Kennen, LLC - Paddlewheel

The Paddlewheel

Think of your brand in terms of a paddlewheel. At the center, or hub, is the brand itself and its associated value. Surrounding the hub are 18 paddles turning the wheel. If the paddles are out of alignment, the wheel becomes uneven and struggles to turn. The greater the alignment, the more value potential in the brand.

The list below determines the brand's value. Click on each item to see a brief description:

Brand/Product You Are Selling

There are several types of products—consumer goods, services, social causes, images—all intended to serve existing and anticipated needs. Understanding what your product is and the needs it serves is key to defining your brand.

The Brand's Positioning

Once you have defined your brand, you have to create an expectation of what it is going to do and represent. It is what differentiates you from the competition. The brand’s positioning tells the story and guides the overall strategy.

The Target Consumer

Identifying your brand’s target consumer goes well beyond basic demographics. Knowing whom your real consumers are pushes psychographics to its limits, describing a typical day, month, year in their lives. Only then can you speak directly to them.

Your Promotion Strategy

How you package your branded product, craft and communicate your message and allocate the resources behind it are the heart of your promotion strategy.

The Product and Brand Design

Form and function are essential for any product. They give long-term credibility to the brand. Your logo, packaging, materials and how you use them must reinforce the brand's image.

Consistency of Brand Message

Everything—absolutely everything—about the brand must be consistent with its central message. Any deviation will cause confusion and immediately diminish brand value.

The Pricing Strategy

You can establish your price based on your desired profitability or compared to key competitors. Regardless, your pricing strategy says as much about your brand as its positioning and promotion.

Your Distribution Strategy

Where and how you deliver your brand to consumers determines whether you will sell anything. In other words, if your customers can’t access your product, they can’t, and won’t, buy it.

Production Capabilities and Limitations

This is one of the key points at which you deliver on your brand promise. You must be able to produce the product with the quality and quantity customers expect (not necessarily need or want). If not, they will purchase someone else’s brand.

Controlling Your Costs

An inability to contain costs, especially when it is due to waste, is the quickest way to erase a brand’s value. This includes your packaging, production, inventory, promotional spending and redundancies.

The Standards by which You Serve Your Customers

Customer service includes every potential opportunity for your organization to touch a customer, even if it is with an employee who is “off the clock”. Every interaction with the customer must leave her feeling good about her purchase, at a minimum.

The Competitive Advantage You Have

Everything mentioned thus far is meaningless if it doesn’t lead to a competitive advantage.

Your Staff and Intermediaries

Everyone who touches your product, no matter how much or in what way, before it reaches the consumer, impacts the value of your brand. You must make sure that your staff and intermediaries are adding value to the product on its way to the customer.

Assessing Your Competitors

The only way to compete is to understand who your competitors are, what they are doing and how it affects you. Having a fuller understanding of the main brands fighting for your customers will give you a better prediction on how they will react to the moves you make, if it all.

The Current Brand and Product Life Cycles

A brand life cycle and a product life cycle are not going to be the same. One is going to outlast the other. Planning accordingly will go far in optimizing your brand’s value.

Your Processes and Procedures

You must have processes and procedures in place that detail what happens when, how decisions are made, the way information flows and who is accountable for what. Otherwise, chaos will be the norm, and you will see it in your brand performance.

Having Evidence of Your Efforts

We all want to know that our efforts are paying off. For that to happen, there must be specific, measureable goals—that you actually measure. If not, you may be wasting precious time and resources.

Proper Alignment of Brand Goals with the Owner's

The way in which you manage your brand must align with the organization’s or owner’s goals for that brand. Bad things happen when there is misalignment, such as poor decision-making, improper spending and diminished brand value.