Brand building. Important elements.
Brand building. Art or Science?
Stealing Share is a branding company. It is what we do. So, a look under the hood at brand building, Stealing Share style. Or you can call us, and we will save you the time of reading this. Other branding companies think brand creation is an art form.
They spend most of their resources (your money) on having their designers draw and create logos and other marks that they believe represent your brand. We learned that your brand is more complicated than that.
Brand building remained stagnant
After a long history as a traditional brand building company, we began to find fundamental misunderstandings about what a brand is. And what we create it to accomplish. What are the keys to brand building?
Brand building development in the past decade has dramatically changed. Print advertising has disappeared. Television has become more targeted and more expensive.
The real change is the move to digital and AI. Everything needed reimagining. So, marketing departments started using social media. Microtargeting customers with personalized messages. And they are using interactivity to engage prospects.
Everything changed except branding. That old-school brand building still saw the brand as an identity. You know, a symbol of something that is meant to be memorable. But there is so much more noise in the market today. The prospect you covet is bombarded by messages.
Messages from everywhere and all the time. As we researched the marketing efforts, it became clear that prospects see even the targeted messages as SPAM regardless of the identity.
Brand building is a science for us
We wondered why no one thought that brand could be persuasive and an identifying mark. Could we ask more of our brands than traditional branding believed? SHOULD we ask more?
As a result, Stealing Share began an exploration into persuasive branding. What makes something persuasive? What gets through the target audience’s SPAM filters?
It seemed to us that brand building needed a rebranding. Changed in the way it is practiced and developed.
We transformed the brand creation process into science and design creation as a melding of art and science—the science of persuasion.
We started looking at brand building through an anthropologist’s eyes and watching, recording, and projecting human behavior. What got people’s attention? What caused them to ignore ideas and stimuli?
We discovered that much that we hold important is rooted in self-interest. We notice things that seem in some way about ourselves. We remember things that we see as benefiting ourselves.
Our creative director had an epiphany. Looking at the digital world surrounding us, our creative director said, “If you could create a billboard on a highway with the customer’s picture on it— as you pass by. Well, that would be something.”
He was kidding a bit. But that was the ultimate promise. And we talk about the brand as a billboard. “Our strategists challenge each other by asking, “What is the brand’s billboard?”
It is a valuable tool to distill a brand message into as few words as possible. What would the brand billboard look like if the brand was that profoundly personal? What is another means of showing a photo of the target audience?
Brand building with our Behavior Modeling
Our brand anthropologists modeled behaviors. We asked fundamental questions. Why do people do things? What creates that behavioral process? Do the marketing ideas of satisfying needs and wants to arise spontaneously? If not, what causes them?
You can read an in-depth look at our behavior modeling.
It’s a fascinating and predictive process. The results of this process revolutionized the way we looked at brand building. We discovered that personal identity comes from the ideas and myths we believe to be true.
Belief systems are so personal and powerful that if you challenge a person’s beliefs, they feel as if you are questioning their very person. Beliefs are personal. And they don’t have to be true, either.
That was our most important breakthrough. We saw belief systems as dispassionately as we could. No judgment. And we are not allowing ourselves even to consider the validity of them.
If you believe something, that belief is powerful
In the fiercely competitive landscape of the modern business world, brand building has transcended the traditional realms of marketing to become a multidimensional art. The science of brand building strategies to steal market share
Gone are the days when a catchy logo or a memorable jingle could suffice to win over consumer loyalty.
Today, we build successful brands based on deeply understanding consumer psychology, emotional triggers, and predictive behavior modeling.
Among the pioneers in this innovative approach is Stealing Share, an agency that has revolutionized how brands connect with their target markets.
By leveraging predictive behavior modeling, Stealing Share uncovers the intricate web of emotional switching triggers, quantifying them by integrating the target market’s belief systems into the brand essence and weaving these truths seamlessly into the brand narrative.
Predictive behavior modeling: Decoding the consumer mind
The cornerstone of Stealing Share’s approach lies in its utilization of predictive behavior modeling.
Unlike traditional methods that merely scratch the surface of consumer preferences, predictive behavior modeling delves deep into the subconscious motivations that drive purchasing decisions.
By analyzing the belief systems that control behavior and psychographic insights, we can create intricate algorithms that accurately predict future consumer actions.
This predictive capability enables our brand buliding to anticipate market trends and emotional triggers that prompt consumers to switch allegiance from one brand to another.
Belief systems as anchors: Weaving brand essence
One of the distinguishing aspects of Stealing Share’s brand building strategies methodology is its incorporation of the target market’s belief systems into the brand essence.
Belief systems are the core values, aspirations, and convictions that individuals hold dear. We forge a powerful connection beyond mere product attributes by aligning a brand with these belief systems.
For example, a brand that stands for environmental sustainability could tap into the belief system of eco-conscious consumers, creating an emotional bond that transcends transactional relationships.
This alignment fosters loyalty and positions the brand as integral to the consumer’s identity.
The brand narrative: Mirroring truths
The brand narrative is the medium through which the brand’s essence is communicated to the target market. Stealing Share’s approach involves weaving the uncovered emotional triggers and belief systems seamlessly into this narrative.
By doing so, the brand narrative resonates as a reflection of the consumer’s own truths, aspirations, and desires. This captures attention and elicits an emotional response that solidifies brand preference.
When consumers see themselves in the brand story, a sense of authenticity emerges that is often lacking in generic marketing campaigns.
Emotional switching triggers: Unveiling the unconscious
Central to Stealing Share’s brand building philosophy is the recognition that emotions are the driving force behind consumer decisions. Emotional switching triggers refer to those deeply rooted feelings and perceptions that nudge individuals to reevaluate their brand preferences.
These triggers could range from a sense of belonging and identity to the desire for self-improvement or the pursuit of status.
By understanding these triggers, brands can preemptively address them and craft strategies that resonate emotionally, fostering customer loyalty and preventing defections.
Case in Point: The success of emotional switching triggers
A case study that exemplifies the effectiveness of Stealing Share’s approach is the repositioning of a beverage brand.
By leveraging predictive behavior modeling, we identified an emotional switching trigger within the target market—consumers were seeking a an experience that refreshed them physically and rejuvenated their spirits emotionally.
Stealing Share then integrated the belief system of embracing life’s small joys and follies into the brand essence. The brand narrative, infused with these insights, communicated the message that every sip was a celebration of life’s moments.
The result was a remarkable increase in market share as consumers resonated with the authentic message, leading to a surge in brand loyalty.
The art and science of emotional brand building
In the complex realm of brand building, Stealing Share has emerged as a trailblazer by marrying the art of emotional storytelling with the science of predictive behavior modeling.
Our approach quantifies emotional switching triggers, allowing brands to address consumer motivations preemptively.
By anchoring brand essence in the belief systems of the target market and mirroring these truths in the brand narrative, a powerful emotional connection is established that transcends transactional relationships.
As the business world continues to evolve, the science of brand building pioneered by Stealing Share offers a compelling blueprint for brands to establish lasting and meaningful connections with their audiences.
The brand building aha moment
So, the new brand becomes persuasive if you create a brand that exemplifies a belief system and uses it as an integrated part of its identity.
This means that identity is not the thing you are selling. It IS the person you are selling to. All branding rules were suddenly obsolete. The truth of persuasive brands was at once challenging and straightforward.
The design must visually represent the belief system. What we learned to identify is the highest emotional intensity in the category. We designed that idea into the logo, brand charter, theme, and narrative.
The story is no longer about what you sell but about whom you are selling to. The science of branding became crystalline.
The art of the brand had direction. The result of our brand building was that market share increased. Marketing messages became more persuasive, and advertising costs became more affordable.
Why? Because an amazing thing happens when a brand is built around a belief system (we internally call them precepts), and the highest emotional intensity is represented.
The brand gets noticed and considered. Reach becomes more critical than frequency. The more emotionally intensive, the less the prospect needs to see it. So, Stealing Share went rogue.
We left the cadre of traditional branding agencies and created our path. We even invented a new kind of research to test the precepts.
And predict their power.
