Vision, Budget, or a gentle stroke of Luck: What drives your marketing success

What makes some of the companies stand out from the rest? Why marketing strategy, despite being coveted, is kept confidential and protected? If business or marketing success hinges upon same set of principles, then why some brands are more successful than the others? Why everyone desires direct access to the marketing strategies of top global brands? Wouldn’t it be nice to access some of those highly successful marketing strategies documents? But, that’s not possible!!

Since accessing those highly coveted strategies isn’t possible, we decided to analyze a few of the top brands to find out what makes them stand out.

One who holds a Vision, trusts the Process

The one who holds Capital, creates the Process

And the one who holds Luck, protect it from evaporating

The Common Thread

There are few established best practices that every brand follows. These are the common threads that run across various brands. The first and foremost is the “Purpose” a brand associate with. Second is the purpose being in sync with the values of the brand. Third is the brand’s ability to communicate coherently with customers across platforms. And, fourth is positioning in a manner that relates to the purpose.

One of the common misconceptions is that these strategies would work only for fortune businesses. However, that is not correct. These strategies could be replicated, with a bit of customization, for businesses across the life cycle curve.

Strategic Sneak-peak: Learning from global brands

While we give you a glimpse into the marketing strategies of one of the top global brands, how many of these can you identify? Send us your answer as a comment to find out whether you got it right or not.

1. Consistency Is The Key

This is a brand whose Red & White logo is recognized all across the globe. Consumers relate this brand with good feeling and staying refreshed. Their unique strategy has been managing consistent messaging and brand equity. The company has also kept its logo more or less consistent across ages, with evolving tag-lines and marketing slogans.

One of the key learnings in this case is that marketing pays off in a long run if done in a consistent manner.

Adopting the latest tactics but staying consistent is key

Having clarity of brand purpose and identity helps in committing means to the end in a consistent manner.

Can you identify the brand?

2. Making Movement Out Of Marketing

This is one brand whose journey to top of the table sounds like the journey of any other company. They crossed many hurdles before reaching top of the game. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that the brand relied on an age-old proven method of “Cult” marketing. Their approach to marketing was no lesser than a movement.

Futuristic products with state of art design is their branding philosophy. Advanced technologies are their product’s secret sauce since day one. However, they emerged as a global brand by not bothering everyone with technology. Instead, they chose to market aesthetically pleasant design and features.

The cult this brand created made everyone believe that having their product is akin to stepping into the future way ahead of others. Their approach to marketing has always been simple, thought provoking, and about exceptional products.

Autumn didn’t come early for this brand but when it came it stayed

Can you guess the brand?

3. Marketing To Gain Trust

Education based marketing isn’t easy but, this brand has been phenomenal in educating customers over the years. Trust is an important element of marketing and brands across the globe strives for gaining trust. The smile this company has put on customer’s face is synonymous with the trust it has gained by educating them. Their marketing strategy wasn’t only about sharing product related information but good practices as well.

Context has been a key element of their marketing strategy. Right message at a right place and right time has been their strategy. Value addition has been another key ingredient in their marketing. Getting into a customer’s mind through consistent value creation is a marketing strategy that any business can practice. Getting into customer’s mind isn’t easy but, that’s what successful brands do.

Marketing strategy is like oral hygiene. It matters to practice good habit every day

Can you guess the name of the brand?

4. Social Media as An Influencer

Would you believe if we tell you that over 95% of Fortune 500 companies have an active Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn profile/page (Source). Social media platforms are one of the biggest levelers of digital era. Creating a strong brand presence may be easy on social media but, sustaining it is not. However, this company has successfully cracked the code to decaffeinate online media.

If anything could happen over coffee, then this brand has used it as a mean to create one-one relationship with its customers. Social listening and responding to their followers are a secret marketing weapon in their arsenal. Promotions and competitions to drive engagement is another art they have mastered.

Do you need a cappuccino to guess the name of this brand?

5. Storytelling: The Ultimate Marketing Weapon

While educating consumers is a form of information sharing, telling stories around everything isn’t as simple as saying “Just Do It”. This brand is iconic in a way it has managed to keep stories at the heart of its marketing strategy. They have a story for everything from idea to conception and beyond. They don’t sell products but stories.

Humans are hardwired for stories. Humans possess a natural tendency to map their experiences with the stories they read, view or listen. It’s not easy to unleash stories for a brand.

Stories are the way to market yourself without marketing. It’s the easiest way to pick a shelf in customer’s mind.

Story is a tool to make something complex simple

Can you guess the brand?

The Ultimate Question

Let’s get back to from where we started, what makes some of the brands bigger than others? It’s their ability to identify their uniqueness and sticking to it. The digital marketplace is too crowded to be like anyone else. A brand that stands out is a brand that create its own unique identity. The Unique Identity that a company creates for itself is what Brand Identity is all about.

In our next post we shall be discussing the essentials of Planning & Strategy.

In our previous post we discussed the “Essentials of personalization”.

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