If You Stop Moving Forward.

📖That’s why branding is necessary_Jeon Woo-sung

When past glory is perceived not as confidence but as self-indulgence and criticism. When a brand becomes faint, needing to be pulled from the back of people’s memories. The career identity of a 7-year veteran employee suffering from intermittent burnout is similar to a malnourished, slender tree swaying wildly in a storm.

In cutthroat competition, the brands that ultimately win over customers have clear reasons. Perhaps it’s the brands that take risks even when it’s too much, stubbornly persuade the boss in the end, and far from despairing at the bitter taste of rejection, hold hands even tighter among themselves, and consistently reach out to customers even if they don’t immediately get a hold, that emerge victorious.

I wish all leaders (provided they create a proactive environment for implementation and genuinely communicate with their teams) would read this book. What’s important? Really… What’s important!!!

📝 Thoughts and Sentences I Liked

pg.16

Trendy (following trends) marketing activities don’t help branding much. Trends are always something to chase. So, rather than leading them, most are forced to follow. Instead, a brand should find its own differentiated marketing communication ‘method.’ This, of course, is also within the realm of branding.

pg.21

Branding is the act of defining a brand to avoid remaining just a product or producer, creating and communicating its unique brand image and identity to people, and employing different communication methods in that process. It is also the act of clearly establishing one’s brand identity to create decision-making guidelines, and ultimately, it can be said to be the work of increasing brand value through all these activities.

pg.36

What was the birth process of this brand?

Why do people use this brand?

What problems is this brand currently facing?

If this brand didn’t exist, what would people find most inconvenient?

pg.55

First, after much deliberation, we set the brand mission as “Guide to Better Choice,” which means “helping people make better choices.” And we decided to focus on ‘storytelling’ through writing as the method to convey this to customers.

pg.78

So, is branding possible with just events? Events are the most common marketing method. However, most events often end with just temporarily attracting customers. Therefore, as in the example mentioned earlier, we aimed to engrave the brand’s presence by paying attention to every detail—the content of the event, its execution, and even the announcement of winners—and conducting it in a way different from others.

pg.91

Most e-commerce service apps send messages to users several times a day. Discounts, discounts, and more discounts. We naturally assumed push messages for e-commerce apps should be like that, and 29CM was not much different at first. (Omission) We considered that app push messages are not just for advertising, but rather the brand initiating a conversation to communicate with customers, and if so, emotional connection with customers would actually be possible.

pg.147

Isn’t the lamb skewer market too small compared to other meat markets? But Tsingtao, true to its Chinese beer identity, relentlessly focused only on lamb skewers. Rather than trying to satisfy everyone, it concentrated on one sharp point and boldly discarded the rest. As a result, it succeeded in creating a framework where Tsingtao automatically comes to mind when one thinks of lamb skewers.

pg.151

Furthermore, I strongly wanted to convey through the brand book that branding is not just a marketing domain. I wanted to show that branding influences the setting of standards for everything from their service methods to a single menu button in the app itself, the tone of language used when customer service responds to customers, and even the company’s internal HR policies. This is because, even if everyone internally has different roles, customers externally ultimately perceive it as a single brand.

pg.157

Doing branding well means creating sustained results rather than short-term achievements. In that process, there can be success stories and failure stories. However, if you stop moving forward because of a failure in one project, that brand is bound to be forgotten in people’s memories. Whether big or small, a success or close to a failure, it is important to consistently continue various activities.

pg.160

Like a cyclical structure, successful branding strengthens an organization, which leads to the securing of good talent, which in turn can lead to good performance, and that performance further grows the company and organization. Ultimately, brand value is corporate value.

pg.171

Above all, the most important attitude when branding is consistency. The initial start may be small and insignificant. But persistence has a surprisingly strong power. Unfortunately, I often witness projects ending simply because the justification and persuasiveness to continue them weaken due to the results of the first one or two attempts. Branding is about touching people’s hearts. That cannot be achieved in just one or two tries. If you consistently appeal to people with a consistent appearance or message, regardless of what you do, their perception of that brand will surely change little by little. Let’s not dwell on one or two results and miss that opportunity.

pg.182

All activities are accompanied by metrics. It’s natural to have metrics because standards are needed for evaluation. However, the problem is the phenomenon of getting bogged down solely in numerical metrics. If you get too caught up in numbers to achieve target figures, the deliberation on how to differentiate the brand can easily be postponed. It’s better to judge the brand’s direction by observing customer reactions rather than just numbers.