Difficuly of Branding: from my Unique Experiences

Hello again, it’s Yuki.

As we had the guest speaker last week, she showed us a variety of brands that she worked for.

Honestly, I do not know any of them except “Kumon” (I do not know even her company)

 

Frankly, most of the brands that are raised in the class discussion are not familiar with me.

Even “Whole Foods”, which my group’s brand platform was not familiar with me at the first time…

 

What those things mean is that, brand significantly depends on personal or individual’s EXPERIENCE!

 

I would like to cast one question to you guys who are raised in the United States.

Q. How many brands would you know or have any ideas below?

 

 

 

Actually, those brands are really famous in Japan, and I intentionally choose them because those brands are spreading in global context.

 

As the book “winning at new products” says in the chapter of global branding, it is important to appeal to some specific local customers in order to have them experience.

 

For example, “Target” is one of the largest retailers in the United States.

When I first came here, I did not have any idea for it.

One of my friends said

“Yuki, do you wanna go Target?”

I replied

“what is it? ”

He said

“big store, you can buy anything in low price”

I said

“…OK, I still don’t have any idea, but cheap is fine”

 

Now, I love Target.

If we do branding within the existing market, it is fine because people know what we are.

However, if we try to convey brand to the new market, especially overseas, it is much more complicated topic than just “innovation” or “creativity”.

 

Why?

Because people do not know how they innovated! Or generally who you are.

 

It might be too complex to deal just with marketing research.

What I have realized is that the need of not only the research but also the way of delivery to new market.

 

* I really recommend you to check those three companies

"DeNA" and "SoftBank" and "UNIQLO"

DeNA, you can see it in the application game for smartphone.

SoftBank, I can swear that you will see this within 5 years. It recently did M&A against Sprint.

UNIQLO, is already spreading in the United States and Europe.

DeNA...http://dena.jp/intl/

SoftBank...http://www.softbank.co.jp/en/

UNIQLO...http://www.uniqlo.com/us/?ref=splash