Future Proof Your Brand Identity with Distinctive Brand Assets with Professor Jenni Romaniuk

TRANSCRIPT

Michelle J Raymond: [00:00:00] Welcome everybody to the LinkedIn for B2B Growth Show. I'm your host, Michelle J Raymond, and I am joined by a bit of a rock star when it comes to marketing and scientific research. Jenni Romaniuk, welcome to the show.

Jenni Romaniuk: Thanks, Michelle. Great to be here.

Michelle J Raymond: And there's one more point. You are also a rock star that's based out of Australia. Cause as we were discussing, we are punching above our weight when it comes to marketing thought leadership. Now you work for the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. Can you just tell our listeners a little bit about that for context before we dive into everything about what are distinctive brand assets. But yeah, Ehrenberg-Bass, what do you do?

Jenni Romaniuk: So we are a University based research Institute. So we're basically, imagine you've got, you have medical research institutes that investigate, cures for cancer and how to help the environment and all those sorts of things. We do that, but for Marketing. So we are University academics, but we have one foot in academia, [00:01:00] one foot in industry, and we're predominantly funded by industry.

So companies either subscribe or use our products, our resources in order to improve their marketing. And the reason we do that is twofold. One is, the money we get gives us the resources to do more R&D. And secondly, the direct contact with company gives us more impact. So rather than the traditional academic route where you write a journal article, it gets into a textbook. You might then eventually get into curriculum, talk to students. And then when you're dead, someone goes, Oh, that was a good idea.

We're a little bit more impatient. So we fast track that by talking directly to companies and sharing with them the research we do, what it means and how you grow your brand.

Michelle J Raymond: Look, I came across you guys on LinkedIn, Byron Sharp as well. Obviously you've got so much stuff out there that I think, just makes people start to question why are we doing the things that we do? And are there better ways that we can do it? And you're the author of multiple books of which listeners I'm going to put those in the show notes.

And I had [00:02:00] to narrow down the selection, as I said, just before the show, when we were chatting and I was like, okay, so many great books, so many different topics we could dive into. And I chose the distinctive brand assets because I think on LinkedIn, we're drowning in a sea of same, and bland. And I hope in the next 30 minutes we can do our little piece that is going to maybe shift the needle, move the dial, get away from that a little bit.

And those brands that are willing to invest time and resources into what is a distinctive brand asset? So I think that's where we'll start. What are distinctive brand assets and why are they important for B2B businesses, especially on platforms like LinkedIn?

Jenni Romaniuk: Okay. So distinctive brand assets is just a fancy name for anything that's not the brand name that you want to evoke the brand name. And when I mean anything, I mean, anything that your senses encounter. However, historically, we typically focus on things that the eyes and the ears encounter because taste, touch they [00:03:00] require you to sort of co-located with it. You can't taste something unless you're actually consuming it. You can't touch something unless it's physically located with you.

And so we don't tend to use that as much. But definitely things our eyes see, things our ears hear are part of what make up distinctive assets. And so when we are talking about non-brand name things we're talking about things like colours, shapes, faces, all of these things in the environment that could be evoking the brand on top of our brand name.

They're not actually any more important in B2B than they are in B2C. It's just they're often neglected in B2B and they are more challenging in B2B in general, because they're typically built through wide reaching communications. And a lot of the B2B sector doesn't do that sort of marketing.

So that's why they've been neglected in terms of brand building. And they're often seen as [00:04:00] more challenging, but remember distinctive assets are built in people's brains and B2B buyers have the same brains as B2C buyers. News alert, not sure if anyone's remembered that, but yeah, it's that same brain.

In fact, they use that brain to make B2C purchases. So we're actually doing the same processes and get the same benefits, but how we do it can be a bit more challenging in a B2B context.

Michelle J Raymond: I've been in sales for B2B for 20 odd years. And, being on LinkedIn for the last three years, having my own business, it feels like even with the way that LinkedIn started to promote B2B and marketing in the same sentence, that we're just beginning. Does your research kind of correlate with that gut feel that I have. Are we really just getting started when it comes to B2B in marketing and building these kinds of things for a lot of businesses?

Jenni Romaniuk: Yeah. I mean, Generally we find in B2B settings and I'm always cautious about the word B2B because the diversity [00:05:00] of industry types under that. You can go everything from services to products to a whole range of different sorts of businesses.

So we're dealing with a very diverse cohort here, but in a lot of cases, people think I've got a logo. You know that's my branding. That's it. Without really thinking about all of the other different areas that they can leverage in order to communicate their brand and the challenges of doing that.

So it's basically a two fold challenge in B2B. One is there's often the assumption that the buyer is so involved they will find stuff out. So I don't have to do as much work to go out to them. Because if you're a buyer for a company, you're going to do your research, but the reality is that process is imperfect and you do have to do the work and get noticed by potential buyers.

And then the second thing that's holding it back is the B2B marketers themselves, who are having such a narrow perspective of what their distinctive assets could be and [00:06:00] how they're used, and that is everything from focusing just on the logo as the primary and only distinctive asset. And as long as we've got that we're golden.

And also shying away from certain assets because of a risk that you won't be taken seriously as a business. And that holds people back from the potential that they could be developing to help them when they're dealing with buyers.

Michelle J Raymond: Interesting. We put ourselves in this tight little box that must be professional, must not be creative.

Don't stray outside of this. Like you said, or people won't pay us attention or take us seriously. And it's the thing that I think causes so many businesses to then all of a sudden appear the same. That is why it is just cloning is what it feels like, to me. As I said, even when clients reach out to work with me and they'll always point to someone else and say, I want to be like that.

I'm like, the second you do that, you've lost your most valuable asset, which [00:07:00] is being distinctive and standing out and embracing those things. But how does the process for building brand assets differ for B2B companies, say, compared to B2C, especially in the context of digital platforms, or is there no difference? Are we putting up barriers that aren't necessarily there?

Jenni Romaniuk: A bit of both. The challenge you have in B2B is often you don't have the mass advertising budget that touches a lot of brains. And usually the argument is you don't need it because you might have a smaller potential customer base. I mean, We're always talking about building memories in our potential customers.

So I'm sure your audience is very diverse. There are some B2B businesses that might say we've only got 12 buyers in the world. Okay. So that's fine, but you still have to build memories amongst those 12 buyers and those 12 buyers, the people that underpin them will change over time. And I'm sure within those organisations, it's not just that one person that's making the decision. There are other influencers within the organisation as [00:08:00] well.

So we can think more broadly in where we need to build our brand. Then we have the processes of how we build it. Often in B2B, there's a reliance on sales and they're typically seen as the sort of vanguard of the relationship with the customer. But now a lot of places are moving to bigger role of digital, both in terms of communication, but also in terms of buying. In a lot of cases in B2B buying, there are now online platforms you work through.

You might only talk to a person if you've got a problem or a specific requirement link, and in those cases, then what you've built up in people's brains becomes even more important because there's no longer that personal relationship that is shepherding through. You no longer have the, you know, rely on the salesperson that takes you out to a nice restaurant to get you on the list, which, if we go back in time, that was traditionally the, the wine and dining of the [00:09:00] client.

I know we used to do a lot of focus groups and I worked out quite quickly that actually the focus groups had two objectives. One was the client could see a consumer, which they normally didn't do. But secondly, they just liked having nice food and wine and sitting there and being treated as special for that couple of hours while we were listening.

So sometimes listening, sometimes talking. So that's sort of no longer happening. And we need to make sure we're doing our work to build up brands in there. And in B2B, there's often a wide range of different media options to do that. And as soon as you have a wide range of media options, your branding has to be adaptable to that as well.

And your logo might not be fit for purpose in some of those environments. So in the digital sphere, that's where you've got, and again, digital is like B2B. There's so many different digital environments out there, but if you take something like LinkedIn specifically,[00:10:00] as you scroll down, there's a lot of clutter, there's a lot of posts. Then there's an ad in between. Then there's an ad in someone's post because they're talking about something they've either launched or something they like.

So you've just got brands intermingled with content and people, and so having a uniform way of making sure people know when your brand is present just helps make sure no matter who's exposed to it, you're building up the right memories.

Michelle J Raymond: Everything that you said before listeners, you couldn't see me, but I was just nodding and smiling and laughing when you said that the role of B2B sales has changed. My career was an absolute testament to that. Back in the early days, it was the long lunches. May they rest in peace. They don't exist anymore.

But it was about that. I remember the sales team, it was all about the yearly fishing trip or the long lunches or taking people on golf trips or, all these kinds of things that we'd do. And then over [00:11:00] time, even in my career, when people would reach out and it didn't matter specifically to industries, people would reach out at that last minute and the conversation became about logistics.

When can I get this? How much is this? I'm not quite sure about this bit in this bit, but you wanted to make sure you were the one that they reached out to. The days of, can I go and sit with you for two hours at a coffee shop? People like, Michelle, I don't have time to do that. Just get me the info I want, get it as fast as I want and then come back to me.

 I absolutely echo what you've said. The glory days of sales as they felt back then, I think have changed. And I think for the better, but I think that power shift to the buyers versus sellers has been obvious just to me.

I've been trying with a couple of my clients, just little things on LinkedIn just to try and make them stand out in their industry. So for instance, one of my clients, I come from the beauty industry and I used to sell all of the raw materials ingredients. Now there are lots of distributors of those products.

It's a very unsexy [00:12:00] industry. There's nothing cool about it. Although the outcomes of where these products go are great, but everybody does the same thing. And so what we've created is we call him professor Inky and he's an octopus and you know, we use it as an emoji. There's almost like an Easter egg in every post there's a little octopus somewhere just so somebody, when they're scrolling, will stop and go, that's not X competitor that is, my client and they're always keeping an eye out for the little octopus.

Is that as simple as sometimes these distinctive brand assets can be? Like in my mind, I'm thinking, yeah, sure we've got Coca Cola's ribbon is probably the one that stands out to me in my mind, but can it be as simple as that Jenni?

Jenni Romaniuk: Yeah, a little bit. I'm just going back to one of the comments, even when we had those days of the long lunches. The thing is the stuff that was built in people's heads about branding is what gave the salesperson the appointment. Why the call were taken is because they knew something in [00:13:00] their heads and their memories have been built.

I think we often gloss over that because we forget about the fact of once we got this person in there, they take all the credit.

Michelle J Raymond: Oh my god. A true salesperson here, Jenni. Like this is a sales versus marketing since the beginning of time.

Jenni Romaniuk: So branding always had a role. It was just swamped by the effect of the personality that came afterwards. But when you're talking I'd say, don't make it an Easter egg. Make it obvious. Often we're ashamed of branding and we shouldn't be. Branding is important. The second thing I'd say is that what you want to do is make sure that link between what you're doing and the brand name has already been established.

People often confuse asset building with asset using. Asset building is when you are creating the link between this idea, entity, thought image, sound that has stood alone and you want it in the context of the brand, and so you're building that link and when you're doing that, you have to co present, you have to have them both together.

[00:14:00] After you've built that, that's when you can have the standalone. And that's when you're using the asset. Now, even when you've built a strong asset, you've got new people coming into your category. And so you still need to have, say one in 10 is still an asset building activity, but you can have the octopus running around everywhere doing things. It doesn't need the brand because what it does is people don't actually even consciously know that they're building the brand.

It just automatically clicks in their brains and the beauty of it from a sort of processing perspective is it's so easy that it frees up the brain for say, the message you want to say in your communications because they're not spending time processing the brand. That was effortless because you've made that an easy part of the communication.

That gives, frees up whatever little bit is left of that attention as people are scrolling to go, Oh, okay. Oh, they've got that new product out or, Oh, I can see they're bundling those two [00:15:00] things together. And if I combine those two, that could be a really good thing I'm looking for. Whatever it is you want to say in your communications. And that's about the memory building that you're doing in your communications, which is separate from the brand building that you're doing in your communications.

Michelle J Raymond: Thank you for making that distinction because you're right, out of context it's just an octopus on a page. It means nothing. Totally take that on board. And that's something that we are definitely trying to do, but I think, sometimes when I listen to some of this, kind of conversation, there are people out there that may be thinking this has to be big and expensive, but realistically it's not based on budget, if I understand what you're saying correctly.

Jenni Romaniuk: No, it's based on the principles of how our memory works and trying to make sure every exposure we have to our buyer or our potential buyer, particularly important, is as well branded as possible and as easily branded as possible. And that's the challenge in particular in B2B is you don't know [00:16:00] when people are going to encounter you.

So if you think about most companies presence on LinkedIn, they typically have a company site. And they have a whole heap of employees that are on there as well. So the first question I'd suggest people do is go audit your employees. How much do they look like they come from you? Now you might make a conscious decision that no, I'm allowing my employees to build up their own distinctiveness on site, but that's okay.

But you're missing a branding opportunity if you do that. If they're representing the company on LinkedIn, then what can you do to make sure that someone who scrolls past a fabulous post that one of your employees has put on there knows that it comes from your company? And that's not just the brand name, because often that's, even in people's titles, people are often reluctant to put the brand that they work for. They come up with some other creative thing.

But how else can you signal that? Which could everything from the background on the picture to some other sorts of signals that's consistent in the posts of what is said, what is shown [00:17:00] that just give you that other branding opportunity. I'm pretty greedy when it comes to branding.

I just think anytime you have an opportunity to communicate the brand, attention is so precious. Exposures are so few. You should leap at it with every resource you have available.

Michelle J Raymond: You have just planted a few more seeds for me to go away for some other opportunities that I'm thinking about with my clients. And like you said, about connecting those two. Cause I'm a big supporter of making sure that the company brand helps build personal brands and personal brands help support the growth of the company brand. The more you work together, that synergy is just mind blowing.

And I don't think many businesses are actually leveraging that opportunity on LinkedIn, but you've given me some ideas, but what are some of the key metrics or indicators that B2B businesses should look at to gauge the impact of these brand assets on platforms like LinkedIn?

Jenni Romaniuk: There's metrics that help, if you've got a strong asset and then there's metrics that help [00:18:00] you know if you're using it well. And these are slightly different. So the metrics that let you know if you've got a strong asset, there are two we use called Fame and Uniqueness. So Uniqueness first, Uniqueness is do you own it? Are you the only brand? Or is it confused with other brands?

You want it to be close to 100 percent unique. Fame is about how widespread that ownership is. And you want it to be close to 100 percent for all of your category buyers. So those are the two metrics that you can measure to assess do you have a strong asset? And then, going from the asset building phase to the asset using phase, usually we suggest once you're at about 80 percent fame and uniqueness, that's when you've got something you can really utilise and you can dial down the building a bit.

Still have a bit to go because even 80 percent that's one in five category buyers don't link your brand with that asset. So it's still a big leakage out of that. But then if we talk about asset usage, that's when you can [00:19:00] review anything you put out there and go, how easily is it recognisable as coming from us? And it doesn't mean you have to use all the assets all the time.

We talk about a distinctive asset palette, which is like that menu of assets that you select whatever you feel. You feel like chicken, you feel like a logo today, or maybe you feel like a tagline. Or maybe this is an environment where a jingle could be used or some other audio asset. Depends on the media, depends on the environment that it's in what might be in there.

Now, you can quantitatively measure that by showing people and asking them, what do you remember? What stands out to you? I'm a bit more pragmatic than that. I just think if you have to ask the question, is this well branded? It's probably not. So yes, you can measure it.

But my thing is if you're in doubt, just up the branding, you're not going to lose from that. And for those who worry that, Oh, if I do too much branding, people are not going to like it. There is no relationship between branding [00:20:00] quality and creative quality. These are two independent things and people assess them.

You can have well branded ads that are boring and you can have well branded ads that are fantastic. And vice versa, you can have very great ads that are poorly branded and you can have very great ads that are branded as well. This is not a compromise you need to make.

But the thing about branding is you have a really great ad that no one knows who it's from. That is not going to work from you. If you have a mediocre ad, but at least people know where it's from. That can still do a little bit for you, but next time aim higher.

Michelle J Raymond: Yeah. If you have to ask how much it is, you can't afford it.

I was thinking if you have to ask, or if you're unsure, then double down and go harder. Yeah, I think that just totally is so obvious, like you said. But at the same time, I think people would always want to try and prove or measure things. Are we there yet? Are we there yet? And so that's one of those, no, you're not there yet. Keep on going.

Jenni Romaniuk: Just to pick up on what you said though, branding though, is [00:21:00] not a luxury. It's a necessity.

Michelle J Raymond: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it comes from persistency from what you're saying as well.

It is persistency over the longterm. And I'm sure that there's an element of testing and just checking in and make sure you're not just going down the wrong path just to be persistent, but to, you know, keep checking in on these things. So can you share an example of a B2B company that's effectively utilised distinctive brand assets?

What did they do right? And what can other companies learn from their approach?

Jenni Romaniuk: Yeah, this is a, it's a hard one for me to answer this. Simply because I am a very limited B2B buyer and remember that the strength of assets is in the eyes of the customer. So if you're not a customer, it's really hard externally to assess whether or not something is a strong asset.

But there are a couple of organisations that I think have done some good, interesting things. So, I mean, Salesforce's embracing of a mascot is one, because not many B2B [00:22:00] businesses take that risk because they go, we've got to be serious. We don't want a cute cuddly mascot to do that. Their use of Astro as a communication device, I think leads the way in demonstrating that you can break out of that that more stodgy navy blue suit and tie image of what a B2B business should be, particularly in professional services, where you're even more prone to that. Another one I personally like because I think this embodies the founder using the platform to be able to communicate the brand, but have the constant theme and assets in there.

And that's Sean Riley with Dude Wipes. I think he's constantly, if you look at his theme, the ways he posts, it's very well branded. It's always on talking about message. He has interesting things I find from a marketing perspective of talking about distribution challenges, pricing issues.

So for the content of LinkedIn and what he talks [00:23:00] about, I think it's very topical, but he also really highlights the brand and as well, the category as well. You always get a few poop jokes with Sean. And that always makes me smile. So they're two examples that are just taking things a bit differently from your typical B2B that I can assess and go, they're good.

There are others. There is so many as you go down the scroll that just are very formulaic. They have a pretty generic picture. They'll have a heading. And they'll say something about the solution they can offer you. And, they're the ones that people will just scroll through.

Michelle J Raymond: I think you're just highlighting that there's so much opportunity that's out there for B2B brands that might be listening to take this opportunity and get out ahead of the competition.

Because if I was to try and think of examples. As much time as I spend on LinkedIn and as many different Company Pages as I look at, or even, people that I come across, there is very few that I would go, yes, that's where I'm pointing people to as an example. And I'm someone that spends, [00:24:00] I'm going to assume a thousand times more time on LinkedIn than what you probably do.

And I'm still struggling to pull these things out. And Salesforce would be one of them with all their little characters. It often pops up in my feed as well. But I think that's the exciting part for me. And the reason that I wanted to have this conversation is there's an opportunity for B2B businesses who stand out with these distinctive assets and you call it future proofing your brand, and protecting your brand. And I love that. And I was like, yes, that's what we need for growth. The two are definitely aligned in that factor. What advice would you give to some B2B companies that might be looking to stay ahead of the curve in building and maintaining these assets. How do you begin the process? Where's the best place to start?

Jenni Romaniuk: Okay. So the first principle I'd like people to think about is counter programming. So that's to a counter program, you have to know what the program is. So that means you have to understand what are other people in your field and maybe you might do close [00:25:00] adjacencies to it. What are they using in terms of assets?

In the Building Distinctive Assets book, there's a framework of different asset types that you can just put on an Excel spreadsheet, get somebody in your organisation to go through every competitors advertising, websites, everything they do in sales and media environments.

So everywhere they sell, everywhere they advertise and what assets, what things are they using continually? Do they have a constant colour theme going through? Do they use the same words? Do they have the same type of spokesperson coming in? Do a systematic audit. And if you do that across your market, what you then get a picture of is what is the program.

What are people following? What are the tropes? The category tropes, sometimes subcategory tropes, depending on your category. And then you can think, all right, so how do I counter program to that? Oh, look, not many people have a tagline, a consistent tagline in my image. So [00:26:00] maybe I'll build a word based asset around that. Or faces, there's no one who's using consistent faces in that image in my industry. I will build a face or maybe all the faces are men in suits. So I'm going to have a younger female as my spokesperson, because that counterprograms and allows me to own that idea in people's brains.

So that's the first thing you can do. And you can do that no matter how big or small your business is. Even if you, you know, family business. Get your teenage kid to do it. You can pay them to do it. It's not that complex to do. It's just a matter of systematically auditing the thing. And so that's where you start from.

Then you work out what type of asset you want to build, what is going to be most useful for you. And that you go to where do you sell and where do you communicate and what's going to help you stand out in those environments. Once you've worked out what type you want to build, then you work out what form it is. [00:27:00] So what specific colour, what specific face. And that brings together the information you collected from everyone else.

Plus what you do, to design what even one or two assets are going to be the best starting points from you. And then depending on your budget, you can either then assess the market quantitatively and go through and see whether or not this is going to be a problem, or you can just go ahead and start doing it.

Start reviewing all your communications. So I call it the prioritise and purge where you work out what you want to build and then you go through all of your communications and get rid of inconsistencies. So if you've decided a young female is your face, where have we got not young females? Other things change those over and then you think about where could we put our new spokesperson so that we're giving them as much exposure as possible as we're building up.

So there's a couple of [00:28:00] steps to get started on.

Michelle J Raymond: Couple of steps. They are mind blowing steps. I think this is something that I personally have never considered. Branding and marketing are certainly not my strong points. I'm back at the beginning of learning all about this, but something so simple is, not this. Just by being not that you all of a sudden you're in your own open space. It's yours.

And for me, it's your brand then becomes in an autobahn lane instead of in the slow lane fighting with everybody else. And it seems so simple. And I can't even imagine how many years of expertise and research and things, to make it sound that simple. But for me, I was just thinking that is the way if you stop and do that audit, you can easily shift lanes and create your own one.

And it seems so simple, Jenni, but until you said it, it's not something that I thought about in that strategic way. And again, there's no cost really involved in that. That's just a bit of time and energy which is even more brilliant.[00:29:00]

Jenni Romaniuk: The one thing to watch out for is, at some point you'll probably involve some form of designer. And you need to be really clear in your briefing here, because designers are prone to trends and you have to be very clear that you want something that is not of now, but is of now and into the future, that will be 10, 20 years time. That it will still be something you would want to have. And that's really important to think about the longevity of what you're doing, because if you're going to invest in building distinctive assets, it should outlive you.

And I don't mean you in your job. I mean you in your life. That's the power of distinctive assets, that if we set them up well, they will outlive all of us.

Michelle J Raymond: Yeah, look, my mind is just blown here. Jenni, to wrap up the show every week, I asked my guests for one last actionable tip that you'd like to leave listeners with that they can take away and implement when it comes to building these distinctive brand assets.

What would be your last [00:30:00] actionable tip before we round out the show?

Jenni Romaniuk: My last actionable tip would be, remember distinctive assets are tools. So they're things you use for better branding. Don't lose sight of the goal. That is that everything about there should be as easily and effortlessly processed as your brand. That's your aim, but you need a good sharp toolkit to create that well and distinctive assets can expand and strengthen that toolkit for you.

Michelle J Raymond: Thank you. This conversation has literally blown my mind into areas that I hadn't considered before this. And as I said, listeners, please go and find Jenni on LinkedIn. Her details will be in the show notes as will be the links to a book where you can really deep dive into this subject and learn more because we have only just scratched the surface.

So if you love this conversation, please support it by going out and buying a copy of the book and don't forget to do a review if you buy the book so that it helps other [00:31:00] people learn. Learn about the book and, you know, grow as well, which I think is important.

So Jenni, thank you so much for everything that you've shared. Keep going and being a marketing rock star for us all. I love the research and can't wait to see what you come up with in the future.

Jenni Romaniuk: Thank you.

Michelle J Raymond: Thanks everyone. Until next week. Cheers.