How to decode a brand's dna

How to decode a
A presentation by Tannistho
tannistho@gmail.com

Who is this presentation
for?
If you are a seasoned marketer, you can happily skip the
slides. This presentation will be of use to small business
owners, independent professionals and students who are
taking up marketing as a field of study or practice.

What is a Brand DNA
Brand DNA refers to the distinctiveness,
novelty and attributes of a brand. It is what
helps the brand stand out, create its own set
of brand communities, and drive emotional
attachments in a crowded marketplace.

Why do you need a brand
DNA
• As a marketer your intention is to reach
out to the people who will benefit from
your product or services the most and to
create an emotional connection with them.
• Your brand DNA will help you create your
strategy for making this connection
possible.

So, how do you go about
identifying the DNA of
your brand?

• … your product or service had a mission.
You did not just want to create another
product… you wanted that product or
service to solve a human problem or create
a human impact.

• Starbucks had the
mission ‘ to inspire
and nurture the
human spirit, one
person, one cup and
one neighbourhood
at a time’.

• Coca Cola wants to
‘refresh the world,
inspire optimism
and happiness, create
value and make a
difference…”

• BMW wants to
provide, ‘sheer
driving pleasure,
sporting and
dynamic
performance
combined with
superb design
and exclusive
quality’.

your service/product?
You can answer this by asking:
a. What do you want to change in the world?
b. How do you want your product/service to help you
change it?

Take a piece of paper and
create the following columns
ATTRIBUTES DISTINCTIVENESS NOVELTY

Once, you are done
• Write down the key attributes of your product/service
under the attributes column. For example, on-time
delivery, competitive pricing, superb packaging,
personalised message with each package, etc.
• Your attributes should support your mission.
• Your attributes should be detailed and exhaustive. It is
a list of ‘what does your product or service do’ and ‘how
does your product or service do it’.

your attributes?
• When you list your attributes you will realise that you
are not the only one who’s offering these services. Your
competitors are also doing the same. So, what’s
distinctive about your product/service?
• You might re-look at your product/service now and see
if you can add something that’s distinctive. For
example, instead of on-time delivery you probably
reach five minutes before. So you actually do before
time delivery. This is an example of distinctiveness.

Now, you go about creating
• So, you have listed your distinctiveness.
• So to arrive at your novelty, you rank each
of your distinctive characteristics in a rank.
Rank from 10 to 1. The least distinctive
gets a 10, the most distinctive gets a 1.
• List out the 1, 2 and 3 characteristics in
your novelty column.,

So, now with your listed
novelty you have created
Now, test out the points 1, 2 and 3 that you have arrived at with test users
of your product and service. Test users will be representative
Not all 3 might be accepted in the same way, but this test will tell you how
your brand is going to work with the consumers and what are the changes
that you might need to do.

Create your brand communication
around the novelties that you have
listed on your DNA structure.

Hope it helps folks!