Five common brand building mistakes

Ellen Hunt, Partner, Scion Advisors

1. Assume everyone knows your brand and what makes it special. There are tens of thousands of wine brands, so don’t assume that anyone, not even your own employees will be able to clearly outline your competitive advantage. 2. Not taking time to carefully identify and document your brand’s essence. These statements are an intensive amount of work to create, but well worth the time and effort. Most wineries use an outside brand facilitator so everyone can participate in the discussion and to be sure that the work that is produced is truly unique and comprehensible to your customers and stakeholders. 3. Not adequately training new employees. Every company has turnover. Once you’ve gone through the brand identification exercise, make sure there is a mechanism for indoctrinating new employees on your brand messaging so the information does not get modified or diluted over time. 4. Not being consistent with your brand-related materials. It is amazing how much inconsistency you can find in any set of brand-related materials. Every inconsistency in logo usage, font, color, format, copy tone can erode your brand equity. A periodic review, preferably annually, to identify and correct inconsistencies is essential to avoid diluting your brand. 5. Failing to clearly communicate your brand message to all stakeholders. A classic mistake is to forget to communicate the results of your brand strategy work to all brand stakeholders. This group includes your distributors, trade partners, board of directors or advisory board members, outside consultants and advisors and owners and family members not involved in the day-to-day operations of the winery. These folks are all ambassadors for your wine brand.

You should notice a significant increase in customer awareness and business results once you succeed in having all your stakeholders communicate your brand in the same way.

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