An international fresh food marketing organisation says the most successful and effective brands are those that best capture a company's mission, vision and values. Explaining the Brand Temple model at a Hort Connections seminar, Fresh Produce Marketing's Gianni Russo explains that it has three levels.
"The bottom is the foundation and what we are looking for is what is the rational difference that makes us different and what is unique to us," he said. "Perhaps it could be the IP. So we are looking for something that's really ownable by your company. The second is your communication pillars, and these are the communication truths that drive the story that you tell to your consumers. The top is the essence, which is the heart and soul of brand."
Fresh Produce Marketing Founder Lisa Cork adds that the temple starts at the bottom with the rational, then through thought and planning it builds the foundation upwards. It starts to interconnect as the rational points become part of the communication pillars, through story, and form the brand content or message. She says while many brands are often afterthoughts to the product, the most creative and successful ones start with the company's vision, mission and values.
"Those elements sit above any type of branding and in fact they colour and provide direction and structure," she explains. "Brands have to pay tribute to company vision, because what happens if you don't? You have this disconnect where you stand for one thing philosophically, but your brand is on this journey of its own and don't relate to the business."
Mr Russo believes it is important for companies to find a unique place in the market, and one way to do that is to move from the rational to the emotive. Ms Cork says that can be achieved by thinking about what it is that they stand for, and ask is it something you can use to make a connection with consumers.
"That's the kind of gift, that the Brand Temple gives us," she said. "It puts you in the zone of thinking differently than you have in the past, engaging with what is important to you, and then finding a way to bring that story to life. That story underpins everything."
Once a company has a brand, it is then important to look at branding for the range of its products. Ms Cork says there are two types of structures; one is called the "branded house", where everything carries a common name, for example the company's name. The other is a "house of brands" which consists of a master brand and below that is sub brands that share the same attributes as the master brand.
"What you find when you start to create this master brand territory and the sub brands is the essence of what your brand promises filters through," Ms Cork said. "It filters through a number of touch points; it filters through your language, it filters through in terms of your visuals. Everything feeds upon the other."
Mr Russo added: "When you start with brand sample you need to remember these are just words. So we need to translate those words to visuals and everything has to have meaning."
But the main message Fresh Produce Marketing is encouraging companies to think about when creating a brand is viewing it as an asset, where they do more than just name a product but create a connection and engage with consumers.
"A brand is not a 30 minute conversation around a table," Ms Cork said. "A brand is truly a work of art, that you make an investment in as a business. Don't just create a name, build a brand. When you do that everything else follows; the sales, the customers, the connection, the point of difference."
For more information
Lisa Cork
Fresh Produce Marketing
Phone: +64 274 772 842