On a daily basis I hear Marketing buzz words bantered about and it becomes obvious people say them and don’t really even know what they mean. I think people use the sacred marketing words like relevant, equity or insights, because they figure no one will challenge them. Of course, everyone puts “strategic thinker” on their Linked In profile. The problem I see is that a generation of Brand Leaders have not been properly trained and it’s starting to show. For the past 20 years, companies have said “on the job” training is good enough. But now the lack of training is starting to show up. The mis-use of these words can be linked to the lack of understanding of the fundamentals of marketing.

1. THE BRAND LEADER
The 10 most abused words in Marketing
On a daily basis I hear Marketing buzz words bantered about and it becomes obvious people say
them and don’t really even know what they mean. I think people use the sacred marketing words like
relevant, equity or insights, because they figure no one will challenge them. Of course, everyone puts
“strategic thinker” on their Linked In profile. The problem I see is that a generation of Brand Leaders
have not been properly trained and it’s starting to show. For the past 20 years, companies have said
“on the job” training is good enough. But now the lack of training is starting to show up. The mis-use
of these words can be linked to the lack of understanding of the fundamentals of marketing.
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2. Here are the 10 words mis-used and
even abused by Marketers.
1. Relevant
When I was running a marketing department, I jokingly banned this word “relevant” because it was so abused. I
found that when a marketer would say “we need to make sure it’s relevant”, the room would go silent. Then
there’s a pause and someone would add their own brilliance “yeah, we have to be relevant”. The room
went silent again. So then I would usually ask a simple question “so what do you mean relevant?” and sadly
that question seemed to stump most of my marketers. Relevant has become the marketing equivalent of the
word “nice”, because people say it so much now, they have no clue what they mean by it. My mom and my new
iPhone speakers are both “nice”. Yes, of course, marketing should be relevant. But what exactly do YOU mean
when YOU say the word relevant? When you answer the question, you likely just wrote down something better.
So use that answer, instead of just blindly saying, “We need to be relevant”.
2. Awareness
Just like the word relevant, you’re just forcing me to ask,
“so when we get awareness, what do we get then”. Once
you spend money, you should be able to get awareness–
it’s just a question of how much money you spend. Jeb
Bush just spent $130 Million–everyone knew he was
running. No one voted for him and his awareness did very
little for him. In brand terms, we don’t make any money
from awareness–we only begin to make money as we are
able to move our consumer through the consideration-
search-purchase stage. So, let’s save the word
“Awareness” for the lazy brains.
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The Brand Funnel
Awareness
Familiar
Consider
Purchase
Repeat
Loyal
Unknow
Love
T

3. 3. Brand equity
The term was first coined in the 1980s, as part of the RJR Nabisco take-over when they couldn’t explain why
they were willing to pay a higher price than the pure book value of the assets. The word has strayed since in
two different directions–those like Brand Finance and Interbrand who still use it to correctly attribute it to the
VALUE of the brand and those who mis-use the word when they attribute to the HEALTH of the brand. Where it
gets abused is when it has become a catch-all statement for the “unexplainable”. They’ll say “the final scene of
the TV ad is really
emotional and
should really drive
the equity of this
brand”. We look at
Brand Health and
Brand Wealth
separately and
then use the
model to predict
future success of
the brand. As
Brand Leaders,
it’s actually
important to keep them separate so that the actions you take hit the right spot on keeping your brand healthy
and wealthy. But Brand Equity is about the wealth side, linked to Value.
There are 8 ways to drive Brand Wealth:
1. Premium pricing
2. Trading up on price
3. Lower cost of goods
4. Lower sales and marketing costs
5. Stealing competitive users
6. Getting loyal users to use more
7. Entering new markets
8. Finding new uses for the brand.
Those 8 ways are not ambiguous at all. Do you know which of the 8 you are driving?
4. Target market
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We make brands stronger.
We make brand leaders smarter.
Using LOVE and POWER to drive PROFITS with increased
prices, lower costs, share gains and entering new markets
Price
Costs
Share
Market Size
Premium Price
• Perceived quality allows you to
command price pricing
Trading up/down
• Take loyalists up to a better premium-
priced version of brand
Lower cost of goods
• Economies of scale and use your
power over suppliers.
Efficient marketing
• Higher volume helps spend ratios,
use the media power.
Stealing Share
• Use brand momentum to gain tipping
point.
Higher usage
• Get loyal users to use more, building
routines/rituals.
Enter new markets
• Take brand idea to new products,
getting loyalists to follow.
Find new uses
• Increase the ways that your brand can
fit into the consumers life.
Higher
Margins %
Higher
Volumes
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Brand
Finance

4. I’m in shock at how Marketers list out their target market on the
creative brief. I once read a brief with a target that said “aged 18-65,
new customers, current customers and even employees”. That pretty
much covers everyone but prisoners and tourists.
Realizing not everyone can like you is the first step to focusing
all your attention on those few who can love your brand.
Who wants your brand the most? There are various ways to divide
up the market to identify the most motivated possible audience. Here
are three main ways to segment the market:
• Consumer profiling: Demographics are the easiest way to segment. While some resist demographics, you
will eventually have to put someone in the ad and likely buy media using age. Then add in socio-economic,
geographic, and how they shop. Make the choice to focus on either current or new customers, never both.
Trying to drive penetration and usage at the same time will drain your resources. These are two dramatically
different targets
needing different
messaging, media
and potentially
different product
offerings.
• Consumer Behavior:
Divide the market
based on consumer
need states, purchase
occasions, life stages
or life moments.
Divide the market based on purchase behavior, perceptions or beliefs.
• Consumer Psychographics: Psychographics look at shared common behaviors such as the consumer’s
shared lifestyle, personality, values or attitudes.
Segmentation should force focus. Do not spend tons of money on a segmentation study and then try to figure
out how to go after each segment with a completely different brand message. I have seen Marketer do this and
it is borderline crazy. That is not the right way to use these studies. A brand can only ever have one reputation.
5. Alienate
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Selling
Target
Marketing
Target
Program
Target
Consumer Segmentation
Consumer Profiling
Demographics
Socio-Economic
Geographic/Channels
Consumer Behavior
Lifestyle
Personality
Values
Consumer Psychographics
AttitudesCurrent or New customers
Benefit need states
Purchase occasion
Purchase behavior
Perceptions and beliefs

5. This word drives me bonkers and it seems to be growing or at least I keep hearing it. The best brands have
focus, the worst don’t. The best marketing programs also have focus, and the worst don’t. If you want to be a
great marketer, you must have focus–defined target, positioning, strategies and execution. Stop being worried
and cautious that you alienate older consumers or your current consumers, that you water down your
marketing programs to a degree that we have no clue who you’re talking to or what you’re even saying. As long
as you are staying consistent and true to the brand, no one should be alienated by what you have to say and
who you say it to.
6. Benefits
There’s an old selling expression: “features tell and benefits sell”. But I’m seeing that Marketers have become
so obsessed with shouting their message as loud as they can, most brand communication is wall-to-wall claims
about how great you are. Brand Leaders should be organizing their Customer Value Proposition into rational
and emotional benefits. What I recommend you do is list out the brand features and put yourself in the shoes of
your consumer and ask “what do I get?” (for rational benefits) and “how does that make me feel?” (for the
emotional benefits). Your brand’s communication should be a combination of the two.
I have mapped out 9 functional consumer need states to help you understand the potential spaces your
brand can play in:
I have also mapped out 8 emotional consumer need states to help you understand the various emotional
spaces your brand can play in:
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Functional and Emotional Need States
ctional
d States
otional
ed States
Makes you smarterWorks Better
Helps
your
family
Helps you be
healthier
Sensory
Appeal
Simplifies
your life
Saves
you
money
Experience
Curious for
knowledge
Sense of
optimism
Stay in
control
Feel
comfortable
Feel
myself
Feel liked
Feel
free
Get
noticed
Stay Connected

6. These need states mean something different for each category, but should be a good starting point for your
brand to brainstorm specific words that fit your own brand situation.
7. Brief
It’s called a brief, because it’s…BRIEF. I saw a creative brief last year that was 8 pages long. And even that
length, I couldn’t find one benefit or one consumer insight. Every brief should be one page maximum. Simple
rules for writing a smart Creative Brief:
1. Make sure you have a tight target: Spreading your resources
against a target so broad, everyone will think your message is
for someone else. Target the people who are the most motivated
by what you do best, and you will make it feel personal and
specific. The best thing a brand can do is make the consumer
think, “This is for me”.
2. Talk benefits not features: Always talk about what the
consumers get or how they will feel, to motivate consumers to
buy. Do not just yell features at the consumer.
3. Drive one objective at a time: Focus on getting consumers to
do only one thing at a time whether you want them to see, think, feel or do. Force yourself to make a choice
and link with the brand strategy.
4. Drive one main message at a time: If you put so many messages, consumers will just see and hear a
cluttered mess. They will not know what you stand for, and you will never build a reputation for anything.
Use the brand’s Big Idea to simplify and organize the brand messaging.
5. Connect with consumers where they are most likely to engage with the brand story: While efficient
media is important, focusing solely on efficiency and ROI might lead to staying beneath the consumer’s
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States
tional
d States
Helps
your
family
Sensory
Appeal
Saves
you
money
Experience
Curious for
knowledge
Sense of
optimism
Stay in
control
Feel
comfortable
Feel
myself
Feel liked
Feel
free
Get
noticed
Stay Connected
Agoodbriefshouldbebrief,notlong!

7. radar. Consumers hear 7,000 efficiently placed messages a day, and quickly reject boring messages all day
long. You need to stand out from the crowd to engage consumers.
Before touching pen to paper on the brief, here are the 7 questions you have to answer first, which outlines the
Brand Communications Plan:
1. Who is in the consumer target?
2. What are we are selling?
3. Why should they believe us?
4. What is the organizing Big Idea?
5. What do we want the advertising to do?
6. What do we want people to think, feel or do?
7. Where will you deliver the message?
Take all the work the strategic homework you developed through the Brand Communications Plan, and begin to
populate the 12 questions of the Creative Brief:
8. Brand
Too many companies have now separate Brand from Product marketing, especially on the Master
Brand type companies. The “Brand” department handles PR, brand advertising, websites and
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We make brands stronger.
We make brand leaders smarter.
Creative Brief
1. Why are we Advertising?
2. What’s the consumer problem we
are addressing?
3. Who are you talking to?
4. Consumer Insights
5. What does our consumer think now?
6. What do you want your consumer to
see/think/feel/do?
7. What should we tell them?
8. Why should they believe us?
9. Brand Positioning Statement
10.Tone and Manner
11.Media Options
12.Mandatories
1
6
2
3
4
5
7
1
1
1
5
5
2
1 4
4
4
31 2
7
3
5
6
6
4
6
Transforming Brand Communications Strategy into a Creative Brief
Who is in the consumer target?
(Who is the most motivated to buy what you do?)
What are we are selling?
(What is your main benefit (rational/emotional)?)
Why should they believe us?
(Support points to back up what you say)
What is your organizing Big Idea?
(What is the Soul or DNA for the brand?)
What do we need the advertising to do?
(Strategic Choices)
What do want people to think, feel or do?
(Desired Response)
Where will you deliver the message?
(Media Plan)
Brand Communications Strategy

8. events. The “product” department handles new products, pricing, distribution, and product-oriented or
promotion-oriented advertising. Brand and Product should NEVER be separated. It’s crazy. Our
definition of a brand: “A Brand is a unique idea, perceived in the minds and hearts of the consumer,
consistently delivered by the experience, creating a bond, power and profit, beyond what the product
itself could achieve.” To have a successful brand, you need to connect with consumers based on a
BIG IDEA for your brand and then line up the 5 connectors (promise, story, innovation, purchase
moment and experience)
9. New Media
New Media has been around 15-20 years old now. I’m not sure I hear the term “new media” on Mad
Men when they talk TV ads, but that’s how crazy it sounds at this point. A better way to look at
today’s Media is to manage all 5 types: Paid, Earned, Search, Social and Home media. Paid is what
we think of the traditional media (TV, Print, OOH, Radio and Digital options). With EARNED media,
you need to create and manage the news cycle with mainstream news, expert reviews and blogs.
SEARCH Engine Optimization balances earned, key words and paid search. SOCIAL is about
engaging users where they are expressing themselves through sharing and influencing. HOME
media is where you host your website where you can use as a source of information, influence or
even closing the sale.
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We make brands stronger.
We make brand leaders smarter.
Consumer
Social Media Home PageEarned Media SearchPaid Media In-store MediaExperiential
Make brand
newsworthy
to help
decisions.
Enlist lovers
as advocates
to influence
others.
Tell brand story
in own-able,
breakthrough,
moving way.
Help
consumers
make smarter
decisions.
Knowledge,
influence to
close the sale
or sell brand.
Bring brand to
life to replicate
ideal brand
experience
Manage
consumer
through entire
purchase cycle.
Big
Idea
The Big Idea organizes how the brand shows up through all media choice
The
Brand

9. 10. Strategic
To me, the difference between a strategic thinker and a non-strategic thinker is whether you see
questions first or answers first. Strategic Thinkers see “what if” questions before they see solutions.
They map out a range of decision trees that intersect and connect by imagining how events will play
out. They reflect and plan before they act. They are thinkers and planning who can see connections.
Non Strategic Thinkers see answers before questions. They get to answers quickly, and will get
frustrated in the delays of thinking. They think doing something is better than doing nothing at all.
They opt for action over thinking. They are impulsive and doers who see tasks. They are frustrated
by strategic thinkers. But to be a great marketer, you must be a bit of a chameleon. While pure
strategy people make great consultants, I wouldn’t want them running my brand. They’d keep
analyzing things to death, without ever taking action. And while tactical people get stuff done, it might
not be the stuff we need done. I want someone running my brand who is both strategic and non-
strategic, almost equally so. You must be able to talk with both types, at one minute debating
investment choices and then be at a voice recording deciding on option A or B. You need to make
tough choices but you also have to inspire all those non-strategic thinkers to be great on your brand
instead of being great on someone else’s brand.
It is OK to use these words. Just make sure you use them properly.
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10. New book,
coming soon!!!
“The Beloved Brands Playbook”
I will show you everything you need to know to be a smart,
disciplined and passionate Brand Leader, as you pursue
brand love in today’s cluttered brand world.
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The Beloved
Brands Playbook
How to be a smart, disciplined and passionate Brand Leader,
as you pursue brand love in today’s cluttered brand world.
Graham Robertson
The voice of today’s Brand Leader
Define
the
Brand
Think
Strategically
Big
Idea
The total Brand Management approach.
Analyze. Think. Define. Plan. Execute.
Process
Graphic
Vision Analysis
Key Issues
Strategies
Execution
• Advertising
• In-Store
• Innovation
• Consumers
• Category
• Channels
• Competitors
• Brand
Values, Goals
• Experience
Brand Plan
Create Brand Plans
Inspire
creative
execution
Analyze
performance
Sm
art
Creative
Ideas

11. Beloved Brands: Who are we?
At Beloved Brands, we will make your brand stronger and your brand leaders smarter. We lead
workshops to define your brand, helping you uncover a unique, own-able Brand Positioning
Statement and an organizing Big Idea that transforms your brand’s DNA into a consumer-centric
and winning brand reputation. We lead workshops to build a strategic Brand Plan that will optimize
your resources and motivates everyone that touches the brand to follow the plan. We coach on
Marketing execution, helping build programs that create a bond with your consumers, to ensure
your investment drives growth on your brand. We will build a Brand Management Training Program,
so you can unleash the full potential of your Marketing team, enabling them to contribute smart and
exceptional Marketing work that drives brand growth. We cover strategic thinking, analytics, brand
planning, brand positioning, creative briefs, customer marketing and marketing execution.
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12. Beloved Brands Training program
At Beloved Brands, we can build a Brand Management Training Program, to unleash the full
potential of your Marketing team
1. How to think strategically: We believe that Strategic Thinking is an essential foundation, to help
Marketers ask big questions that challenge and focus brand decisions. We teach brand leaders
to think strategically. We show them how to ask the right questions before seeing solutions, how
to map out a range of decision trees that intersect and connect by imagining how events will play
out. We take them through the 7 elements of good strategy: vision, opportunity, focus, speed,
early win, leverage and gateway. We use forced choice in each model to help the Marketers
make focused decisions. We teach the value of asking good questions, using four interruptive
questions to help frame your brand’s strategy, looking at your competitive position, your brand’s
core strength, the connectivity with your consumer and the internal situation your brand faces.
2. Write smarter Brand Plans: A good Brand Plan provides a road map for everyone in the
organization to follow: Sales, R&D, Agencies and future Marketers on the brand. We demonstrate
how to write each component of the Brand Plan, looking at brand vision, purpose, values, goals,
key Issues, strategies and tactics. We provide definitions and examples to inspire Marketers on
how to write each component. We provide a full mock brand plan, with a framework for you to
use on your own brand. We offer a workshop that allows Marketers to try out the concept on
their own brand with hands on coaching with feedback to challenge them. At each step, we
provide the ideal format presentation to management. We offer unique formats for a Plan on a
Page and long-range Strategic Road Maps. We show how to build Marketing Execution plans as
part of the overall brand plan, looking at a Brand Communications Plan, Innovation Plan, In-store
plan and Experiential plan. This gives the strategic direction to everyone in the organization.
3. Create winning Brand Positioning Statements: A winning brand positioning statement sets up
the brand’s external communication and internally with employees who deliver that promise. We
show how to write a classic Brand Positioning statement with four key elements: target market,
competitive set, main benefit and reason to believe (RTBs). We introduce the Consumer Benefit
ladder, that starts with the consumer target, with insights and enemies. We layer in the brand
features. Then get in the consumers shoes and ask “what do I get” to find the functional benefits
and ask “how does this make me feel” to find the emotional benefits. We introduce a unique tool
that provide the top 50 potential functional and top 40 emotional benefits to help Marketers stretch
their minds yet narrow in on those that are most motivating and own-able for the brand. We then
show how to build an Organizing Big Idea that leads every aspect of your brand, including
promise, story, innovation, purchase moment and experience.
4. Write smarter Creative Briefs: The Creative Brief frames the strategy and positioning so your
Agency can creatively express the brand promise through communication. Marketing Execution
must impact the brand’s consumers in a way that puts your brand in a stronger business
position. The Creative Brief is the bridge between the brand strategy and the execution. Through
our Brand Positioning workshop, you will have all the homework on the brand needed to set up
the transformation into a succinct 1-page Creative Brief that will focus, inspire and challenge a
creative team to make great work. The hands-on Creative Brief workshop explores best in class
methods for writing the brief’s objective, target market, consumer insights, main message
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13. stimulus and the desired consumer response. Brand Leaders walk away from the session with a
ready-to-execute Creative Brief.
5. Be smarter at Brand Analytics: We show how to build a deep-dive business review on the
brand, looking at the category, consumers, competitors, channels and brand. We start with the
smart analytical principles that will challenge your thinking and help you gain more support by
telling analytical stories through data. We teach you the steps to complete a deep-dive Business
Review that will help assess the health and wealth of the brand, looking at the category,
consumer, competitors, channels and brand. We show key formulas you need to know for
financial analysis. We teach how to turn your analysis into a presentation for management,
showing the ideal presentation slide format. We provide a full mock business review, with a
framework and examples of every type of analysis, for you to use on your own brand. We show
you how to turn your analytical thinking into making projections by extrapolating data into the
future.
6. Get better Marketing Execution: Brand Leaders to judge and decide on execution options that
break through to consumers and motivates them to take action. We provide Brand Leaders with
tools and techniques for judging communication concepts from your agencies, as well as
processes for making decisions and providing effective feedback. We talk about the crucial role
of the brand leader in getting amazing marketing execution for your brand. We teach how to
make marketing decisions with the ABC’S, so you can choose great ads and reject bad ads
looking at tools such as Attention (A), Branding (B), Communication (C) and Stickiness (S). We
teach how to provide copy direction that inspires and challenges the agency to deliver great
execution. We also talk about how to be a better client to motivate and inspire your agency.
7. How to build Media Plans: We look at media as an investment and as a brand growth strategy,
exploring various media options—both traditional and on-line. We provide Brand Leaders with
new ways to think about media to be able to drive long term growth and profits for your brand.
We bring a more consumer centric approach to media, aligning the media choices to where your
consumer will be most likely to engage with your brand message. Media must change the
consumer’s behavior so they think, feel or act in a way that tightens the brand’s bond with
consumers and gives the brand to have more power and profit. We show where media fits into
creative process. We look at all the types of Media through the lens of the Brand Leader, with
advice on how to use traditional media options, such as TV, radio, newspaper, out-of-home and
Modern media options such as digital, social and search.
8. Winning the Purchase Moment: Brand Leaders need to know how to move consumers on the
path to purchase, helping consumers to test, decide and then experience the brand so that they
try, repeat and become loyal brand fans. We provide brand leaders with analytics, planning and
decision making tools to help their instincts and judgement for moving consumers to purchase.
Complete in-store business review, looking at categories, consumer shopping behavior,
competitors, customers and the overall brand performance. We teach the basics of customer
marketing planning, identifying the target consumer, in-store messages, strategies, tactics and
project management. We look at the available tools for customer marketing including pricing,
promotions, retail shelf management, merchandising and operational execution.
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