July 2019 - 58

Pohmer On
What Your Brand
Message Says
ABOUT YOU ...
Your responses to each of these questions drive
By Stan
Pohmer
I
was just reading about the once great Sears
announcing a re-branding with a new logo, a new
tagline - " Making moments matter " - and a
new focus on " home and heart. " In my mind, this is
a waste of time, effort and money because, although
there's nothing inherently wrong with re-branding,
Sears has a poor reputation for execution, especially
when operationally nothing else is changing. All you
get when you put lipstick on a pig is a prettier pig!
And this got me to thinking about the importance
brands play in setting expectations and connecting
with the experiential and emotional needs of your
customers.
A Healthy Exercise
Try this exercise with me. Think about the last five
retailers you personally shopped. These could be your
competitor's stores, supermarkets, discount stores,
warehouse clubs or any kind of category specialty
store, such as a sporting goods retailer.
For each one of these retailers, ask and answer
these questions:
* Were your pre-shop expectations met?
* What was your overall impression of the store -
in-stock products, assortment breadth, service,
presentation, checkout, lighting, and product
quality?
* Were your needs met? Did you buy what you
needed? Did you find the solutions you wanted?
* On a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high), what was your
overall impression of your entire experience?
* Would you go back again or recommend that
retailer to a friend or family member?
58 | LAWN & GARDEN RETAILER | JULY 2019
It's a far better outcome for you to control
your brand image, your brand message and brand
expectations to the customer, rather than have
them mentally create their impression of your brand
in a vacuum.
Brands Defined
Let's look at the classic definition of a brand. A brand
is many things to many people. Some of it is perception
or interpretation of the message you send, some of it is
the result of the way you position the brand.
Basically, a brand is an implied promise to
the purchaser. It may convey quality or image,
performance or ease of use, value or prestige, trend or
uniqueness, or combinations of all these messages.
A brand is an opportunity for the retailer to tell its
story. A brand creates a personality, a cachet, a feeling
your memory of your experience with that retailer,
your satisfaction with the experience and determine
your inclination to visit them again. In essence, you've
just defined that retailer's brand in your mind.
Too often in our industry, we're so focused on the
product we sell that we don't take the time to manage
our company's own brands and brand message,
leaving the determination of what our brand is to the
customer, often to our detriment.
Too often in our industry,
we're so focused on the
product we sell that we
don't take the time to
manage our company's own
brands and brand message.
or attitude in the purchaser's mind that influences how
they relate to a product and influences their buying
decisions. A brand taps into the customer's emotions
and establishes two-way connections between the
customer and the retailer.
Bottom line, the brand developed for a specific
product, a program, a category or a retailer/ supplier
builds expectations in the customer's mind -
expectations that are built over time and reinforced by
their continual positive and negative experiences with
the product or purchase venue. A level of trust evolves
that is associated with the brand.
Achieving Success
So, what makes a successful retail brand? It's not
just the name or logo that made it successful - it's
that and far more. Retailers build their reputations
and expectations or promises not only through their
advertising and promotion efforts, but through all
of the support given to the brand ... the informative
signage and POS; product information to help the
purchaser enjoy the product and be successful with
it; creative displays and presentations; exceptional
product design and performance; superior customer
service; differentiated packaging and more.
What the retailers really did was to control the
total message sent to the purchaser to support how
they wanted their positioning to be understood or
perceived in context of their competitors and their
products. And they worked to deliver on that promise
or expectation over time, providing consistency,
eventually building a high level of trust with them.
And what are the results of these efforts? Most of
these programs and products realize higher repeat
purchase loyalty, higher retails and higher profit
margins, the bottom line goal of branding efforts. But
this didn't happen without a lot of thought put into
the brand development and its positioning, to the
details of the execution and at a financial investment.
The development of a brand is not a final destination;
rather branding is an ongoing process. Like plants,
July 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of July 2019
