Build brand awareness to the right audience with the right brand — refined to the essence, unique, and defined around the desires of your customers. And, communicated strategically to help customers find and remember you. We can help you get there.

In this issue:

1. IBM TO LENOVA - Can brand equity be bought?
2. YES, you can measure Brand ROI - Four metrics you need
3. BGDI WORK: IP DYNAMICS - Branding Your Portable Network

IBM TO LENOVA
An mistaken attempt to transfer brand equity

The three globally recognized letters — IBM — of this brand have represented quality and stability from the very beginnings of the PC revolution. The transformation of every business desk to a personal computing desktop has created a transaction-chunking, word-processing power house, linking millions, if not billions, daily. Now, after 20 years of fading brand dominance in this market, the "Ford" of the PC world has sold its PC business.

The surprise acquisition of IBM's PC business by up-and-coming China-based Lenova was a strategic move — an unknown player attempting to use the equity of a highly valued technology brand to gain faster market acceptance. They apparently recognized that their name has little equity in the personal computing market, even in China. To build mindshare for this unknown brand would be costly and time-consuming.

Can the IBM brand withstand being tarnished by a virtually unknown Chinese company with little or no brand awareness outside of China, and, will it lose value in the near future as the PC business become even more commoditized? As for the remaining core IBM franchise — their highly valued services business — will this move dilute and miscommunicate the value of the IBM brand?

So, where's this brand's equity going?

Answer this one question: Is it likely that Apple will ever sell off off any portion of their business under the Apple name or brands? The ill-fated Mac clones of John Scully's reign showed that this brand strategy reduces equity and commoditizes the product brand. The Apple name represents an incredible asset, and everything it touches is enhanced in value by that relationship, but only if it's authentic.

IBM's attempt to transfer the brand relationship waters down the value of the entire brand and the company. The story behind the brand is about the history and successes of IBM, not Lenova. Lenova cannot easily assume true ownership of this brand — consumers will distrust even a known brand when the company behind it really isn't the brand. The IBM brand promise will be difficult for Lenova to live up to. And, what about the core services business that churns all the revenue for the "real" IBM — will it survive this personality split or will it confuse customers? Only time will tell.

YES, YOU CAN MEASURE BRAND ROI
Four metrics for your brand

With the move to financial accountability in marketing operations, it's now more important than ever to measure the Return on Investment in your brand over time. Understanding how to measure the real ROI in brand value is critical to shaping brand-building strategies, contributing to your company's bottom line and gaining support for future brand-building efforts. Here are four key criteria you can use to measure the financial value of your brand strategies.

1. Change in sales - When implementing an awareness campaign, product launch cycle, or other promotion of the brand, it's critical to track this investment in brand building. At the end of the campaign cycle, what are the key changes? Is there a clear increase in sales volume? Did revenue increase in parallel with the campaign? Did awareness grow with key customer segments?
2. Customer loyalty - Can a company or product maintain and grow that customer base? Is there a consistent or growing percentage of sales to repeat customers? This brand loyalty is a key metric of the brand's strength and its contribution to bottom line revenue.
3. Change in market share - This is a key measure of how a brand is valued by the customer base in a given market. If a brand consistently controls 5% of the total market does that reflect some unique price point, quality or premium value not seen elsewhere in the market? This is also related to our last metric.
4. Customer retention in the face of price competition - Lastly, can the company retain customers over time against volatile price changes in the market? Is the product becoming a commodity or does the brand have unique value in the mind of the buyer that can not be measured by price? Positive brand perception can immunize your product against price competition.

These are all interrelated metrics for brand strategies focusing on customer satisfaction, product innovation and overall market awareness. In today's ultra-competitive economy, it's clear that brands must perform financially. It's also clear that good brand building strategy can protect a company from market swings and create measurable value. Your brand is an asset that must be managed for maximum ROI.

BGDI WORK: IP Dynamics - Your Portable Network^TM
IP Dynamics needed a new product brand to introduce their unique software — and Internet-based networking solution. BGDI worked closely with them to develop messaging and then expressed the brand through a new web site introducing the product. BGDI created a unique brand look for the site and other communications.