What is up brand builder Stephen Houraghan here at BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this
video you're going to learn what brand dilution is so you can get some perspective on exactly
who your brand exists for and let them act as a compass for strategic direction
now if you're new to the channel and you want to build brands that go beyond the visuals using
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button and the notification bell if you want to fast track your results make sure you grab the
pro brand strategy blueprint it's a free download the link is in the description now brand dilution
is not a household term in the realm of branding certainly not like brand positioning or brand
personality or storytelling or anything like that and it really only comes to the surface when a
brand has lost its way but it's important as a professional brand builder that you understand
what brand dilution is so you can avoid the fate of other brands that have lost their way
so what exactly is brand illusion well brand illusion occurs when a brand becomes unfocused
in its offering of products or services to its particular audience now this tends to typically
happen when a brand is trying to expand into a new category and that happens through what's called
brand extension now it's no secret that brands are built on reputation that is what the brand
is essentially when it grows brand equity is growing its reputation and typically brands
grow a reputation to become known for something so the audience expects a certain kind of thing
from this brand and when they try to expand beyond that often they're met with resistance
by the audience now this doesn't always happen brands have expanded successfully
into different categories before and this as i said is called brand extension but ultimately
it is the audience who decides whether or not they're going to adopt whatever it is the brand
is putting in front of them and if the audience rejects it or feels that you know this isn't an
area that that brand should be going into then they will reject whatever offer is coming out
so why would this happen why would brands try to expand into other categories where they don't have
a reputation or that where they haven't built that reputation well brands and brand leaders they
need to appease not just the customers but the shareholders as well and appeasing shareholders
means growing the brand growing the business and growing the revenue so this happens either through
poor or risky leadership where the brand will try to expand into a category and the audience rejects
their expansion into that category and tell the brand listen this is not what we want from you
what we want from you is what you built your reputation on so it can have a negative effect
on the brand if the audience rejects that because it damages the reputation and what they have built
their brand on and what they have become known for so let me give you an example of
brand illusion now microsoft have been around for years microsoft used to be the biggest
brand in the world and they built a reputation on software development now back in the early 2000s
apple who also built their name in the same space broke into the smartphone industry now they didn't
create a new category the smartphone already existed before the iphone but they certainly
revolutionized the smartphone space and they took off after that apple you know the the share price
of apple absolutely soared after that the revenue of apple and that's really the beginning of where
apple really started to take off and it's obvious that if microsoft have been competing with apple
and apple have made such a success of breaking into the smartphone market that microsoft would
want a slice of that pie but they did leave it a little bit late and they came in there at a time
when the market was highly highly competitive and their audience rejected the smartphone the wider
audience rejected microsoft as being a player in the smartphone space and that ultimately led to
really bad press for microsoft and microsoft taking a hit on its overall reputation and this
is the big danger of brand illusion it is not easy to build a brand to build that reputation to build
a name to really stake a claim in the mind of your audience for the position that you want to own
it's not easy you need to do a lot of things right consistently to build that reputation and once you
have that reputation it needs to be nurtured now if you go out into the market and try and expand
into another area that does not align with the reputation on which your brand has been built then
your audience could reject that and that is the real downside and the real danger here with brand
dilution once your audience rejects something that you have put out into the market essentially
they're going to remember that you didn't understand them you didn't understand
what they wanted from your brand and that is going to damage your reputation now it
doesn't mean that it's going to be damaged beyond repair but it really means that you need to think
about where you're going you need to really have a focus on who your audience is and what they want
from your brand before making any strategic decisions so how do you avoid brand illusion
well there's no formula or hard and fast rules here it's really just about understanding who
your audience is and what they want from your brand and before expanding into any category
to gauge the temperature on whether or not this is something that they want
from your brand and the key here is relevancy once you have built a reputation and once you're known
by your audience for something then you need to make sure that wherever you're expanding into
has a relevant link to that reputation because if it doesn't then there's going to be a high
likelihood that the audience is going to reject what you're putting out there so as i said the key
here is relevancy if you want to avoid dilution if you're considering brand expansion or expanding
into another category make sure that the relevancy is there but remember your number one asset as a
brand is your reputation that is your brand equity and that is what you build your entire brand on
if you want to learn how to build brand equity in 10 steps this video will show you exactly
how to do that until next time round like a master and i'll see you in the next video