Brand-building for Competitive Advantage

A strong brand is especially important for small businesses, which are unlikely to have the spending power or marketing resources available to larger competitors. The smaller business can play to the strengths of its brand relationship with its customers to distinguish it from other businesses in the marketplace, and so level the playing field.

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Videos

The Perfect Match: Employer Branding & The Bullseye Customer                                                                                                                      How can the ambitious employer attract the best talent to their

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Why Marketing Matters

Marketing Matters, is a new series from The Marketing Institute of Ireland, featuring perspectives from the most senior and accomplished marketers in Ireland.

In this issue, Gerard Tannam of Islandbridge Brand Development discusses his career, the challenges facing marketers today, his advice on how to be a great marketer and his favourite marketing campaign of all time.

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Refresh Your Brand

Every business has a brand, strong or weak. Which is yours?

Would you swap your regular toothpaste for another? Or change accountant on a whim?

Probably not.

We all choose products and services we trust, understand and relate to. Your business is no different.
You should tackle your brand if you have difficulty in winning or keeping customers (or even attracting their attention in the first place). You should take action if you’re always losing out to second-rate competitors or have customers who can’t see what makes you different from the others.

Most of all, you should grasp the nettle if you’re constantly being beaten down on price (for truly strong brands, pricing is rarely an issue).

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Launch Your Brand

A great brand helps you build a powerful and enduring relationship with your customer and provides a solid basis for a successful business.

Back in the days when Kevin Costner was a coming force in Hollywood, he made the film ‘Field of Dreams’ in which he played Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella, a driven individual who is inspired to build a baseball field on his farm when he hears a voice in his corn field tell him, “If you build it, he will come.”

But as an ambitious business-owner, you can’t afford to simply build your business and hope that customers will come.

Instead, you need to carefully plot your position in your market, determine why customers will buy from you (rather than from your competitors or not at all) and plan how you intend to influence them to choose you.

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