VOL. 0051 – FLORIDA, TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 2024
Juan F. Arjona Harry
President & CEO Strategee
In order to build brand equity, there are three basic requirements for their achievement:
Methodology.
Time.
Investment.
Without these three elements is quite complex that a brand can build equity over time. Within these elements is the methodology as a key factor for the process to be completed properly.
That is, without methodology would be quite naive to expect returns on investment in terms of consolidation of Brand Equity.
Now, considering the methodology as the starting point, there are several methodological aids that allow the process to go on taking the right steps. Among them are:
The Brand Foundation.
The Branding Guide.
The Branding Plan (including the Communications Plan and Media Plan).
The Brand Development Plan (long term).
The Brand Metrics.
Let's focus on one of these branding methodological collaborators, and it is the Strategic Communication Ladder, given its power to order and guide the actions of Branding in the organization.
Strategic Communication Ladder is a guide of executional actions that a brand must achieve in the market.
A brand that starts from scratch its route in a market (either because it is a new brand or because it is a brand that already exist but without operations in a given market) must comply with a few steps to ensure that in a period of seven years the brand is positioned in the category, having naturally with the appropriate investment level.
1. These steps are as follows (constitute the core or central input communication design each year):
1.1. Exposure: This is the first effort of the communications in the first year; the brand must be exposure in the media.
1.2. Awareness: On the second year, the brand must be known in the market.
1.3. Recognition: On the third year the brand must be recognized.
1.4. Internalization: On the fourth the brand should be in some of the consumption occasions.
1.5. Habituation: On the fifth year the consumers should generate habits around the brand, that is, repetition of the purchase.
1.6. Recommendation: On the sixth year the consumers should recommend the brand.
1.7. Advocacy: On the seventh year the consumers should advocate for the brand.
2. To achieve each one of the objectives described in the previous section, the brand must firmly attach the communication purposes in the following milestones:
Only with respect to methodology, adequate investment and annual measurements you can consolidate the Equity that any brand must build in a market.
It is important to consider that the one-year period may be extended for two reasons:
The brand has not invested enough to achieve the goal.
Other brands in the market have invested so much that the investment of the brand in question has been overshadowed.
What could never be a reason is that you haven’t followed the methodology described.