Benefits of a Strong Brand, Part 2 – Greater Collaborative & Strategic Partnership Opportunities

Do you know what a great sign of a really strong brand is? When others in the marketplace tell the story of your brand for you. Here’s another fun client anecdote that illustrates a second important advantage of having a powerful, clear brand:

Benefits of a Strong Brand - The Steve Trauman Co. -Brand Specialist Blog ImageI recently was asked to attend a company meeting of one my rock star clients, The Steve Trautman Co. (STC). This Seattle-based consulting firm is today’s leading expert in knowledge transfer and serves a blue-chip client list—such as Boeing, Nike, Microsoft, Goodyear, U.S. Steel, Aetna and more—with global solutions in knowledge transfer. HeLT had led STC through a rebranding just over three years ago and has since served as their brand manager. The gathering I attended included the company’s employees and contractors, plus a new strategic partner whom I hadn’t met. This new partner—Kathy Hagen of K L Hagen Intellectual Capital Strategies—would soon begin helping STC with some account management and sales. The interesting thing is that Kathy is, by all extents, a Steve Trautman competitor. … Learn More…

Benefits of a Strong Brand, Part 1 – Increase Your Value to Your Target Clients/Customers

Here’s a quick client anecdote that illustrates an important benefit gained from a well-defined and strong brand:

Benefits of a Strong Brand - ProfessorsChoice.com - Brand Specialist Blog imageA few years back, HeLT worked with a publishing industry client who had started a new business unit that used state-of-the-art technology to produce custom textbooks for university professors.  Professors who could not find the course book they wanted could use the client’s service to design their own custom, hardcover, professional-looking textbook.  The client felt they had a pretty good idea of what their brand values would be before using our C.O.R.E.E. Brand Positioning Process: they knew choice and cost-savings were important values to their target customer.

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Brand-Building for Mature Brands — One More Bite Out of Kraft’s Iconic Oreo

[Repost from older blog. Original posting date: Sept. 24, 2008] In a previous post I wrote about brand reboots, brand image versus brand vision, and why Nabisco/Kraft made changes to its iconic Oreo cookie to suit the perceptions and tastes of the Chinese when entering that market. Before we put Oreo back into its case study cupboard, let’s look further at this brand.

When people think of brand-building, their mind often goes to examples of new ventures or first-to-market product releases that hope to stake a claim in the marketplace. Branding for a mature brand—like, say, the Oreo—however, is more often about maintaining brand loyalty and a continued sense of brand excitement…. Learn More…