Brand Butler is about offering tools and services to help consumers make the most of their daily lives. It builds good karma with your core products and services branding.

Brand Butler is not simply about offering tried-and-tested customer service and support functions, or typical online features such as price-lookup or anything facilitating ecommerce activities.

Here are a few of the many Brand Butler examples in the Trendwatching article:

• Nike’s True City iPhone app aims to give consumers ‘insider’ information on six European cities, while also allowing users to share their own tips and delivering exclusive Nike offers and information;
• Smirnoff held a series of master-classes for men wanting to become ‘Modern Gentlemen’. Three complimentary classes were delivered in London to a limited number of guests, focusing on classic cocktail making, style consulting and grooming;
• Personal care brand Charmin offer New Yorkers access to free, clean and comfortable restrooms in Times Square during the festive period each year;
• Beck’s Gig Finder app helps users to find local music gigs. The app’s map and GPS interface allow users to see where he or she is in relation to the gigs;
• Adidas created a concept Runbase store in Tokyo, which offers showers, locker rooms and weekly workshops and events. Customers also have the opportunity to design their own shoes and rent running gear;
• Taxi2 is a cab sharing initiative from Virgin Atlantic. Open to passengers of any airline, users can log on to the Taxi2 site, input their flight details, and the system matches them with suitable cab-sharing companions; and
• US based Intelligentsia Coffee began offering customers the opportunity to taste, test and learn about the art behind coffee brewing. Customers can visit the company’s lab for lessons in at-home brewing, latte art, milk foaming and espresso tasting.

What Brand Butler tools and services can your company offer consumers?

Full story at Trendwatching »

How much value do companies really derive from cultivating brand names? According to Aswath Damodaran, professor of finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business, a brand’s value is simply about the extent to which it can sell its goods and services at a premium price.

Damodaran says that many marketers mistakenly attribute product quality, styling, service and reliability to a brand name’s value, when all brand value ultimately comes down to is pricing power.

“If you as a company tell me that you have a brand name, I’m going to ask you a question: ‘Do you have the power to charge a higher price for the same product?’” Damodaran said, “If your answer is no, I don’t think you have a brand. You may think you do, but I don’t think your brand has any value.”

To prove the value of brand names, Damodaran compared two companies making similar products: Coca-Cola and Cott, makers of RC Cola. “Soda is water with a bunch of sugar and a lot of crap thrown in. You can put whatever you want on the outside of the can, but there is really no difference between a cola and another cola. You may say that Coca-Cola tastes different — that’s what 100 years of playing with your mind does to you,” he stated. The cola business, then, is all about branding, not the product, he stated.

Damodaran provided four insights into the core of branding that every marketer should keep in mind when pursuing a valuable brand name.

1. A brand is the most sustainable competitive advantage.
2. Luck and serendipity are just as important as advertising.
3. Brand value is an illusion.
4. Even valuable brand names lose value.

Do you have the power to charge a higher price for the same product?

Full story at Mashable »