Books and Branding!

Hey-

It is a holiday weekend here in the States.

So I will switch it up a little bit for y’all by offering up some of the more interesting books I’ve been reading and a few words on branding and Roger Federer that I published in a different spot.

First, the books:

1. The Storyteller: Dave Grohl--Dave Grohl wrote a book and I plowed through it in a few hours. It was really well written and it takes you on a ride through all the different phases of Dave Grohl’s life. Let’s just say I end up a bigger fan after reading it.

2. Any Ugly Truth by Sheera Frenkel and Cecelia Kang: We’ve all realized that Facebook is a company not on the level and the examples become more prominent by the day. This book lays out the period from around 2015 to 2020 when we all became readily aware of how bad Facebook was for the world.

3. The Barcelona Complex by Simon Kuper: This is the story of how Barcelona became the biggest futbol club in the world and threw it all away to keep Lionel Messi happy.

Now to the branding stuff!

Roger Federer, the Laver Cup, and Brand Management 101:

Big Ideas:

• Your brand is the accumulation of every interaction a customer has with you, good or bad.

• Make sure your brand codes reflect what you want them to reflect.

• The Wakeman Brand Triangle says that a brand is built on three ideas: Awareness, Meaning, and Impression

Early warning, this week we talk a lot about branding because there are two really juicy branding stories to cover this week. In general, the power of your brand carries great importance, so I wanted to give the concept a bit more attention.

That out of the way, Roger Federer’s brand management team is doing a bang-up job and one that all of us can learn from.

First, he’s doing a great job of building up really powerful associations for his brand as a pitchman and athlete. In my research, a few of the better associations were “elite”, “premium”, and “accessible”.

That’s amazing that you can be “elite” and “premium” while still having people feel like you are relatable.

That’s sort of like Apple.

Second, Roger Federer seems to understand the idea that your brand is everything, the accumulation of all the touchpoints with your market, good or bad, over time.

Looking at Roger Federer’s focus with the Laver Cup: telling the story of the previous generation of tennis players, connecting them to today’s stars through him, and expanding into the future by highlighting rising stars is one example of how Federer realizes that nothing about the way you present yourself is meaningless.

One of the first things you learn in strategy is that strategy is about choice, but you want the choice to be intentional and not done willy nilly.

More importantly, strategy is about picking the things you won’t do.

This makes the example of Morgan Wallen selling out in the south an interesting contrast because if Wallen has done this intentionally, good for him. But if it just happened because he mismanaged his brand and his career, oops!

Finally, a new concept I’ve created is called “The Wakeman Brand Triangle” and it highlights the reality that any brand is built on three key ideas:

• The awareness your market has of your product or service.

• The impression your brand leaves on your market.

• The meaning that your market injects into your brand because of their interactions with you.

Heading into 2021, I did some research that said I needed to make sure to raise my awareness, that awareness was the number one challenge I was going to deal with in 2021.

Thus, you’ve seen me out there doing lots of media and other things to raise my brand awareness.

Lord help me, it sounds so pretentious when I say it like that.

On impression, Roger Federer’s examples of “elite”, “premium”, and “accessible” are great and reflect back in the way that he conducts interviews but also the products he associates himself with.

As for me, I’ve often wanted folks to think of me as thoughtful, intelligent, and creative.

Final point, meaning.

In both the case of me and Roger Federer, we can’t define the meaning that you might feel for our brand.

This is true for everyone, no matter what they are doing.

The customer’s perception is most important.

Ours doesn’t matter at all.

How does this work for y’all?

First, think about what you want your brand to mean to your market. In my opinion, one of the biggest branding wins of the last decade or so is Tesla because they’ve really managed to build the meaning of their brand to be “great cars, that happen to be electric”.

Think through this stuff and focus on the impression you want to leave behind just like I talk about with Corey Gibbs in this conversation on the podcast this week.

Everything starts with you understanding the market and your fit in the market, diagnosis.

Finally, play with “The Wakeman Brand Triangle” and look at the three primary factors of brand building: awareness, meaning, and impression. Figure out where you are with each of them and address them where necessary.

Again, I’ve been playing with branding a lot lately because it really matters and carries even more importance now.