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MARKETING: Branding is much more than a logo

Branding your pizza operation is a multilayered effort addressing every aspect of your company's identity, not just its trade name, logo or slogan.

July 24, 2005

When customers come to one of Dave Karam's 160 Wendy's Old-Fashioned Hamburgers franchises, they likely aren't aware how deeply submerged they are in a big-time branding experience. From the Wendy's ads they saw on TV to the recognizable sign outside to the square-box freestanding building (shaped like its hamburgers) to the "old-fashioned" touches in the décor — lamps, brass rails, striped wallpaper — to the hats and uniforms worn by the staff, customers are barraged by Wendy's branding.

And they have yet to order a burger.

A well-branded business communicates the company's market position and product statement at every level, said Karam, who lives in Columbus, Ohio. That message proclaims who the company is, what it does and what it promises to deliver to customers.

"It's in the facilities, its management, the menu management, marketing, uniforms — all those things communicate what that brand is," said Karam. "All of that carries through to every interaction with the customer."

Many

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think branding starts at a corporate logo and stops at an ad campaign. But experts say branding reaches far beyond those immediately recognizable elements by creating an emotional connection with customers. Well-branded operations present an experience that turns customers into regulars.

Branding is a broad-based, long-term initiative to say, "This is our brand and this is what we're all about," said George Axon, a partner in Toronto-based Axon Branding. The company designs multifaceted branding campaigns for many businesses, including pizza operations. "Good branding creates 'memorability' and personality, and it demonstrates consistency in a company's message. It's not just a jingle or a name or a slogan, branding ties all those messages together to create the identity of the company."

For example, a pizza company has a jingle played on the radio, TV and on its message-on-hold system. The words used in those audible messages are duplicated in print ads, on pizza boxes, car toppers and roadside signs. The goal, Axon said, is to tell the company's story consistently and repeatedly.

"The customer trusts it because the story is all the same," he said. "If you hear the same story and the details are different, you never believe the story. But with consistency it becomes true."

Concept matters

All the great branding in the world, however, won't disguise or draw customers to an ill-conceived concept. A hip message won't get customers hopping to the door if it doesn't answer every customer's basic question: "What's in it for me?"

The answer to that question starts with a promise — either overt or subtle — stating to customers, "We have something you need/want, we'll provide it at an agreeable price and we do this so well we know you'll return."

It all comes down to building trust, said Stuart Goldberg.

"It's easier to do business with people you trust and believe in because the business creates a willingness to buy," said Goldberg, an Axon partner who works in Detroit. "If you do something that makes me feel good about you, makes me feel warm and fuzzy, that creates trust and willingness to do business. That's how McDonald's does it; it's how Nike does it."

Analyze some of those companies' memorable messages. McDonald's once promised, "You deserve a break today." The images on its commercials showed the quickness and ease of buying food there; the promise was, "We'll make it easy for you, Mr. or Ms. Hard-worker, and we'll smile while doing it."

Nike's "Just Do It!" campaign features muscular athletes donning the company's shoes while sweating, sprinting, jumping or shooting hoops. The close-up focus of every TV ad is the star athlete and the shoes, implying the message, "If you buy these, you can 'do it' like these people." It generates excitement about the product, and ultimately, shoe sales.

For years Little Caesars executed a similar strategy well, said Axon. Its TV commercials focused closely on not one, but two, hot, steaming pizzas, while the cartoon Caesar said in the background, "Pizza! Pizza."

"Little Caesars was very effective at building a 'value' argument,'" Axon said of the company's legendary two-for-one-price pies. Asked about Papa John's "Better pizza. Better ingredients." message, he added, "It carves out a niche for them based on the quality argument. They do answer, 'What's in it for me?' by telling the customer to expect better ingredients and better pizza. They're not just preaching platitudes about how great they are, they're answering the big question in a very specific way."

Over the long term, great branding should train customers to respond to the sight of simple images that are easily recognized and readily identifiable with a specific company. Among some of the most memorable are logos that don't use words: McDonald's arches; Nike's "swoosh"; Apple Computer's apple; Chevrolet's bowtie. If the whole branding campaign is well done, merely seeing that logo can trigger emotions about the product, the jingle played in its ads, memories of aromas of foods and ultimately a strong craving for the product.

A great logo is not the cornerstone of a branding campaign, it's the

Good branding creates 'memorability' and personality, and it demonstrates consistency in a company's message. It's not just a jingle or a name or a slogan, branding ties all those messages together to create the identity of the company. — George Axon, Axon Branding

capstone, the final piece that all the other elements are designed to promote. It took decades of promotion for Nike to be recognized by its swoosh. But now that's all the company needs on Tiger Woods' shirts and hats. No type necessary on a McDonald's highway sign peeking above a row of distant trees, just a look at the golden arches provides more than enough information on what lies below. It might even start the chain's latest advertising earworm, "I'm lovin' it!"

How does a small pizza company create such an identity? Goldberg said one good way to start is with a well-crafted jingle played in affordable, properly timed radio ads. One of his customers, Shawn Timony, marketing manager for 32-unit Topper's Pizza in Sudbury, Ontario, said the chain's jingle is designed to imbed its phone number in people's heads via music. All its printed materials include musical notes to trigger the song as well.

"Statistically, it takes about three connections with a customer for a message to sink in," Timony said. "If you look at something like radio, you can hit a customer three times in one hour, if not more. If you send someone a flier, they'll look at it once and shove it in the drawer, and you have to hit them two more times.

"The jingle itself really has been crucial in what we've done as far as marketing goes. It's allowed us to produce very high-quality radio spots that can do to a customer in one hour what flyer does in three weeks."

That's thorough brand management, Karam said, and it doesn't happen by accident.

"It's about executing a strategy that succeeds in placing the brand in a desired position in the marketplace," he said. "A franchisor who knows how to do that with a brand is a good steward of the brand."