Daily Archives: June 3, 2013

Brand Therapy.

0

Is your brand a little scatterbrained?  Does it sometime feel like it lacks direction? Do your brand managers like to keep busy – sometimes just for busy’s sake?  Maybe you brand need a little therapy.

How does one go about getting brand therapy? Well, you need to go to a professional. You might ask “But can’t I do this myself?”  The answer is no. Just like you can’t do your own appendectomy. Some parents can’t see their kids for who they are.  A momma rarely thinks her baby is funny looking. It’s hard to heal thyself when it comes to brands.  You are too close and too invested.

The tools a professional uses and the tools an informed brand manager or CMO uses will often be the same: research, data, demographics, psychographics, competitive analysis, listening, and concept testing.  But it’s what one does with all that information that is therapeutic.  Deciding what must be discarded and what must be kept in the brand plan. What to give away vs. what to cultivate and grow.  This is what will come up in brand therapy and what will drive the client to key realizations. It is the client that has to make the tough decisions. The client that will self-actualize the brand. The therapist facilitates and lays out the issues, but the client makes the decisions.  The process is therapeutic, painful and healthy. 

I wonder why more companies don’t do it.  Brand therapy makes for healthier brands and healthier brand manager. Peace!