آژانس تبلیغاتی بادکوبه - Badkoobeh Advertising Agency

A look into one of the newest model of brand making in Iran.
How to treat unsolved disorders of our own brands.
Has it ever happened to you to feel that your business is not going well and you do not know exactly what the main problem is? Recently, a very specialized clinic for brands in our country is just established to analyse the creation of brands and the brand treatment. This clinic tries to improve the health level of a brand in 5 stages. When the owners of a brand do not have a good feeling about their business they can come to this clinic like a sick person who visits a doctor. First the brand is just examined for a short time and then after filling some forms and answering some questions, the specialist who is a brand strategist tries to give his/her opinion about the brand. If he/she can’t understand the problem of the brand in simple examinations, we need more complex procedure; for example, a doctor in this case needs MRI or CT scan tests. In this clinic, these are done by market investigations which specifically try to analyse brand elements. Finally, the results of investigations and surveys will be sent to the specialist or strategist to form a new prescription for the case.
 

Alireza Safari, a specialist on brand strategy and the manager of brand clinic of Badkoobeh Agency, elaborates the model used in this clinic:
Brand & Marketing Solution Model is designated to offer marketing perspectives and brand making for Badkoobeh’s customers. This model is just trying to give solutions and it is not involved in implementation. Of course, the model, in a point, is just led to implementation and then after that other parts of the organization take the implementation duties.

Pathology and brand treatment in 5 steps

Safari describes the above model in these words:
This model has 5 stages. The first step is forming the future. We in this stage form the future of the brand. Here, we ask the customer to put aside the limits and imagine that he has selected the best marketing and the best advertising choices and the situation has been formed in the best possible way; in this situation, how it sees itself? We try to extract the childhood dreams of a brand then we write everything about these extractions and discoveries and considerations. This process is so time-consuming; but it helps us to know what share and sales of the market the brand owner considers for himself in the next coming year. The brand owner in this session expresses his wishes. Therefore, this is much bigger than the goal. The goal should be chosen wisely, but the dreams need not to be chosen wisely。It is just enough to be measureable that it should be measureable and it should include details. In other words, craving for higher goals would not cause any kind of problem. Anything that is just created in this stage will lead the brand to become that. If we do not create any future the brand will not see its dreams. We believe that the speeches written on a paper to form the future are so strong. It is not possible for a brand to see more success that what is written on a paper in this session. Therefore, we let the brand crave more and more. Knowing the brand owner’s dreams helps us to define the strategy and the creation of DNA.

The second stage is Parallel Exploration Process. In this stage, we investigate the brand environment and the brand itself from internal and external views. The touching points of the brand, Organizational identity, competitive efficiencies, the customer analysis and etc. are things that we put under close considerations. We, in this stage, do both market research and marketing research. Meanwhile, there is no kind of differences for these two in Iran at present. Market research is about market and market big players, competitors, importers, distributors, retailers and other shareholders in the market. But marketing research is about those who make this market, it means customers, users’ behavior, purchasing behavior, customer’s feedback, managing contacting the customer and etc. all information related to internal and external atmosphere of a brand are just gathered and sent to SWOT matrix. In our country, SWOT is considered as a list of strengths and weaknesses and opportunities and threats. But in Europe, there is another vision about this. The output of SWOT should help us with 4-5 strong strategies it should say to us if we have a strength and there is an opportunity out of the organization, we can take this golden opportunity by applying a possible strategy. Otherwise, we have a useless list that can’t help at all. We are going to choose an academic outlook to SWOT model and use the international models. This method is common among foreign brands, and every brand analyses its situation by this model. The reason to use the word Parallel is that internal analysis and external analysis are done at the same time and the outputs of both are sent to SWOT and the output of SWOT starts the next stage where the brand strategy making team starts to create the Genetics and DNA of the brand.
The third strategy is defining the brand strategy as a strategy Ideation
In this stage, brand strategist based on the information from a market survey define the core point or the root of the brand. things like brand position in the market based on the addressed group of that brand by using positioning techniques and message platform, character of the brand, strategic touching points and communicative strategies are just defined. On the way of brand strategy creation the created future is just used as a picture which leads us.

The next stage is Incarnation stage. In Incarnation process, the identity of the brand is just defined. In this stage, the vision style and the vision identity and the speech style and identity are just considered, we use these two foundations to create the brand integral identity. The brand integral identity is just defined based on the strategy designation which was defined in the previous stage. This stage of brand architecture is just started and then it continues to Logo structure, electronic and publishing materials, official papers, uniform, color, smell , …. (For all touching points an implementing instruction is just written in this stage to avoid diversion from the accepted policy and strategy. Sometimes the touching points are more than 500.
In the last step, all implementation parts of the company will start to work together. An integral communicative program is written for marketing which helps all different parts of the organization start to work based on that.
Future creation; the unfound ring of brand making in Iranian style
This brand making specialist describes that our look to brand making comes from a different foundation and this is one the competitive efficiencies of Badkoobeh advertising agency that this agency instead of involving itself in business and sales part try to understand the weak points and treatments of the brand and the solutions provided are all to form the brand strategic goal. By this look no medium is just suggested to customers unless it is not on the same side of the brand goals. If I want to say it more clear, giving suggestion for advertising would not benefit the sales of the medium. We are trying that the identity of advertising agency would not be mixed up with media agency.
Usually, Iranian advertising agencies from a vast possible integral communications of marketing just use advertising and it is just limited to Televison but we in Badkoobeh are seeking to affect things by science, experience and creativity. This model with its clinical look will gift a communicative activity to the customer which is completely based on brand strategy. That strategy which is based on experts’ investigations and internal and external considerations of that brand and all this process is based on future making that is just started on the first day with a customer. After finishing all the above stages, we just come to define an integral communicative marketing program or IMC plan.
Safari added: the differentiation of this model with others first of all is in future making stage. We believe that future making is the main foundation of defining brand strategy and if it is not implemented, no model can work. The second is all these stages are never considered integrally and together in advertising agencies in Iran and they are just used as a part. For example, a company is just doing marketing research and another one is making TV advertisements. A clinical and expert look to the Genes and DNA of brands fundamentally and scientifically and the implementation of that look in all communicative activities is just a point that is left aside by other companies.
He describes the target customers of this model: this clinic can accept any brands which is trying and considering to get better or maybe that brand is not working well right now. But every brand cannot be taken to this atmosphere; because some good customers or patients do not listen well to the physician and they follow what they think. Brands sometimes should let an advisor plan for them. Most of the brand owners claim that they are familiar with these stages. Of course, this is not just a claim and many managers know these stages because of their experiences and they can gain their benefits from the present unstable market. What we do here is that we organize their thoughts integrally. Sometimes brand performance is good but it can be better. It just needs some consultations. 
At last, this specialist emphasizes: the process of contacting customer is divided in three parts. We are the customer’s mother or his/her nurse or his/her servant. When we are the servant we listen to the brand completely when we are the nurse we perform what the customer asks based on what the strategist says. But if we are the mother of the brand whatever we say the brand should accept. This model works for the brands that they listen well and they let the consulter play the mother role for them. Otherwise, the present collision will make the model not working. Iranian market still does not have strong belief in this academic model and it needs some time that managers concentrate on this field.