The document discusses several key principles for building and maintaining strong brands, including focusing branding efforts on owning a word in consumers' minds, using publicity over advertising to establish a new brand, narrowing a brand's focus to become a specialist rather than generalist, promoting the brand's category rather than just the brand itself, and maintaining consistency in a brand over time while knowing when it's time to retire or change a brand. Overall, the document emphasizes the importance of having a clear, well-defined brand identity and strategy that remains consistent yet adaptable over the long term.

2.  Publicity :
The birth of a brand is achieved with publicity not advertising.
Ways to Get Publicity:
1. Focus your coverage.
2. Media play
3. Social networking: LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
Social media is an excellent way to build relationships with your
customers and build word-of-mouth publicity.
4. Powerful press releases: especially when you announce your
company's opening, new hires, new product lines or services.
You can add them to the news section of your site, link to them
from your social media accounts, and send them to journalists.
 Advertising :
Once born, a brand needs advertising to stay healthy.
Acts like a defense to protect them against losses.

3.  The Word :
A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer.
If you want to build a brand, you must focus your branding efforts to
owning a word in the prospect’s mind.
Once a brand owns a word, it’s almost impossible for a competitor to
take that word away from the brand.
Examples :
 Mercedes "prestige"
 Volvo "safety“
 The Name
In the long run a brand is nothing more than a name.
What makes a brand successful :
 Short term : -unique idea or concept
-Be first in a new category
-own a word in the mind
 Long term : The Name

4. Expansion Contraction
The power of the brand is inversely
proportional to its scope.
A brand becomes stronger when you
narrow your focus.
The Brand looks at their short term
needs and didn’t narrow their focus.
Dominate the market, build the brand in the
mind and increase the sales in the future.
Expand reduce the power of the brand. Contract  increase brand's power
Ex: Chevrolet Ex: Nescafé , Starbucks
To build a strong brand in the minds of consumers it's important to
contract a brand and not expand it.
So narrowing your product and category focus is key to dominating a
category market.

5.  Borders:
There is no barriers to global branding. A brand should know no
boarders.
The perception of where the brand came from can add or subtract
value.
Ex:
 Watches from Switzerland
 Automobiles from Germany
 Electronics from Japan
But we have to know that every brand has to be from somewhere.
"Successful entrepreneurs do NOT go global day one!" --The 7
Habits of Highly Successful Bakers, Con O'Donnell.

6. By narrowing your focus, you become a specialist rather than a
generalist.
A specialist perceives to know more resulting in higher quality.
 Perception VS Quality :
Quality is important, but brands are not built by quality alone.
 If it’s Well Branded, It must be more valuable!
 If there’s no magic, It must be cheap!
 Be unique
 Quality of Service, Not the quality of the product.
 For success to be real and lasting, the perception of quality must
be a reflection of actual quality.
 Just because you have quality to sell, that alone doesn't mean
that anyone will notice.

7.  Generic :
One of the fastest routes of failure is giving the brand a
generic name
-Don’t use Generic words : "General, Standard, National,
International"
-The vast majority of Brand communication takes place
verbally, not visually. The average person spends 9 times as
much time listening to the radio and television rather than
reading magazines or newspapers.
-A generic word is a generic word in the mind, no matter how
you spell it.

8.  Company :
Brands are Brands, Companies are companies. There is a
difference.
People buy brands they don’t care about the company.
The best brand strategy and the easiest is using the company name as a
brand but not on every product you make.
When the customer have to use both brand and company names this means
you have serious branding name.

9.  Brand definition
It’s the answer of 5 Questions
•What’s your company mission?
•What are the benefits or features of your product or service?
•What do your customers and prospects already think of?
•What qualities do you want them associate with your company?
•Who is your target market?
After answering the previous create the personality and character of
your company.
Use the personality to create a relationship.
Then create the brand profile of your company.
There should be a team called “Brand Police”.

10.  Extensions :
The easiest way to destroy a brand is by putting its name on
everything.
Management measures only the success of the extension. It never
measures the erosion of the core brand.
Before you launch a new line extension, ask yourself what the
customers of the current brand will think when they see your new
line extension.
If the market is moving under you stay where you are and launch a
new brand.
If not just stay where you are and continue building your brand.
 Sub-branding :
What branding builds sub-branding can destroy.
The essence of a brand is some idea or attribute or market segments
you can own in the mind. Sub-branding takes the branding exactly
the opposite direction.
Ex : Holiday Inn, Crown Plaza.

11.  The Category :
A leading Brand should promote the category not the brand.
To build a brand in a new category you have to do 2 things:
1. you have to create the brand in such a way to leave the
perception that
that brand was the first.
2. you have to promote the new category.
Leaders should continue promoting their category to increase the
size of the pie rather than slicing the pie.
 The Credentials :
The crucial ingredient in the success of any brand is its claim to
authenticity.
As customers are suspicious and tend to disbelieve most product
claims.
Leadership is the most direct way to establish the credentials of a
brand.
When you don’t have the leading brand, Create a new category in
which you can claim leadership.

12.  Fellowship :
In order to build the category, a brand should welcome other
brands.
Don’t be greedy.
You should welcome healthy competition. It often brings more
customers to the category.
The best thing happened to Coca-cola was Pepsi.
The competition between them made the customer more cola
conscious.

13.  Consistency :
A brand is not build overnight. Success is measured in decades, not
years.
Markets may change, but Brands shouldn’t. Ever.
The brand has to stand for something both simple and narrow.
Limitation combined with consistency is what build a brand.
 Change :
Brands can be changed, but only infrequently and only very
carefully.
Brand changing doesn’t occur inside a company, it occurs inside the
mind of the consumer.
If you want to change your brand, keep your sights on your target,
the consumer’s mind.

14.  Mortality :
No brand will live forever. Euthanasia is often the best
solution.
You should know the right time to let your old brand die
a natural death.
Opportunities for new brands are constantly being
created by inventing new categories.
Ex : Kodak

15.  Singularity :
The most important aspect of a brand is its single-mindedness.
It’s a burned out brand, because it has lost its singularity.
If you lose your singularity, you will weaken your brand.
The brand is a singular idea of concept that you can own inside
the mind of the prospect.
A successful branding program is based on singularity. It creates a
consumer perception that there is no product or service on the
market quite like yours.