How to Build a Successful Brand: 7 Essential Steps (2024)

Brand building is key for sustained, positive customer relationships that lead to increased recognition and sales. How do you build a brand?

It starts with a brand vision, which provides an articulated description of the aspirational image for the brand: what you want the brand to stand for in the eyes of customers and other relevant groups, suchas employees and partners. It ultimately drives thebrand-building component of the marketing programand greatly influences the rest.

When the brand vision clicks, it willreflect and support the business strategy,differentiate the brand from competitors,resonate with customers, energizeand inspire employees and partners,precipitate a gush of brand-building ideas,and generate consistent, “on-brand” brandbuilding over offerings and segments.When absent or superficial, the brand willdrift aimlessly, and marketing programsare likely to be inconsistent and ineffective.

7 Steps for Building a Successful Brand

When building a brand, use the brand vision model (formerly thebrand identity model) as your starting point, as it provides the structuralframework for the development of abrand vision with a point of view thatdistinguishes it from others in several ways.

Follow these seven initial steps, based on the brand vision model, when building your brand:

1. Define the Key Elements of Your Brand

It may be based onsix to 12 vision elements. A single thought or phrase cannot define most brands, and the quest to find this magicbrand concept can be fruitless or, worse,can leave the brand with an incompletevision missing some relevant elements.The vision elements are prioritizedinto the two to five that are the mostcompelling and differentiating, termed the“core vision elements,” while the othersare labeled “extended vision elements.”

The core elements will reflect the valuepropositions going forward, and drive thebrand-building programs and initiatives.For the University of California, BerkeleyHaas School of Business’s brand, forexample, they are: “question the statusquo,” “students always,” “beyond yourself”and “confidence without attitude.”

2. Identify Extended Vision Elements

They add texture to the brand vision,allowing most strategists to make betterjudgments as to whether a program is“on brand.” The extended vision affordsa home for important aspects of thebrand, such as a brand personality,that may not merit being a core visionelement, and for elements, such as highquality, that are crucial for success butmay not be a basis for differentiation.

Such elements can and shouldinfluence branding programs. Toooften during the process of creating abrand vision, a person’s nominee foran aspirational brand association isdismissed because it could not be acenterpiece of the brand. When suchan idea can be placed in the extendedvision, the discussion can go forward.An extended vision element sometimesevolves into a core element, and withoutstaying visible throughout the process,that would not happen.

3. Customize the Model to Your Brand’s Specifics

Key elements of your business— what types of good or services you offer, how you interact with customers, and what segment of the market you serve, to name a few— affect how you should use the brand vision model. Organizational valuesand programs are likely to be importantfor service and B-to-B firms but not forconsumer packaged goods, for example.Innovation is likely to be important forhigh-tech brands but less so for somepackaged goods brands. Personalityoften is more important for durablesand less so for corporate brands. Thedimensions that are employed willbe a function of the marketplace, thestrategy, the competition, the customers,the organization and the brand.

4. Prioritize Brand Associations

It is theassociations that the brand needs tohave going forward, given its currentand future business strategy. Too often, a brand executive feels constrainedand uncomfortable going beyond whatthe brand currently has permission todo. Yet most brands need to improveon some dimensions to compete andadd new dimensions in order to createnew growth platforms. A brand thathas plans to extend to a new category,for example, probably will need to gobeyond the current image.

5. Find Your Brand Essence

When the right brandessence is found, it can be magic in termsof internal communication, inspirationfor employees and partners, and guidingprograms. Consider “transformingfutures,” the brand essence of theLondon Business School; “ideas for life”for Panasonic; or “family magic” forDisneyland. In each case, the essenceprovides an umbrella over what thebrand aspires to do. The essence alwaysshould be sought.

However, there aretimes when it actually gets in the wayand is better omitted. Mobil (nowExxonMobil) had leadership, partnershipand trust as the core brand visionelements. Forcing an essence on thisbrand likely would be awkward. If theessence does not fit or is not compelling,it will soak up all of the energy in theroom. In these cases, the core visionelements are better brand drivers.

6. Adapt Your Brand to Product-Market Contexts

Having the samebrand vision in all of your brand’sproduct-market contexts is elegant andconvenient but not feasible in today’scomplex marketplace. The goal shouldbe to create strong brands everywhere,not the same brand everywhere.Managers need flexibility to adaptthe brand to their context while stillavoiding programs that are inconsistentwith the vision.The brand vision can be adaptedin several ways. Those employingthe brand in different brand contextscan emphasize different elements ofthe brand vision, can interpret visionelements such as quality or innovationdifferently or can augment the visionwith additional elements.

7. Create a Communication Guide Using Brand Position

The current positioning oftenemphasizes the brand vision elementsthat will appeal and are now credibleand deliverable. As organizationalcapabilities and programs emerge oras markets change, the positioningmessage might evolve or change. Thecenterpiece of the position often isa tagline communicated externallythat need not and usually does notcorrespond to the brand essence, whichis an internally communicated concept.

“When the brand vision clicks, it willreflect and support the business strategy,differentiate the brand from competitors,resonate with customers, energizeand inspire employees and partners.”