How Solid Is Your Brand?

Our columnist details the six key characteristics a well-positioned brand needs to possess

by Steve McKee

It's hard to read a business book or magazine these days without some mention of branding. It's a hot topic, and there are about as many definitions of branding as there are people claiming to be experts. Yet although the words may be different, every definition boils down to essentially the same thing: A brand is what represents a company, product, and/or service in the marketplace. It's a shortcut that enables prospective customers to understand more rapidly and readily trust what you're selling.

But what distinguishes a good brand from a bad one? How do you know if your brand is strong or weak? And as you develop new brands or marketing efforts for existing brands, how can you know that you're on the right track with your positioning?

There are many characteristics that define solid brands, but I'd like to offer what I call the Big Six. See how your brand stacks up against them.

Relevance. This is requirement No.1. If a brand isn't relevant, it might as well be invisible. Altoids (WWY) is "the curiously strong mint," a germane positioning for those times when someone has bad breath. FedEx (FDX) promises your package will "absolutely, positively" be there overnight, a highly relevant promise to people who are shipping important documents.

You might think it makes sense for automakers to make cars that will appeal to the largest market segments possible. But when GM's (GM) Bob Lutz was at Chrysler in the 1990s, he knew that market relevance was more important than market size. Under his leadership, Chrysler resurrected its brand with narrowly targeted hits such as the Dodge Ram, the Jeep Grand Cherokee, the Chrysler PT Cruiser, and the impractical (but totally cool) Dodge Viper—vehicles that intentionally don't appeal to everyone but were highly relevant to their core target audiences.

Which brings up an important point: What's relevant for one group of customers may be irrelevant to another. Just one company, Procter & Gamble (PG), in one category (detergents) leverages four different points of relevance: superior cleaning (Tide), fragrance (Gain), color protection (Cheer), and stain fighting (ERA). If your brand isn't the category leader, don't try to seize the leader's positioning. (Would you really take on Tide in superior cleaning?) Instead, look for an alternate feature or benefit on which you can win with a defined market segment.

And remember that relevance is a continually moving target. William Lauder, CEO of cosmetics manufacturer Estée Lauder (EL), says: "The challenge for any brand marketer is how to continue to maintain a modernity or contemporaneous look to your brand while not changing it so much that a loyal consumer says, 'It's not my brand anymore.' It's quite a challenge. Many of the great brands out there have been hurt by being too committed to history and not committed enough to what history offers as an instruction to the future."

Simplicity. In his book The World is Flat, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman says: "There is nothing wrong with complicated ideas, but if you want to convey a complicated thought to a mass audience, you have to first condense it into something digestible and believable. Once you grab someone's attention, you can pour in the details." He may have been referring to political events and global business trends, but the principle holds true in any form of communication.