Today is the age of brand building: businesses have shifted from simply marketing to trying to get consumers to associate their brands with a specific emotion or feeling to evolve into a "living brand." This begs the question: what is it that will elevate a brand from Good to GREAT—possessing the power to represent not only their values but also people's lifestyle and ideology? At its core, brand building comes down to the ability to inspire people. Once people are inspired, they recognize the value of what the brand stands for and are motivated to support the brand by purchasing its products and echoing its values. A component of a living brand then includes having this group of consumers, known as Brand Ambassadors.
HOW DO PEOPLE PERCEIVE YOUR BRAND?
The Brand Perception Level Index, or BPLI, is one of BRANDi's models from the book BRANDiNG 4.0. Designed to measure the level of consumer awareness of a brand, the BPLI consists of a scale ranging from 1 to 9, starting from Awareness of the brand at level 1 to becoming a Brand Ambassador at level 9.
Awareness of the brand simply means knowing the brand exists. Exposed to the brand more often, consumers move on to the Familiarity level. Once they know more about the brand's values, they will develop into the Association level. Their association of negative or a positive feeling toward the brand here will determine their Preference, where they decide whether the brand shares their values. They then decide whether to support the brand in the Consideration level. Then comes the Decision level, where they purchase from the brand. If they enjoy its products and services, they will likely develop brand loyalty, advancing them to the Promise level.
HOW COMPLETE STRANGERS TRANSFORM TO AMBASSADORS
All this being said, the way to really elevate the brand into a living one and produce Brand Ambassadors, however, is through Inspiration, the eighth level of the index. Being a Brand Ambassador includes advocating for a brand with which you share values. For consumers to become one, they must genuinely believe in what the brand stands for, and for a brand to accomplish that, it must be able to inspire consumers to see the worth of the things they value. Without this element, consumers will not be able to transcend into the last level of the BPLI model.
Unlike the earlier epochs where advertisements about the product and service's qualities would suffice, today, the market is filled with plenty of similarities. Consumers no longer choose what to buy based on the product's utility or what the product and service could do for them, but rather on what value it could give them. This new phase of the unusual business world has forced brands to adapt into living brands that will not die off with rapid market changes in today's VUCA world.
If you are interested in inspiring your customers and creating living brands, as a brand-centric management consultancy, BRANDi is always eager to collaborate with you to elevate your consumers into Brand Ambassadors.
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