Let’s talk about “Brand Essence.” Brand Essence derives from a brand-business’ Brand Promise. To be relevantly differentiated, every brand-business must have a Brand Promise. Brand Promise defines the relevant, differentiating, trustworthy expected brand experience the brand-business will deliver time after time. Brand Promise describes what a brand is intended to stand for in the mind of a specific group of customers.
The key to a successful repositioning program is clear thinking about the nature of your brand essence. Many companies skip the brand introspection, purpose, values and philosophy step. Instead they go straight to product line planning and marketing tactics.
A process called “laddering” is often used to uncover the essence of a brand.
Brand Essence is the heart and soul of a brand – a brand’s fundamental nature or quality. Usually stated in two to three words, a brand’s essence is the one constant across product categories and throughout the world.
In his book, Eating the Big Fish: How Challenger Brands Can Compete Against Brand Leaders, Adam Morgan indicates that people enthusiastically share information for one of four reasons: (1) bragging rights, (2) product enthusiasm, (3) aspirational identification or (4) news value.
