Numantra helps companies build stronger brands through a systematic approach referred to as the Numantra Brand Workshop. SYNOPSIS
The Brand Workshop brings together the collective insight and input from all of your brand's stakeholders to produce a clear and effective brand strategy. Through company surveys, secondary research and an in-person workshop with the brand's primary stakeholders, our strategists and creative professionals collaborate with you to develop the Strategic Concept for your brand that will become the foundation for all of your future brand communications.
DELIVERABLES:
Brand Worksheets. Surveys your team and gathers their knowledge, attitudes and opinions about your brand.
Secondary Research. Evaluation of your brand, your competition and your customers and their relationship with the brand.
Brand Workshop. In-person workshop that brings unity and consensus among your brand stakeholders to the meaning and purpose of your brand.
Strategic Concept. Provides the strategic foundation for all future brand communications.
Brand Strategy. A focused description of each of the Brand's Essential Components culminating in a presentation of the Brand's Strategic Concept.
OVERVIEW
What is the heart and soul of your brand? What makes it tick? And more importantly, what makes it tick with your customers? We have answers to these questions and a whole lot more when we conduct a Brand Workshop for your company's brand. This workshop will help you define the essence of your brand and lay the groundwork for all of your brand marketing efforts. Whether you are launching a new brand, re-launching an old brand, or trying to find out what is and isn't working for your brand, Brand Workshops provide a fun, interactive, and informative forum for solving the needs and requirements of your brand. A Brand Workshop is an interactive process that involves the main stakeholders of your brand working with Numantra strategists. Together, we will systematically deconstruct and reconstruct your brand to ultimately meet the business and marketing goals you are challenged with today.
BUT FIRST, A WORD ABOUT BRANDS
When discussing brands, it's important to recognize a few important factors. Contrary to common belief, a brand is not a name or a logo. But it does find itself expressed most commonly in those forms. And as much as people consciously recognize a brand by its name or its logo, for most people the brand holds much greater significance than its surface expression.
For example, VOLVO is a name that represents the company that makes cars but because of branding, most people will tell you that the brand stands for SAFETY. Similarly, NIKE isn't about tennis shoes as much as it is about PUSHING YOURSELF. Nor does MCDONALD'S stand for quality hamburgers as much as it stands for FAMILY SMILES.
Successful brands are built on a relationship between a product or service and the people that use it. Successful brands are an effective expression of the basis of that relationship.
What does your brand stand for? What is its strength? Who is it meant for? What is its promise? These are the questions being addressed in this Workshop. These are the questions that, when answered with insight and considered strategically, will lead us together to building a successful brand for your company.
THE BRAND'S ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS
What makes up a brand? Our Workshop breaks brands down into their essential components and explores each one in detail, leaving no stone unturned in our quest for discovering the brand's true essence, that which will provide the foundation of an enduring and effective Brand Strategy.
Genesis
If you were a historian, what would you write about the brand and its roots?
Intrinsic Abilities/Greatest Strengths
What about your product/service is exemplified by your brand name, icon or universally accepted attribute?
Unique and Different
What can you do that your competition can't? What have you created, invented or perfected?
The Perfect Customer
Describe the perfect customer. Are they divided into segments? What makes them valuable? What do they value?
Brand Behavior
Who am I like as a person? How do I behave? Do I need to change going forward and if so, who will I be like and how will I behave?
Sacred Cow
What long standing practices or closely held ideals are considered off limits to change? What self-imposed limitations have been placed on the brand?
Promise
What do I stand for? What is my commitment to the market?
Soul
What is at our very core that drives our mission? What is our reason for being? What motivates or inspires us to do what we do?
Strategic concept
How can you summarize the brand essence in the most succinct terms?
THE PROCESS IN A NUTSHELL
We help companies discover the essence of their brand and strategically define the basis for all of their brand's communications. Our Brand Workshop process starts with Brand Worksheets that survey brand stakeholders for their critical insights. Then our team leads an interactive, in-person Brand Workshop that includes a select group of brand stakeholders who work together through the critical elements that comprise the essence of a brand. Finally, our team concludes the process by defining the Strategic Concept for the brand through a series of collaborative meetings with the brand's primary stakeholder.
Brand Worksheets The Brand Worksheet is an online survey that collects input from the brand stakeholders. The survey is conducted in advance of the Brand Workshop and provides Numantra's strategists with invaluable insights into the range of ideas and opinions that are currently formed around the brand. The survey is focused entirely on the Brand's Essential Components.
Research Based on the input received through the Brand Worksheets, Numantra's strategists prepare for the Brand Workshop by researching the brand's history, competition, and customers using secondary research resources.
Brand Workshop The Brand Workshop is a 3 - 5 hour in-person workshop conducted at your location of choice -- your office, Numantra's office, or sometimes it is desirable to go completely offsite to eliminate distraction and inconvenient interruptions. Brand Workshops are more effective when conducted with small groups -- 3 to 7 people. However it is imperative that the key decision makers and stake holders be present at the workshop since critical input, direction, and decisions are made that will shape the future of the brand. Through the course of the Workshop, each of the Brand's Essential Components will be explored through a variety of interactive exercises, polls, interviews, and discussions. All of the input and feedback is collected throughout the process. All points of consensus and dispute are then taken from the Workshop to be further reviewed and considered by Numantra's strategists following the conclusion of the Workshop.
Strategic Concept The last of the Brand's Essential Components is the Strategic Concept. With the Workshop complete, our strategists work with our creative department to develop the Brand's Strategic Concept. This is the culmination of all of the input and feedback, bringing focus to all of the Essential Components. The Strategic Concept IS NOT a tagline or an icon. But the Strategic Concept IS the foundational idea behind all taglines, icons, campaigns, and communication developed for the brand for evermore. Like the Volvo example, SAFETY is the Strategic Concept while Volvo's tagline is Volvo. For Life. The tagline changes from year to year and campaign to campaign. But the Strategic Concept remains.
The Brand Strategy Once the Strategic Concept has been determined, a Brand Strategy Presentation is prepared that includes a focused description of each of the Brand's Essential Components culminating in a presentation of the Brand's Strategic Concept. The Brand Strategy is presented in person and usually takes less than hour to review. Once approved, the Brand Strategy is delivered in Powerpoint and PDF formats and should be distributed to both internal and external parties that share in the responsibility of building, supporting, and maintaining the brand. The brand Strategy provides these parties with the necessary background and insight they will need for their branding efforts.
