will also discuss some popular brands and what makes them stand out.

What Are You All About?

• Next, participants will get started on the branding process by learning how to identify a product’s features, benefits, and values.

Creating a Mission

• A mission statement is where you can express your big dreams for your product. In this session, participants will learn what a good mission statement looks like. They will also get some hands-on practice in creating a mission statement for a product of their choice.

Creating a Vision of the Future

• Next, it’s time to outline how you want things to look for your brand in the short term. This session will give participants some tips for creating a vision statement and share some sample statements for a fictional company.

Positioning Your Brand

• Positioning describes how your brand will be seen in the minds of customers. Participants will learn what a positioning statement looks like and they will take part in a positioning workout to get some hands-on practice.

Developing Your Style

• The next component of your brand identity is the style statement: what attitude will your brand have? This session includes both a theory and practice component.

Developing a Brand Name and Slogan

• Now it’s time for the fun stuff! To begin, this session will recap what we have covered so far. Then, participants will get practical tips on creating a brand name and a slogan.

Creating a Visual Identity

• Although we can’t turn participants into professional graphic designers, this session will help them understand the basics of graphic design. Concepts include image perception, color spectrum analysis, font types, and types of visual identities. A pop culture quiz rounds out the session.

Living Your Brand

• To begin the second day, participants will learn how to transform company employees into brand ambassadors and how to create a unique experience at each brand touchpoint.

Connecting with Customers

• Next, we will share ten easy ways to connect with customers.

Launching Your Brand

• This session will share some ideas for making internal and external brand launches a smashing success.

Taking Your Brand’s Pulse

• In order for a brand to be as successful as possible, it must evolve with your company, your customers, and the marketplace. This session will introduce participants to the basics of brand evaluation.

Performing a SWOT Analysis

• To begin, participants will learn about one of the most popular tools for brand analysis: the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) matrix.

Measuring Brand Health with a Balanced Scorecard

• Next, participants will learn how brands can be evaluated with a balanced scorecard.

Middleton’s Brand Matrix

• The final evaluation tool that we will explore is Simon Middleton’s brand matrix, which plots strength, weakness, positivity, and negativity.

Interpreting Evaluation Results

• In this session, participants will learn what to do with brand evaluation results. We will also share the six most common signs of brand trouble.

Keeping the Brand Alive

• Next, participants will learn about refreshing a brand, re-launching a brand, and re-branding. They will then apply their knowledge to a case study.

Going Beyond the Brand

• To wrap up the day, participants will learn about various kinds of brand architecture and brand extension.

Workshop Wrap-Up

• At the end of the workshop, students will have an opportunity to ask questions and fill out an action plan.