25 BRANDING MODELS

FOR STRATEGIC PLANNERS

Created by Baiba Matisone

My aim was to create one solid deck where everyone could find all the necessary
Brand building models. I really hope that this presentation will be a useful tool kit for all
of you!

Cheers,
Baiba

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BRAND PURPOSE MISSION: An ambitious yet
achievable position in the market
or in your customers' lives
This model is a blend of Brand Purpose-driven
frameworks. It's a compilation of the most
important aspects of brand building.
VISION: The difference you'll
In the center of the model, you can see a big create in customers' lives or the larger
world when you ultimately
question of “WHY” or need to define the purpose realize your Purpose

MEASURES: Things that you can

values that will accelerate your
VALUES: The principles and
of the brand which is the central theme in the

observe that indicate progress

ACTIVATION: What way do
BELIEF: What do we hold to
be true? What are the core
whole brand building process. Knowing your

progress together

beliefs of our brand?

“why” — and having integrity — is where

we bring it to life?
authenticity has to start. WHY/PURPOSE
Clarity: why you
choose to exist,
The “why/how/ what” questions are adapted beyond financial
from Simon Senek's “The golden circle” model. gain

HOW: Discipline: Specific

actions that are taken to
realise the WHY

WHAT: Consistency: Tangible

Additional information: proof and manifestations of the
Simon Senek's TED Talk - “Start with why” Why
Source: David J Carr
BRAND IDENTITY BRAN IDEA
A brand idea sits at the heart of everything a brand does and is the anchor
and point of consistency for all communications and marketing. It must be
ownable, resonate with customers and drive the value proposition.
The set of associations and principles that
brand management aspires to create and
maintain. These associations imply a promise to
customers from the organisation, its
product/services and its staff members. Raising
Positioning
personality to
places a brand into a
the level of positioning -
market and articulate

to the personality phrase

A set of values that sum
people can't differentiate
its role in people's
brands (too complex)
lives. And at best it
but personality is

EXPERIENCE

VALUES
differentiate that

DELIVERY /
instantly understood and
brand by describing
distinctive. People will
something that it
make decisions based
does for people. But
on trust and our
it's not the whole
personality comes not
story.
just from our attitude but
the heritage
of the brand.

Reasons to believe/Proof Points/Discriminator

Compelling reasons for the target customer to choose our brand over the
competition. What makes us unique, useful, usable and delightful?

Source: David J Carr

HOW BRANDS PROVIDE VALUE
This matrix helps you understand the link between what brands do and the social or commercial value they generate.

makes people want to buy revenue up

short term
PROFIT
creates drive internally costs down
Commercial Value
A GOOD BRAND...

speeds up innovation opportunities up

long term PROSPECTS
FOR GROWTH
keeps people committed risk down

gives you something good benefit up

short term USEFULNESS
+ HAPPINESS
holds company to account harm down
Social Value
builds human and natural
resource creation up
resources long term
encourages re-use and SUSTAINABILITY
resource destruction down
sharing
Source: Wolff Olins
BRAND RESONANCE MODEL (a.k.a. CBBE MODEL)
by K. L. Keller
To build a strong brand you must shape how
customers think and feel about your product.

Within the pyramid model, four key levels are

Resonance
highlighted that you can work through to create
a successful brand.

These are identity, meaning, response and

Judgments Feelings
relationships. Your objective on each level
should be: ensure broad awareness, define
points of parity and difference, provide positive,
accessible reactions and build intense, active
Performance Imagery
loyalty.

Google “Heineken resonance model” to get an

Salience
example.

Source: Keller, L. K., Strategic Brand Management. Edinburgh Gate: Pearson Education Publishing Ltd
 VALUE
HBR: BRAND RELATIONSHIPS POSITION

EXTERNAL
PROPOSITION What should be the What is our intended
What are our key nature of our position in the market
offerings, and how do
PLATFORM we want them to appeal
to customers and other
relationships with key
customers and other
stakeholders?
and in the hearts and
minds of key customers
and other stakeholders?
stakeholders?
The Corporate Brand Identity Matrix helps to define
what does the company’s name really stand for, and

INTERNAL / EXTERNAL
how is it perceived and leveraged in the marketplace
and within the company itself. It also serves as a EXPRESSION
north star, providing direction and purpose. What is distinctive about BRAND CORE PERSONALITY
the way we
What do we promise, What combination of
communicate and
A corporation’s identity is made up of nine interrelated and what are the core human characteristics or
express ourselves and
values that sum up what qualities forms our
components. By examining each one and how it makes it possible to
our brand stands for? corporate character?
recognise us at a
relates to the others, an organisation can build a
distance?
stronger brand.

INTERNAL
MISSION AND
CULTURE COMPETENCES
VISION What are we particularly
What engages us What are our attitudes,
good at, and what
(mission)? What is our and how do we work and
makes us better than the
direction and inspiration behave?
Source: What Does Your Corporate Brand Stand for?” Harvard competition?
(vision)?
Business Review, January-February 2019 by Stephen A Greyser and
Mats Urde
BRAND EQUITY
Brand Equity is a marketing term used to
describe the commercial value derived from
consumer perception of a brand name, rather
than the product or service it provides.
Aware-
ness
Brand Equity can be determined by measuring Famili-
Loyalty
seven key aspects of how a brand is perceived arity
by consumers.

Brand Image
Prefe- Equity &
rences Perso-
nality

Availa- Associ-
bility ations

Source: Slade-Brooking, C., Creating a Brand Identity. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd
BRAND EQUITY PYRAMID
Brand Equity Pyramid describes the product part
of the Brand Core.

It starts with product attributes and transform it

into brand benefits with the Benefit Ladder tool.
Then it describes the personality of the brand
based on the Censydiam or Archetypes model.
Values
Then it goes to the upper level and describes
values the brand stands for or would like to be
associated with based on its attributes (reasons Personality
to believe) and benefits it provides.

Benefits

Reasons to believe

Source: Strategy Deck

BRAND EQUITY SANDGLASS
Brand Equity Sandglass is another way to
describe the brand model.
Brand
Like all models it says that brand promise lies
Values
at the point where brand essence meets target
insights.
Essence

Look into Brand Equity Pyramid and Consumer

Pyramid for details.
Brand promise

Insight

Target

Consumer

Source: Strategy Deck

NIELSEN BRAND EQUITY INDEX
Directly correlating a proprietary measure of
brand equity with market share and customer
loyalty.

BRAND EQUITY IS...

EMOTIONAL EQUITY
Brand love: A stronger emotional connection with one brand than
all others

BEHAVIOURAL EQUITY
Brand Preference: A desire to choose one brand over all others

AFFIRMATION EQUITY
Brand Affirmation: The willingness to recommend one brand over
all others

Source: Nielsen
BRAND DYNAMICS PYRAMID
This tool show how many consumers have a
relationship with the brand at five key stages.
From weak relationship and low share of
category expenditure to strong relationship and
high share.
Bonding
From simple awareness Presence level (Do I
know it?) through personal Relevance (Does it Advantage
offer me something?) and good enough
Performance (Can it deliver?), to the proportion
recognising a clear competitive Advantage Performance
(Does it offer something better than others?)
and finally those who are closely Bonded with
the brand (Nothing else beats it).
Relevance

Presence

Source: Strategy Deck

BRAND HEALTH PYRAMID
At any one time, every person could be linked to
one level of relationship with a brand:
awareness, familiarity, preference or best
choice.

The important thing is conversion between the Best choice

levels. Low awareness means no-one knows
your brand. A low conversion rate to familiarity
Preference
tells us people have heard about you don't really
know what you have promised them. A low
conversion rate to preference means that what Familiarity
you are saying is not interesting to your
audience. A low conversion rate to loyalty
means you don't provide an extra reason to stick Awareness
with you.

100% TA

Source: Strategy Deck

SWOT ANALYSIS
SWOT analysis is a technique that can be used
to evaluate any product, service, company or
brand.
STRENGTH
Staff
WEAKNESS
Customer base Staff
Firstly the objective or aim has to be defined Market position Profit margins too low
(SMART), and then the factors that are Financial resource Financial resources
Sales channels Competitive vulnerability
favourable or unfavourable to achieving that aim Market research
Product or service
are identified. This type of analysis is useful Profitable Sales channels
because it enables to not only identify a brand's Growing
SWOT
unique selling point but also any existing threats
to the brand.
OPPORTUNITY THREAT
New complimentary Economy
market Loss of key staff
Strategic alliance Cash flow
Market poised for New technology
growth Increased competition
Competition weakness Falling sales
Decreasing profits
Lack of financial resource

Source: Slade-Brooking, C., Creating a Brand Identity, Laurence King Publishing, 2016, UK
BRAND VALUE CLUSTERS
There are various techniques that can be used to
find brand values. What seems to work is to take
interviewees' responses from the interviews and
“cluster” the values, in the manner of diagram. NEEDED SPIRIT TOGETHERNESS
Saving lives, quickly “National treasure” Collaborative
Emotional need to give Galvanising the nation Connected
In times of greatest need Giving as one Fellowship
No time to waste Resolve Together(not apart)
Mettie All working as one
Unique As great as the sum of its
National pride parts

UNWAVERING IMMEDIACY RELIABLE

Trusted Action Cost-effective?
Integrity Enabling Transparent
Dependable Urgency Open-ness
Determined Dynamic Neutral
Reassuring Vital Pragmatic
Authority Decisive Assurance
Honesty Encouraging No frills
Respected Fixing/solving Easy way to give
Helicopter view

Source: Cluster created by Johnson Banks, UK, 2012

BRAND CORE
Brand Core is one of the tools designed to
describe the brand model.
Brand Vision
The essence of the brand lies in the intersection
of three factors:

● Audience - represented by audience

insight
● Product - represented by brand equities
● Business vision - meaning desired future Audience Brand
of the brand Insights Brand Equities
Essence
Look into Brand Equities for more details.

Source: Strategy Deck

BRAND KEY Re
as
on
s

on &
ity
to

rs es
al
be

pe alu
This model is originally created for Unilever's l ie

V
ve
brand-planning - now universally used in
academic practice. It's different from other Essence
brand frameworks by three main points:
Be or
ne at
● Root strengths - the basic attributes we fit in
s im
want to build on and be known for. s cr
Di
● Competitive environment
● Discriminator - the single (or max of 3)
compelling reasons for the target Insight
customer to choose us over the
competition.
Competitive
Target group
environment

Root strengths

Source: Strategy Deck

LIST OF AUDITS FOR A BRAND
Before any useful branding discussions can
start it is vital to open everyone's eyes to the
position of the product in the market. This is
where the role of research and audits becomes A VISUAL AUDIT - particularly for brands already in existence; it helped all parties to
crucial, especially if key players and senior “see” where they are and to appreciate and highlight issued.
management aren't completely aware of the
A VERBAL AUDIT - the words and phrases a brand/company/organization uses;
challenge they are facing. these can either act as a stepping stone to improve the language used or to trigger a
complete change of tack.

A BEHAVIOURAL AUDIT - useful for brands interfacing directly with their

consumers; this looks at how employees speak and talk and interact, including the
messages and signals they give off about a brand (consciously and unconsciously).

A COMPETITION AUDIT - this would normally take all the factors above - visual,
verbal and behavioural - across the key competition.

A PEER AUDIT - not an audit of direct competition, but a look at the kind of
organization that a company might aspire to, or benchmark against, often across
multiple sectors.

Source: Branding in 5 and half steps by Michael Johnson

BRAND CHOICE - SYSTEM 1 AND SYSTEM 2
Our brains have two different ways of processing SYSTEM 1 SYSTEM 2
data and making decisions. Both play their part
in determining the products we buy, and the Dominant mode of thought Secondary mode of thoughts
brands we choose. Here's the guide to what > 95% of brain activity < 5% of brain activity
Daniel Kahneman calls “Thinking Fast” (System
Fast and powerful Slow and limited
1) and “Thinking Slow” (System 2). Honed by millions of years of evolution A more recent addition

Effortless Effortful
Always on Hard to sustain

Scans all sensory inputs Selective attention

But can be primed by System 2 to watch out for Guided by System 1 feelings, associations &
things of interest intuitions

Unconscious & automatic responses Conscious & deliberate thought

Associative & heuristic processing. Experienced as Can follow learned rules of thought, eg maths, logic &
feeling, intuitions & habits. legal reasoning

Primary decision-making mechanism Secondary cross-checking mechanism

Strong influence on System 2. Can be influenced by Mostly post-rationalises System 1 decisions. Can
System 2. sometimes overrule System 1.
Additional information:
Book summary “Think fast, Think slow”
Source: Binet, L., How to not plan, Matador
BRAND CHOICE - SYSTEM 1 AND SYSTEM 2
Our brains have two different ways of processing SYSTEM 1 SYSTEM 2
data and making decisions. Both play their part
in determining the products we buy, and the Vast memory capacity Limited memory capacity
Durable memories. Long-term influence on Quickly overwritten. Short-term influence on
brands we choose. Here's the guide to what behaviour. behaviour.
Daniel Kahneman calls “Thinking Fast” (System
1) and “Thinking Slow” (System 2). Buying implications

Does most of brand choices work. Not logical or Only kick in close to point of purchase. More likely
rational. Brands just feel more attractive. to prevent buying than stimulate it.

Make purchase decisions seamless & automatic. Be wary about trying to make people think; they
Choosing your brand should be a no-brainer don't like it & won't thank you for it

Comms implications

Trained, not taught. Brand building is about creating Influenced by messages, arguments & information,
associations, feelings & habits through repeated but only late in decision-making process
exposure

Research implications

Hard to research. System 1 dominates, but we're Research exaggerates importance. We mistakenly
mostly unaware of its influence attribute actions to System 2 - because it's what
Source: Binet, L., How to not plan, Matador we're conscious of
MARKETING FUNNEL
The marketing funnel is a visualization for
understanding the process of turning leads
into customers, as understood from a
marketing (and sales) perspective. The idea is
that, like a funnel, marketers cast a broad net
to capture as many leads as possible, and then
slowly nurture prospective customers through Awareness
BRAND
the purchasing decision, narrowing down these
candidates in each stage of the funnel. (ATTITUDINAL)
Interest METRICS
It’s important to note that there is not a single
agreed upon version of the funnel; some have Desire
many “stages” while others have few, with
different names and actions taken by the
Action ENGAGEMENT
business and consumer for each. .
METRICS &
(Retention) SALES

Source: Slade-Brooking, C., Creating a Brand Identity, Laurence King Publishing, 2016, UK
ATTENTION FUNNEL
This tool is more know as AIDA. As it has been
around a long time, it has undeservedly lost some
respect.

AIDA is perfect for evaluating your execution.

Whatever you do, you should check whether it
attracts attention (will your banner be visible on Attention COGNITIVE
the page). Will it cause interest? Because STAGE
attention alone is not enough. It's a pity, but today
there is a lot of creativity that works just on these Interest
2 levels. The most important objective to achieve AFFECTIVE
STAGE
is to create desire which leads to further action: Desire
not just obligatory purchase but also digging for
information, etc. BEHAVIOR
Action
STAGE

Source: Strategy Deck

PURCHASE FUNNEL
The purchase funnel describes the consumer's
path leading to a purchase.

The most important point of the tool is

consideration. To get onto a consideration list
we need to create an awareness of our product Awareness
and make sure the audience is familiar with our
brand/product promise.
Familiarity

Consideration

Purchase

Loyalty

Source: Strategy Deck

DERIVE PROPOSITIONS FOR PRODUCTS
The proposition is an easy-to-understand reason
why a customer should buy a product or service
from that particular business. A value
proposition should clearly explain how a
product fills a need, communicate the specifics
of its added benefit, and state the reason why Emotional Benefits 4. Emotional
it's better than similar products on the market How does that makes them feel? Benefits

3. Rational Rational Benefits

Benefits What do consumers get?

2. Product
Brand Features
Features What does your brand do?

Target and insights 1. Define

What do consumers want? Consumer

Source: WARC Webinar

REBRANDING (research)
A successful rebranding should be part of a new
overall brand strategy for a product or service.
BRAND HISTORY
This may involve radical changes to the brand's Find out as much as you can about your brand. Where was it first produced?
logo, brand name, image, marketing strategy By whom? Where was it sold?
and advertising themes, typically aimed at
repositioning the brand.
BRAND ANALYSIS HISTORY
How has the brand changed through time? Create a visual timeline with any
images you can find of the brand, along with the dates of the design.

MARKET ANALYSIS
How is the brand positioned currently? Who is the consumer? What is the
market? What do people think of the brand? (You can ask them!)

BRAND VISUAL ANALYSIS

Deconstruct each element of the current design to identify the graphic
communication tools used, such as colour, font, design of logo, style. What
are the strengths and weakness of the current design?

Source: Slade-Brooking, C., Creating a Brand Identity, Laurence King Publishing, 2016, UK
REBRANDING (strategy)
You can now start to consider how you might
rebrand through repositioning and redesigning
the identity to help it communicate more
effectively to the consumers. The following
questions may help by giving your strategy a Could the brand be targeted at a new consumer?
direction:

Could the brand be target at a new market, for example,

repositioned as a luxury or everyday essential product or
service?

Could the brand be recreated with an updated name?

(This is not absolutely necessary, but if the name is
completely wrong then this could be a consideration.)

Could a new strapline aid in the brand comms?

Source: Slade-Brooking, C., Creating a Brand Identity, Laurence King Publishing, 2016, UK
REBRANDING (conclusions)
In addition to your research findings, the
answers to these questions will help you
develop a rebranding strategy to direct, guide
and support the creative process: Who is your chosen consumer?

Why would they use the service or but the products they
sell?

What tone of voice/personality will your new refreshed

brand have?

Where will you position it in the market?

Who will be its main brand competition, and how will you
make yours stand out from the crowd?

What will be the brand's new unique selling point?

Source: Slade-Brooking, C., Creating a Brand Identity, Laurence King Publishing, 2016, UK
 Feel free to share your feedback about the deck in a
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BAIBA MATISONE

Is a brand strategist who helps to connecting brands

to culture and getting people to share their fears,
hopes and dreams
Additional information:
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