Doug Rose is the VP of Merchandising Brand Development at QVC, Inc., the $4.3B e-commerce leader that each week introduces over 250 new products and each month adds over 194,000 customers. Doug is responsible for introducing new brands and for creating strategic alliances with other retail and media entities. Previously, he enjoyed a successful 12-year advertising career at Ketchum Advertising, Young & Rubicam, and Hal Riney & Partners. He’s been a guest lecturer at Harvard and Stanford Business Schools.

Creating the Brand Promise

Al Ries, marketing icon and author, says in his book The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, “A Brand is nothing more than a word . . . a proper noun . . . that influences purchasing behavior.” In my experience, a brand is that and more. It’s the name, it’s an image, it’s the sum of corporate image, including words, sounds, smells, pictures, even feelings – anyone or anything that embodies a company’s image.

Think Apple Computer. AT&T. Target. Martha Stewart. MasterCard or Visa. How would you describe any of these? Any number of examples can illustrate the point that brand goes well beyond a word. And their effectiveness is directly tied to how well they’ve defined and portrayed their brand.

Because we offer hundreds of national and proprietary brands, positioning is an important discipline at QVC. To streamline the process, we use a simple worksheet to help us define what makes each brand unique. We’ve borrowed liberally from many sources and similar examples to create a simple, very useful model. And while a lot of thought goes into defining each brand, the result is a simple, straightforward sentence called a “brand promise.”

Branding exercises can be very useful, and you can use this same model to create your own brand promise. Before you start, you should have a clear understanding of your customers and target market. I’ve included a model in this issue of Antiphony Insights to help you get started. Just grab a pencil and paper, and you can start sketching out your own brand promise.

Start at the bottom of your page.

• Start with the Product or Service you offer and want to brand.
• Moving up the worksheet, next define the Physical Features or Attributes, the tangible aspects of your products. What are the qualities of the products you’re selling?
• Next, what are the Rational Benefits of the products or services? These are typically fact-based benefits based on the features of your products.
• Working up the chart, define the Emotional Benefits - where do the rational benefits lead in terms of intangible or emotional benefits for consumers?
• In your next section, Consumer Motivation, define what will motivate a consumer to purchase your products or services.
• And finally, at the top, create a concise, one-sentence description of your Brand Promise, a sentence that encapsulates your worksheet.

• Direct sale
• OEM
• Licensing
• Value Added Reselling
• Distributor
• Independent Representative
• Joint sale
• Bundling
• Direct marketing

Candidates for these relationships offer complementary or required products/services to build a whole product, increasing the perceived value of your offering.

Rapid scaling of revenue and reduced customer acquisition costs from these relationships can have dramatic effects on company performance and more than offset potential reduced gross margins.

To learn more about Revenue-Generating Relationships, contact us at insights@antiphony.com.


Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind
Al Ries and Jack Trout (ISBN: 0071373586)
This classic, which was recently reissued in December 2000, is still required reading for anyone in marketing and anyone interested in positioning a product or company.