r17 - 26 Sep 2006 - 13:40:38 - PieterHartsookYou are here: OSAF >  Projects Web  >  CommunityHome > BrandingExercise > BrandingCurrentStatus > BrandingFocusMeeting

Branding Focus Meeting



  • Scheduled Tuesday, 9/19/2006, 2:30-4:00pm
  • Branding Committee (Mimi may call in from Martha's Vinyard!), Caroline (facilitator/moderator)
  • Purpose: To select a Brand focus that will serve as a basis for building position, identity, and brand creatives. And to make a ranked recommendation to the Ops Group.


Agenda

Topic time
1 Overview of meeting agenda and goals. Review Brand Association methodology and research process [Key questions, # of results, key findings) 5 min
2 Discuss association rollup into Values and Themes Review importance of themes in relation to the Goal of the meeting -- we want to select a core theme that is strategicaly aligned with our direction to become the primary focus for all our brand messages. 5 min
3 Position statement exercise, pick one of the 3 themes and write a sample position statement for that theme based on the postion statement guidelines. 5 min
4 Consider postion statement direction implications, pros and cons of each 30 min
looking for: 1. differentiation,
2. relevance,
3. longevity
 
5 break (meeting facilitators meet to summarize) 10 min
6 Rank and choose Brand Focus for recommendation to the Ops Group 30 min


Brand Focus Selection Guidelines


Goal: The goal is to finally rank the top 2 or 3 associations and then select the focus for the brand. (This is the goal for the Brand Focus Meeting on 9/19/2006) The association focus will be the consistent ongoing message repeated in almost all communications. For example the "elevator pitch" statement or positioning statement in addition to identifying the target market and defining the product, should include the top 1 or 2 brand association we want establish.

Brand Associations

There are concrete associations and abstract associations.
  • Concrete associations are benefit- and feature-oriented (Transient)
  • Abstract associations are intangible (emotional) and usually related to images customers regard as positive or pleasing (Apple's apple, slogans, logos, and attidues) that act as memory shorthand for the company or product and may have longer sustained relationship than feature-related associations that may change over time as the product evolves. (Enduring)

Finding the focus

Process: Node maps are generated through a series of interviews identify the similarities in user perceptions about the product (and also identify divergent perceptions).
  • If you could list only three reasons why you buy our product rather than one from another company, what would they be?
  • Keep the associations simple and limited to one or two words in length.
Then select based upon:
  • valued by the customer
  • believable, sustainable, and appropriate
  • able to create positive feelings and make people feel good abou the brand
  • defendable
  • fits market's perception of brand
  • naturally connected to brand
  • different from competitors
  • proven by research to be tied to purchase
  • easy to remember
    • -TechnoBrands p.122



Brand Association questions

As part of the association identification process you can ask:
  • If the product were a famous person or character who would it be?
  • What kind of animal would it be?
  • What kind of car (etc.) would it be?
  • If the brand died tomorrow, what would be on its tombstone?



Reference materials

Target Use cases (from Mimi)

    • Helen the Hub manages her own personal task list and calendar
    • Helen the Hub collaborates closely with 1 or 2 other Hubs and/or Busy Bodies on individual tasks/communications.
    • Helen the Hub manages a shared task list and calendar for a small team of individual contributors.

    • Sample Position statements that emphasize the pro-social aspect of Chandler:

      • For the manager who enables others to excel, Chandler is the lightweight project management solution that brings out the wisdom of small groups.
      • For all the small fry trying to make it in a world of Goliaths (violins please), Chandler is the information-sharing solution that builds effective teams.

Brand Association interview results


Postion statement direction implications

Brand Theme: How I feel...
  • Use Chandler to feel confident that you can reliably manage individual and collaborative tasks with your family, friends, and co-workers. -- PieterHartsook - 06 Sep 2006 - 12:08
  • Chandler is a reiable solution for managing individual and collaborative tasks with your family, friends, and co-workers. -- PieterHartsook - 06 Sep 2006 - 12:26
  • Using Chandler I feel at ease, reassured that no matter what computer system my friends, family, and co-workers use I can reliably collaborate with them, confident that I can manage what I have to get done. -- PieterHartsook - 06 Sep 2006 - 12:34
  • The easiest and most reliable way to manage my small group activities. -- PieterHartsook - 07 Sep 2006 - 02:20

A few ideas about how Chandler makes me feel with respect to the people I work with, collaborate with:

  • I feel confidence in my group
  • I feel like I know what's going on in my group
  • I feel confidence in the decisions others are making on my team
  • I feel I am heard and appreciated when I speak up, aka I feel my team has confidence in me
  • I feel clear as to my responsibilities and obligations to the group
  • I feel I am supported by others in the group
  • I feel that decisions are made after thoughtful consideration of a wide variety of viewpoints

A couple of ideas about Chandler's 'more organic' approach to workflow:

  • I don't feel like I need to manage my Personal Information Manager.
  • I don't feel pressured to act or behave more 'organized' than I naturally am.
  • I don't feel pressured to make decisions before I am ready to.
  • I don't feel pestered by my PIM.
-- MimiYin - 07 Sep 2006 - 15:02

Brand Theme: Enables me...
  • Chandler is a solution for small group collaboration that lets me be in control of what I have to do. -- PieterHartsook - 06 Sep 2006 - 12:37
  • Be in control of your life. Chandler empowers you to make better decisions and be more productive about the things you have to do. Using Chandler to manage the details, you become better organized, more effective, and have more time for important things. -- PieterHartsook - 06 Sep 2006 - 12:42
  • With Chandler you have more time to make better decisions. Chandler helps you to help others be more successful. Be efficient, get in control of your time and schedule. Use Chandler to be more productive! -- PieterHartsook - 06 Sep 2006 - 17:46
  • The most productive tool for small groups to use to get in control of scheduling and collaborative task information. -- PieterHartsook - 07 Sep 2006 - 02:16
  • The most productive tool for small groups to use to get in control of activity management. -- PieterHartsook - 07 Sep 2006 - 13:42
  • For the manager who enables others to excel, Chandler is the lightweight project management solution that brings out the wisdom of small groups. -- Mimi via email - 07 Sep 2006 - 15:31
  • For all the small fry trying to make it in a world of Goliaths (violins please), Chandler is the information-sharing solution that builds effective teams. -- Mimi via email - 07 Sep 2006 - 15:33

Brand Theme: I use this because...
  • Chandler is the innovative solution to inter-personal information management. Chandler is free, open source software that promotes international open standards for collaboration with friends, family, and co-workers. -- PieterHartsook - 06 Sep 2006 - 12:46
  • Chandler breaks the bonds of proprietary software. A free, open source solution to manage collaboration with friends, family, and co-workers, Chandler promotes the use of open standards to achieve interoperability across operating systems and does not constrain everyone to use the same software in order to collaborate successfully. -- PieterHartsook - 06 Sep 2006 - 13:23
  • Chandler is about freedom. Be free from the constraints of proprietary software, operating system choice, and IT department support. Chandler is pioneering open source software for managing collaboration with friends, family, and co-workers. It is developed by non-profit employees and volunteers from around the world. Because the source code is open and free the solution is adaptable and extensible. Based upon, and a strong proponent of open standards, it is interoperable with other software. And best of all it is distributed for free - share it with your friends, family, and co-workers. Be smart, be free, choose Chandler! -- PieterHartsook - 06 Sep 2006 - 17:59
  • Chandler, the 21st centuary inter-personal information manager, is the elegant modern heir to Lotus Agenda, the visionary product that originally defined the Personal Informanagement Manager software category in the 1980s. -- PieterHartsook - 07 Sep 2006 - 01:41
  • The pro-social alternative for managing small group collaboration. -- PieterHartsook - 07 Sep 2006 - 02:02
  • OSAF is creating innovative/visionary applications to help better manage your working style and create time to live your life the way you want to. -- PriscillaChung - 19 Sep 2006 - 16:02


Competitive positions

Product Vendor Position
OneNote MS Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 is a digital notebook that provides a flexible way to gather and organize your notes and information, powerful search capabilities so you can find what you’re looking for quickly, and easy-to-use shared notebooks for teams to work together more effectively.
Windows Mobile Windows Mobile software allowed users to add hours of productive time to their work week, equating to a productivity benefit of U.S.$8,600 annually per user.
Outlook 2003 Outlook 2003 helps users keep track of their tasks and eliminate unnecessary distractions so they can complete tasks faster.
Misc. Personal Productivity Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, Microsoft Office OneNote? 2003 and Windows Mobile are each specifically designed to help people organize, access and share information quickly and easily.
Sharepoint Personal productivity: Microsoft® Office System improved their business processes and helped employees improve productivity.
Companies ... have achieved higher productivity, improved business processes and reduced IT costs through adopting the latest Microsoft® Office System products and technologies. They have gained these benefits by enhancing the ways that workers around the world access and manage information and work in teams.
Productivity Benefits: Microsoft Office System products and technologies make it easier for information workers — individuals who create, use, transform, consume or manage information in the course of their work — to capture, organize and locate such information. Since these activities take nearly half of most information workers’ time, the time savings can be significant and generate productivity gains that help a company grow with few resource additions.
Business Process Improvements: Microsoft Office System speeds the flow of information within a company and supports faster, better-informed decision making. These benefits register not as productivity gains, but as improvements in the company’s key performance indicators. The companies studied were able to close sales faster, make better procurement decisions, speed up their product development cycles, improve customer service and more.
IT Benefits: Microsoft Office System products reduce a company’s total cost of ownership by allowing the IT department to provide better support with fewer resources.
Google Calendar Google Organize your schedule and share events with friends
Wouldn't it be great to be able to keep track of all the events in your life, coordinate schedules with friends and family, and find new things to do -- all with one online calendar? We thought so, too
Seeing the big picture
With Google Calendar, you can see your friends' and family's schedules right next to your own; quickly add events mentioned in Gmail conversations or saved in other calendar applications; and add other interesting events that you find online.
Sharing events and calendars
You decide who can see your calendar and which details they can view. Planning an event? You can create invitations, send reminders and keep track of RSVPs right inside Google Calendar. Organizations can promote events, too.
Staying on schedule
You can set up automatic event reminders, including mobile phone notifications, and instantly bring up anything on your calendar with the built-in search tool.
With Google Calendar, it's easy to keep track of all your life's important events in one place. You can add events and send invitations effortlessly, share your schedule with friends and family, and search for events you might enjoy.
IBM® Workplace™ Collaboration Services lotus Why Lotus Software
Security-rich software that enables businesses to communicate, collaborate and increase productivity.
• Helps improve productivity by providing the right capabilities
in the context of a user’s role and the business
activity on which he or she is working.
• Helps accelerate collaborative business processes by
bringing the right information together with the people
who can answer a question immediately—helping
reduce tasks that previously took days or hours down
to minutes.
• Helps reduce travel costs with an online work environment
that includes Web conferencing, learning, e-mail,
calendaring, instant messaging, team spaces and more.
• A truly unique and innovative product that provides
more flexibility with a range of integrated collaboration
tools that can be arranged and exposed as needed
through the included portal user interface.
Unifying people, tools and resources to simplify day-to-day business
IBM delivers an open-standards-based integrated collaborative environment that provides unprecedented flexibility and choice—of platform, the ability to integrate as part of other vendors’x environments and the ability to give people the client experience that is best suited to their particular roles. This helps empower organizations to make business decisions based on the needs of their businesses and the needs of their customers, partners and suppliers—not on what the vendor wants them to do.”
No such template def TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:tableappendnostamp}

Branding Focus Meeting Summary

  • After reviewing the research results, participating in crafting a position statement exercise, and discussing the pros and cons of the brand focus choices it was the consensus of the group that the first focus group "How I feel..." could be eliminated as a choice.
  • Of the remaining choices, the overwhelming preference was for the 3rd group with focus on the pro-social, innovative, smart, ... associations.
  • It was decided to take the two finalist choices to the Ops Group rather than just the preferred choice, introduce the group to the issues, and see if they come to the same decision.
  • The preparatory page for the Ops Group presentation is at BrandFocusSummary
toggleopenShow attachmentstogglecloseHide attachments
Topic attachments
I Attachment Action Size Date Who Comment
doc BrandfFitnessTM_Audit_and_Assessment_Methodology.doc manage 135.5 K 07 Sep 2006 - 13:55 PieterHartsook  
Edit | WYSIWYG | Attach | Printable | Raw View | Backlinks: Web, All Webs | History: r17 < r16 < r15 < r14 < r13 | More topic actions
 
Open Source Applications Foundation
Except where otherwise noted, this site and its content are licensed by OSAF under an Creative Commons License, Attribution Only 3.0.
See list of page contributors for attributions.