Brand definition

From http://www.mudvalley.co.uk/collateral/content/175.htm:

The key dimensions upon which you should define your brand are the hard benefits, the emotional benefits, the tastes/appearance/dress of your brand, its spiritual values, the stories you tell about it, and its personality. All this should be rounded off by a slogan (external communication) and a central organising thought (internal communication).
You will need different brand/value propositions for each of your target customer segments, but the core elements of the brand should remain the same.
If you have lots of brands, you can define them against each of these brand dimensions, and cross out any concepts that are shared by two or more of your brands. You will be amazed how rapidly you reduce your brands to a manageable number.

From Http://www.buildingbrands.com

Two of the most important goals of a vision statement: to inspire and to guide.
I presume the guiding part is for people in the company.
Kangaroo Poo is a brand name aimed at the young... create a mythology around it that differentiates themselves.
For some brands, the key to success is to remain elusive and exclusive.
A way to evaluate brands: Differentiation, relevance, esteem, and knowledge (BrandAsset Valuator from Young and Rubicam
Understanding your brand and its appeal, is a great way to understand competitors, ie competitor for Harley Davidson is pools and jetplanes, because their market are wealthy people.

From http://www.systoc.com/tracker/Summer01/DeveBrand.asp:

Developing a brand requires a careful assessment of your customers, your program, your competition, your market, and your position in that market. You will need to conduct a thorough SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) on yourself and your competition, combined with a careful assessment of customer impressions and preferences. Superior branding is a refinement and pinpointing of your overall strategy based on your strengths, current or desired market position, and customer insight. While your brand position should be relatively simple, identifying, developing, and managing your program’s brand most decidedly is not.
Frequency and consistency of the brand’s message also contribute to the branding strategy, but only when your message is firmly tied to an emotional anchor. In addition to identifying what your customers think of your program (and your competition), you must also review all of your business and service activities to ensure that they consistently and frequently support your branding strategy.
Besides frequency, consistency, and clarity, other elements that play into the branding strategy are the brand name, brand mark (distinctive colors, choice of font, symbols or logo), trademarks, and copyrights. While an occupational health program might not use all of these, most can be effectively deployed to get maximum mileage out of your marketing and branding strategy. For example, do all of your marketing materials utilize the same colors and have the same look and feel? When someone sees one of your marketing or advertising pieces is it instantly associated with your program, and does it reflect your branding strategy? When someone hears the name of your program, what is the first thing that comes to mind? What is the first thing they associate with your program? Are these associative memories the ones that you want them to have, and do they work to your program’s advantage by accurately reflecting your position in the market?
Other key considerations in developing your branding strategy are:
Develop a Brand Position Statement: This is the position you want your program to occupy in the market. This should be a succinct one or two sentence summary of your strengths. This is not the advertising tagline (although the tagline should support the brand statement), and is actually never seen by the public. Like your reputation, your actual brand position is known and perceived but is not something that can actually be seen or touched. Your brand position statement is your focal point, your True North around which all your efforts center. It is the consistent message you communicate to your customers through all of your business activities, not just the ones associated with marketing and advertising. Everything you do (direct and indirect) should support the message.
To develop an effective brand position statement, it is critical to understand your market, your place in that market, and what your customers want. You must have a vision for your program and its brand position. You must also keep your position fresh, current, and "on target" with the pulse of your customers and the occupational health market. Developing and cultivating a great brand takes leadership, vision, a good sense of timing, and the ruthlessness to outmaneuver your competition.
Identify your Strengths/Differentiate your Product: Is your brand position really different from your competitors? Do customers place value on that differentiation? Is the differentiation defensible, or can it be easily replicated in the market? If your branding strategy is not unique and can easily be imitated, you need to go back to the drawing board. This is also true if your brand’s position holds no particular meaning or value for your customers.
Keep your Message Simple: The brand position should be brief, making it easy for customers to identify, remember, and associate with your program.
Frequency and Consistency are Essential: No strategy will be successful unless it is repeated and repeated frequently and consistently. Customers are barraged with products and information. In order for your message to be heard, let alone remembered, you must constantly reinforce your branding strategy through all of your actions and all of your marketing activities. An associative memory that responds to the recall cue will never be established in the minds of your customers in the absence of frequency and consistency.
Alignment with your Mission and Values: Your brand position should coincide with your program’s mission, vision, and values. Again, your brand position is your True North for all of your business activities, not just your marketing strategy.

From http://www.reachcc.com/
What makes people stand out is usually not where they went to school or how many years of experience they have. It is usually something more intrinsic, something that is core to who they are and what they believe.

From http://www.mannpowerdesign.com/pdf/EmotionalBranding2006.pdf:
recognize personal strengths and talents
consider how you best connect with people
identify what your target audiences wants or needs are
ask what value you deliver to meet those needs
and communicate that value in a way that reaches your targets' hearts and minds through channels that work best for you
Identify the gaps in your personal brand and invest energy and resources to overcome them
Can't be just functional attributes, and can't be just emotional ones

From http://www.reachcc.com

Ten Ways To Unearth Your Personal Brand and See the True You
by William Arruda

The first step to building your personal brand is to gain a clear understanding of who you are: your values, passions and strengths. Personal Branding is not about creating an image for the outside world, it is about being authentic - using your unique talents to differentiate yourself and expand your success. Here are ten tools you can use to uncover the true YOU.

Take a Test
Take the Keirsey (www.keirsey.com) or Meyer's Briggs personality profile. When you read the results of your profile, you will be able to extract words that clearly describe who you are.

Listen
When people introduce you or talk about you to others, they often make some powerful brand statements and use adjectives that clearly describe you. Pay attention the next time you are being introduced.

Read Now Discover Your Strengths by Buckingham and Clifton.
This book identifies the 34 different prevalent human strengths. When you buy the book, you get a code that you can use to take the web-based strengths finder profile.

Go Back in Time
Re-read your performance evaluations from the past couple of years and ask yourself what they are really saying about you. Are there adjectives that are consistently used among all evaluations?

Ask and You Shall Receive
Ask peers, clients, employees, friends what they think are your greatest strengths.

Bring in the SWOT Team
Perform your own SWOT analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats as they relate to your career goals.

Create a Questionnaire
And solicit feedback specific to your Brand attributes from your clients or managers.

Build a Focus Group
Put together your own team of people who help you understand your brand and what it means to them. This group can meet physically or can be a virtual group of people connected by the web.

Be Strong
Take the Strong Interest Inventory. It is very helpful in identifying your passions.

Work with a Coach
Your coach is there to assist you in achieving your goals and he/she really gets to know you and your Brand attributes. If you don't have a performance coach, you can find the right one by entering your own search criteria at either www.coachfederation.org, or www.coachville.com