Top 10 Tips For Brands To Grow

1) Brands that influence culture sell more; culture is the new catalyst for growth. In other words, brands have to have depth, something to say which registers with us as believable and true and fits into our value system – i.e. your brand has to have a point of view – an attitude.

2) Today’s consumer is saying “enough” with trying to sell me something. I call it ‘consumer overload’. Consumers are saying “give me what I need or want” and if you don’t someone else will. This is the smartest most media savvy generation to have ever walked the planet.

3) Make it personal. If it’s not relevant or useful to me, why should I buy? Consumers are always on the lookout for something ‘special’ and ‘unique’. The era of mass production has worked. It’s a success. People are now looking for ‘individuality’, an expression, i.e. more symbolic than functional – ‘what does this say about me?’

4) Forget the transaction, just give me an experience! If you’re not trying to build a relationship with your customer, if you haven’t won the right to dream in their world, if you’re not offering them a theatre of experience, then it’s no sale.

5) Deliver what you promise. If your promise doesn’t meet my expectation, you lose! Brand experience is now key to everything and it doesn’t stop when your product leaves the factory or store.

6) You are only as good as your weakest link; do you know where your weakest link is?

More often than not it’s at the interface or interaction between sales person and customer. How are you going to keep staff motivated and ‘on brand’?. It’s not enough to just pay them better. People need a reason to believe, and I’m not talking about customers here (though they need it too). In a rent Gallop Poll of school leavers, 82 per cent said they were looking for a job that was personally fulfilling. So what’s your offer?

8) Companies need to show that they are socially responsible. They have taken over from the welfare state. It’s not enough to just generate billions of dollars of profit. People want to know that you have a heart, a conscience, that you truly care. Witness the PR debacle over Nike Sweatshops. So what’s your cause, what’s your contribution? Where’s your generosity (a BIG macro trend!)

9) Keep your finger on the pulse of trends and fashions. Time really is moving faster and if you’re not ‘with it’, you’re a ‘has-been’.

10) Innovation is the new ‘IN’. If you’re not busy innovating, you are standing still. Witness the demise or falling back of companies who stopped still and took a breather when they hit the top of the mountain. Where are they now? A company’s shelf life is less than a human’s. Tomorrow’s Google hasn’t even been born yet, and where was Google 10 years ago? Only the dream of two people working late at university.