Welcome to the Brand Strategy Guru newsletter, an occasional publication rather than a regular one.

This time around we've got a round-up of the latest brand stories in the news, a few reflections on the brand business and entrepreneurship from me, and some news about my association with the Entrepreneurs' Business Academy.

As ever, please drop me a line with your views, I'd be pleased to hear from you.

Surviving and thriving: a personal view

The most profound thing I've learned about business, since setting out on my own path five years ago (blimey, it seems so much longer), is that surviving and thriving is a psychological and philosophical challenge, rather than a transactional or procedural one.

Of course, you have to have a sound business idea, and get all the disciplines of business in order, from funding to cost control, and from marketing to people management. But I think these are less significant to success or failure than something simpler and rather more existential: the question of attitude.

To be clear: I don't believe in the simplistic notion that 'positivity' or 'self-belief' will conquer all. In fact positivity and an over-reliance on self-belief can sometimes blind you to the brutal truth. You only have to look at deluded entrants on Dragon's Den to know that believing something is going to be a great success doesn't necessarily make it so.
I'm a total rationalist but nevertheless think there is something deeper than skill and aptitude which helps some people to thrive in business. There are many aspects to this 'something', but in my experience it comes down to three distinct elements:

1) Non-self-limitation
The best piece of advice I was ever given is: "do not limit your own ambition, because there are plenty of others always ready to do that for you." So 'non-self-limitation' is not so much about 'positive thinking' but more about avoiding being dragged into negative thinking and self-doubt. No-one can ever be free from self-doubt, but its impact upon you depends on your response to it.

2) Openness
Be open to new ideas, new experiences, to advice and criticism, even to fear and anxiety. Without openness of this kind I think any entrepreneur will be severely hampered.

3) Persistence
Entrepreneurship is a tough road, and there are so many places along the way at which one can lose heart, lose sight of the vision, or just run out of steam. The successful people usually seem to be those who maintain the push, day after day, month after month.

Of course, there is also a need for skills, some luck and so on. But above all other success factors are these powerful three: non-self-limitation, openness, and persistence. Would you agree?

Joining James Caan's Entrepreneurs' Business Academy

I am delighted to join the team of Millionaire Mentors for the Entrepreneurs' Business Academy with Bev James and James Caan! EBA is a one-stop academy for the support and education of entrepreneurs and business owners.

I think the EBA is a really positive environment for entrepreneurs of all kinds, run by experienced people and providing a strong set of learning opportunities, information, mentoring and support. I wish I'd had access to this kind of service when I started out, and I'm thrilled to be part of it now. You can find out more at www.the-eba.com

The next EBA 'Total Business Mastery' One Day Seminar, featuring James Caan and the Millionaire Mentors will be held in central London on Saturday September 25th. These one day events have had superb feedback, and the one-day ticket is just £87.
Full details for online booking are here. I'll be there on 25th, so if you come along do come and say hello.

Building a brand in recession

I was recently asked by James Caan's Entrepreneur's Business Academy to give my personal view on building a brand in a recession. I'd be interested to know if you agree with my top ten tips.

1. Review your authentic purpose
In a recession, by definition, times are tough and challenging. And in such times it's easy for brand owners to get so wrapped up in the gritty day-to-day realities of keeping the business afloat that they can forget the big questions. Going back to the 'purpose' of the brand (asking "why are we doing this?") can be a very good way of focusing on the essentials and the bigger picture. It can be very good for morale too - building a brand is as much a psychological endeavour as anything else.

2. Don't mix up your strategy with your tactics
Strategy is about the long term, where you want the brand to go. Tactics and planning are about how you get there. But many people mix them up, and in the pressure of recession there is even greater temptation to do so. So when the going gets tough my recommendation is to go back to your strategy. Following a purely tactical route is like the tail wagging the dog.

3. Be certain of your positioning
Remember that, whilst there is always room in the market place for something new and different, there isn't much room for things that are the same and imitative. Positioning is about finding a space in people's minds and hearts: a space that (whilst it might overlap the competition) is different enough to be genuinely interesting.

4. Think about putting your prices up
In a recession everybody goes price-cutting crazy, but whilst that will generally give a short term sales boost it can also do long term damage to your brand, dragging you into commodity hell. If your brand really wants to win a place in the psyche of the market place, being cheap isn't necessarily going to help (unless your whole positioning is single-mindedly built on the principle of cheapness). Instead, do a counter-intuitive thought experiment: think to yourself, if my products or service were priced higher rather than lower, what is it about them that would win customers?

5. Market more not less
The convention in recession is to cut marketing budgets. It happens all the time. But marketing efforts will lead you out of the recession. Cutting marketing first is like giving away your shoes! I would never suggest that marketing budgets shouldn't be reviewed and made to work harder for every penny. But don't just slash at them and think you are helping your brand!

6. Remember that facts are dull but stories are thrilling
We are surrounded by data and data bores us! That's the truth. But everybody loves a story. What do you tell your audiences about your products and services? Features and prices (facts) or inspiring stories to fire their imaginations? Great brands are built on story because story speaks to our senses and emotions.

7. Don't just communicate... engage!
It used to be that brands could be built by cleverly communicating (through great advertising for example). But the world has moved on. People want more, demand more now. And what they want is a two-way engagement. They want to have their voices heard and their opinions taken into account. They want to have a conversation with you rather than to be passive recipients of your advertising messages. Open up your approach to really converse, rather than just to talk.

8. Always be authentic
Nobody likes a fibber, or a spinner! And that couldn't be more true than with brands. Arguably the most important thing you can do with your brand is to check its authenticity. Is it based on a truth: something real and robust about the product or the service that will stand up to examination? In recession, when pushed, out of anxiety or desperation to make quick sales, it can be tempting for a business to pretend to be something that it isn't. To promise more than it can deliver. But that's not the way to build a brand. Great brands are built on truth!*
* There is a caveat to this, which is that sometimes great entrepreneurial brands are based on “future truths”, a phrase coined by Tim Smit, founder of The Eden Project, to describe a determination to describe something great whilst still in the act of making it real: an act of faith which has to be followed up by real-world delivery of course.

9. Always be different, never imitate
You can make short to medium term sales through imitation, but you will never build a real brand that way. Work out what it is that makes you different (really different) from your competition and focus on that point of difference. In recession there can be a terrible herd instinct in the marketplace. Businesses fall over each other trying to play it safe. The real brand winners, when the recession ends, will be the ones which have stayed away from the herd and made something special!

10. Don't try to change people's minds
People don't change their minds, views or behaviours very easily. Whilst striving always to be different from your competitors, don't waste time and resource (as so many businesses do) by trying to make people change their minds about something. Too many entrepreneurs think: "if only we could persuade people that little widgets are better than big widgets then we'd make a fortune." But persuasion is not so easy. Much more effective to communicate your point of difference to people pre-disposed to be open to it and interested in it. In other words, find those people who have indicated in some way that they would prefer little widgets to large. Deliver a great experience to these open-minded customers and the word will quickly spread.

Positive reception for Build A Brand In 30 Days

Happily, Build A Brand In 30 Days is proving popular, and has been well received by reviewers. Director magazine called the book: "invaluable for anyone starting a business". Start Your Business magazine said: "A great book for anyone who already has a business or is thinking of starting up, it's also highly useful for those in marketing".

There have been numerous nice reviews on Amazon too which have helped to make it No.1 for 'relevance' and No.2 bestseller under 'small business branding' category.

If you haven't got a copy of Build A Brand In 30 Days yet, and think it might help you develop your brand, then you can buy it direct from me on my website (signed copy), or from Amazon!

News from the East!

I was privileged to have been asked to lead a recent brand strategy project for The Broads national park. My role included the development of a brand positioning platform to provide a consistent set of messages and a strong visual identity for marketing purposes, as well as a foundation for training, quality and other activities. The purpose is to promote The Broads on a national and international stage as a visitor destination, providing a richer-textured brand image than has been the case in the recent past.

To that end the positioning line Britain's Magical Waterland will be used as the basis of an ongoing campaign, and a set of materials has been developed which can be used by any business, organisation or individual to support The Broads. You can find out more about the whole brand programme on the Broads Authority website.

On another Norfolk topic, a wet and windy weekend in mid-June saw the inaugural Hemsby Viking Festival. Despite the weather this was a really special event, organised by an incredibly hard-working bunch of Hemsby people. A couple of thousand people attended over the weekend, and our visiting Vikings of Middle England put on a fantastic living-history experience, creating a Viking village with everything from a chapel to a blacksmith, a Viking surgeon and an armoury.

No Viking festival would be complete without a battle, and we were treated to numerous skirmishes and displays of combat, including a re-enactment of the Battle of Hemsby, in which a Viking earl took control of this piece of Norfolk from the Saxon incumbents.

Rather wonderfully, the first Hemsby Viking Festival was captured for posterity by the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, who filmed the first commercial in their new 'Bring it on’ campaign for Walls during the festival. You can watch this great little ad, featuring Dagmaer (the leader of the Vikings of Middle England) on location at Hemsby Viking Festival, here. There's a longer fun edit version too, definitely worth a watch. And remember… it's all set in Hemsby!

Brand news in brief

> The Generation Game

With the rise in retirement age and the question of how to pay the growing pensions' bill in the headlines recently, growing tension between retired and working populations is a trend that could really impact brands that have positioned themselves with cross-generational appeal, such as Virgin, Levi's, Apple and M&S.
Growing resentment among burdened younger taxpayers towards the older generation who still want to consume hip youthful brands but also be 'old' enough for retirement, is likely to result in creating more emotional distance between the two groups. That means cross-generational branding will be harder to apply, so these brands with currently wide appeal may need to pick a side.

> Let's get together

A growing trend in consumer behaviour for brands to be aware of is that of collaborative consumption. It's a movement promoting a cultural shift towards 'sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping' as detailed in a new book - What's Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, due out in next month. Largely enabled by online and wireless technology, brands such as eBay and Craigslist are already incorporating 'peer-to-peer' exchange, which is changing what and how people consume goods and services. See www.collaborativeconsumption.com for more info.

> No lust for logos

In these frugal times, it seems those who can still afford luxury goods are opting for a discreet version. A Journal of Marketing study examined three categories of luxury goods: designer handbags, men's shoes, and high-end vehicles, and found that many consumers were willing to pay a premium to be understated and have 'quiet' goods with distinctive design or detailing, rather than obvious brand logos.

> Experience counts

Retailers are facing their toughest time in decades to keep customers loyal and spending so new entrants are eschewing typical retail strategies and looking at new ways to stand out from the crowd. Hoping to provide an alternative to supermarket shopping is new grocer Union Market, which opened its doors in Fulham, London last month. It is aiming to be a hybrid of a farmers' market and supermarket, sourcing 80% of its produce from Britain and will also focus on the shopping experience.
The new retail brand is avoiding loyalty cards or other types of data collection in favour of a more old-fashioned shopping experience by respecting customers and not draining them of data via big brother-style intrusive technology. The venue is also chosen to make shopping fun rather than a chore with the first shop being housed in a listed building that was previously an Underground station. www.unionmarket.co.uk

> Are Top Gear's wheels falling off?

Top Gear – the quirky motoring series and one of the BBC's biggest brands – is showing signs of losing its way. In recent series, the format has become tired – with predictable content and contrived banter from the three over-exposed hosts who now play to their TV cartoon characters a bit too much.
However, with Top Gear still being BBC2's biggest show and a lucrative money spinner, any alterations will have to be made with caution.
Media commentators suggest that Top Gear should go back to its roots and reassess what viewers want and like. That could mean evolving the core offering to return with a different format and presenter team. It might need to up the car review content again to please the core petrol-head audience, but ideally without losing the wider appeal it has gained. Even for The Stig, revitalizing the Top Gear brand could be a tricky manoeuvre to pull off.

Sign up to the newsletter

Forwarded this email from a friend? If you would like to sign up to receive your own copy, click here.

Visit the Brand Strategy Guru website

If you are interested in finding out more about all things brand, visit my website here.