Mandaue Chamber Hosts Branding Workshop

Still in line with its Mandaue Business Month (MBM) celebration, the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) hosted a branding seminar with Global Brand Strategist Jacqueline Alexis Thng of Lexis Branding.

Dubbed “How To Build A Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger Brand”, corporate marketing specialists, executives, advertising consultants, and communications specialists in Cebu gathered at the Grand Ballroom of Marco Polo Plaza Cebu yesterday, September 5.

The one masterclass workshop nourished the participants with nuggets of thoughts, strategies,  techniques and tips on how to sell to customers through one’s brand. There were several inputs gathered in creating a ‘name’ for a product. Those pointed are creating the brand idea, capturing the essence of the idea, brand naming, people (employees) involvement on the brand idea and creating the brand experience. In creating a brand idea, it is vital to know one’s target market, the competitors around it and the game plan to execute in order to be on top of the list. For the second strategy, it is best to digest on one’s identity by studying in-depth what is the core idea of the brand being established. This can be done through a Brand Map or a Visual Brand Driver. For the third tip, a lot has to be considered in thinking of a name for one’s brand. Included here are, it must be short, catchy and unique that it will be memorable to the people once they hear or view it. Likewise, one must also look to it that the letters used in the name are design-friendly where logo-making later on won’t be difficult to do. Lastly but not the least, companies must do a linguistic check of the name suggested to make sure that it doesn’t connote or perceive anything negative when pronounced in other languages or when it crosses to cultures.

For the last point, creating the brand experience for the customers nails everything. It will be no longer be just about the product but the experience the brand gives to the people. These are in likes of brands like Coca-Cola with its “Simple Happiness” campaign, and Starbucks coffee.

Overall, it is all about brand management where people hear the brand, believe it and live it. Important keynote also to remember is that at the end of the day, brands have to run in a business strategy where it has to earn. Brand building doesn’t happen overnight and is therefore a ‘marathon event’.

The morning session sent the participants to learning the theories while the next part of the day, engaged the attendees to workshops of the points discussed. Thng set the participants into bringing out their best ideas based on their experiences and new learnings.

Thng is the Chief Executive Officer of Lexis Branding, a Singaporean-based branding company which have clients like Octopus Hong Kong, Sara Lee, Maybank Malaysia and for Philippines, Belo Medical Group, Goldilocks, Bench Skin Expert, Penshoppe & Oxygen and Flawless among many others.