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Awareness of the problems and challenges that brands can face is an important step in maintaining a strong, healthy brand. That is why we have set ourselves the goal of identifying, analyzing and solving the 50 most common brand problems that marketers are facing today. Which are threatening your brand?

Common brand problems:

1: The cumulative result of a gradual and gradual reduction in product or service quality to reduce costs
2: The cumulative effect of increasing product or service prices at a rate that is above inflation over time (invitation from low-end market segments and competitors)
3: Focus on short-term profitability at the expense of long-term sales growth
4: Define your brand too narrowly, especially as a product category (e.g. "greeting cards" versus "care shared").
5: Limit the brand to a sales channel or focus the brand too narrowly on a declining trade channel
6: Reduction or elimination of brand advertising and / or non-adaptation of advertising to economic or cultural changes
7: Applying brand decisions at the end of the product development process ("What do we call that now?") Compared to treating brand management as the main driver of all of your company's activities
8: Confuse brand management with product management
9: Define your brand too narrowly, especially as a product category (e.g. "greeting cards" versus "care shared").
10: Failed to expand the brand into new product categories when the core category is declining
11: Extend your brand to different categories and markets to completely blur the meaning and distinctive features of the brand
12: Change the positioning and message of your brand frequently
13: Creation of brands or sub-brands for internal or commercial reasons instead of responding to different consumer needs
14: Introduction of sub-brands that accidentally position the mother brand in a negative light
15: Overexposing the mark to the point where it becomes uncool
16: Being attacked by special interest groups who make public statements about their causes and want to see your well-known, top-class brand as a current target
17: Treat brand management primarily as “logo cops”
18: Consider brand value management as a communication exercise, but ignore it in other business processes and contact points with the consumer
19: Do not deliver against the communicated brand promise
20: No link between brand planning and the company's strategic planning process
21: Licensing the brand name to the person who pays for it
22: Trying to be the best in something, especially in the core category benefits, rather than owning something else
23: Trying to have the benefits that have become entry-level costs – and not to have differentiating benefits
24: Too much focus on product attributes and too little on brand advantages in consumer communication
25: Try to emphasize too many points in your brand communication instead of focusing on the one or two most convincing differences
26: For the market leader: Follow the challengers because it is easier and gives more immediate results instead of finding new ways to meet consumer needs
27: Don't apply the latest product and service innovations to your brand
28: No centralized control over the brand portfolio (so that each brand team can apply the best distinguishing features of one brand to the others in the portfolio)
29: No brand identity standards and systems
30: Marketing is divided into functional “silos” (advertising, sales promotion, brand management, product development, advertising, etc.) without an integration mechanism
31: Define your target group too broadly (e.g. women aged 18 to 65).
32: Not really understanding the consumer, his needs and motivations
33: The brand could not be successfully expanded to a premium segment or a value segment
34: Selection of generic (non-proprietary) brand names
35: Not keeping pace with the industry in terms of product or service innovation
36: Spending too much money on trading and promoting at the expense of brand building
37: No person or department is responsible for the brand. There is a lack of internal mindshare, monitoring and administration.
38: Well-considered marketing decisions are guessed by non-marketers who believe that marketing is more a matter of opinion than an art and a science for which experience is important
39: Decisions that adversely affect the brand are made outside of the brand management context
40: Managers don't understand what the brand stands for
41: Sales and earnings pressure compared to the previous quarter are gradually undermining the brand
42: Branding decisions are selfish and analytical
43: Hire the wrong marketer
44. Marketers are not fighting for their budget or brand ideas
45. The creative execution is decided before the strategy
46. ​​Error building a human side of your brand (B2C and B2B)
47. Marketers don't understand the role of finance
48. Lack of understanding of how the brand supports sales
49. Establish a sales-oriented organization instead of a brand-driven one
50. You don't know what your brand stands for and what it stands for

It is important to remember that branding is not a noun, but a verb. Active management of your brand requires an honest assessment of the people and mechanisms that serve the health of the brand and an ironic commitment to make all the decisions that are necessary to maintain their health.

At The Blake Project, we help clients around the world at all stages of development. Redefine and articulate what makes them competitive in critical moments of change through online strategy workshops. Please email us for more.

Brand Strategy Insider is a service from The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy that specializes in brand research, brand strategy, brand growth and brand building

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