Is Brand Relevant to SME’s

Aligning brand with market opportunity amplifies your businesses competitive advantage to a qualified buyer whilst providing clarity and focus.

The market, any market, has never been more crowded, and the brands competing for our attention have never been more numerous. The great news is, as an SME, you don’t need celebrity endorsement or a massive marketing and advertising budget to get cut through. A well-defined brand personality, clarity around the avatar of your ideal consumer and minimal, if any, spend on social media can have significant results.

In her compelling book, Of Gold and Dust, Australian jewellery designer Samantha Wills walks us through the story of the country girl who moves to the big city and starts what would go on and become a global fashion brand (Samantha Wills) on the dining room table of her small Sydney apartment.

At one point in the book, Samantha tells the story of a pitch she did to surf brand Icon, who had engaged her to create a surf jewellery product range. The pitch worked a treat, and the brand strategy she employed was brilliant.

She proposed that rather than just be a generic product in a surf shop, the distinctive jewellery needed to break out and present itself to the buyer. She says in the book, “being a brand is about communicating who you are and what you stand for; when a brand tries to please everyone, they end up appealing to no one, because there is nothing that defines it.”

Her pitch to develop the brand had two components.

1. Icon in-store surf jewellery would become Classic77 as a homage to their history; and

2. Icon jewellery would concurrently evolve from a surf jewellery product into an urban accessories brand.

This essentially took a generic product offering and created two distinct brands. The brilliance of this strategy was that in the Icon surf shops, the Classic77 brand would build a following in its own right, and the second brand strategy would open the door to a non-competitive accessories brand.

How might you reimagine your brand to ensure it is clearly defined, can be communicated with clarity and appeals directly to your buyer avatar?