Doctor Branding Podcast

What can you expect from this podcast episode?You can know your business inside out and still misunderstand why customers choose your brand. This week’s podcast episode looks at how customer research can help you move beyond assumptions to understand who buys from you, what they need and the circumstances that lead them to choose your offering. Using two fictional brands I’ve developed, Popits popcorn ball snacks and Sydney real estate agency Chapter Realty, I work through five practical steps, from getting your assumptions down and finding people willing to share feedback, to speaking with customers before and after they buy, including those who chose someone else.Because knowing why people choose you gives you something useful to shape your brand strategy around. This episode explores how to compare what customers say with actual buying behaviour, combining qualitative feedback with quantitative data to make more informed decisions about targeting, positioning, messaging and customer experience. It also looks at category entry points, the needs and occasions that bring your category to mind, and how those insights can help your brand be remembered and available when needed. Whether you’re serving a particular customer segment or a wider market, the aim is to give your branding and marketing a clearer direction based on the people you’re trying to connect with. Get full access to Doctor Branding at gdayfrank.substack.com/subscribe

What can you expect from this podcast episode?AI can give anyone access to branding and marketing tools, but access to the tools doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get the same outcome. This week’s podcast episode looks at the difference between using AI yourself and having a branding, marketing or creative professional use those same tools, where their experience can help determine what to ask for, what’s actually good, what needs changing and, perhaps most importantly, when AI shouldn’t be used at all.Because AI can produce an output, but expertise determines whether that output is actually useful. From the IKEA effect and becoming overly attached to something you’ve prompted AI to create, to logos, photography, messaging, websites, print and other branded materials, this episode looks at some practical guardrails for where AI can help and where you might be better off calling in a professional. Because my two general rules are pretty simple:* Use AI to help with something, not necessarily to do the whole thing.* If a consumer is thinking “is this AI?” and not focused on what you’re actually communicating, it’s not good enough for your brand. Get full access to Doctor Branding at gdayfrank.substack.com/subscribe

What can you expect from this podcast episode?Name first, product second. When every piece of marketing leads with what you sell rather than who is selling it, there’s a risk that all the attention you’re generating is helping people remember the product, category, or even competitors, instead of remembering your brand. This week’s podcast episode looks at why putting greater emphasis on your brand can help build stronger awareness and recognition, particularly when your competitors are selling many of the same things and using many of the same category cues to communicate them.Because the category isn’t yours to own, but the brand can be. This week’s episode highlights a particular coffee brand’s distinctive a pproach to canned coffee packaging demonstrates how context, positioning and distinctive brand assets can help your brand stand out without sacrificing clarity about what you sell. Because as this bloke put it on LinkedIn: “If people just think about the product before you, then the next time they want it, they can get it anywhere because lots of people sell it too.” Get full access to Doctor Branding at gdayfrank.substack.com/subscribe

Every interaction someone has with your brand, from seeing your logo and packaging to hearing your music, visiting your store, seeing your content or speaking with your staff, has the potential to create another memory they can connect back to you. This week’s podcast episode looks at how brands can build stronger awareness and long-term memorability by creating more recognisable and connected ways for people to remember who they are, what they offer and, most importantly, when they might need them.Because being recognised isn’t quite the same as being remembered and thought of when it matters. Using the idea of mental availability, along with a brand version of games like Memory, 20 Questions and Guess Who?, this episode looks at how positioning and distinctive brand assets can make a brand easier to identify and retrieve from memory. Because the real test of a strong brand isn’t simply whether someone has heard of you, but whether your brand comes to mind when they’re actually in the market for what you sell. Get full access to Doctor Branding at gdayfrank.substack.com/subscribe

What can you expect from this podcast episode?Building a brand at the start is the exciting part. Maintaining it over years, through changing teams, priorities, budgets and the constant temptation to mess with it, is where the real work begins. Much like a marriage, brands can go through a honeymoon phase, a reality check, power struggles, the seven-year itch and, if you stick with it long enough, stability and maturity. This week’s podcast episode looks at those different phases and why the strongest brands are often the ones that have had the commitment, alignment and perseverance to stay the course.Because maintaining a brand takes more than keeping the logo consistent. It means sticking to the strategy, taking marketing seriously beyond just promotion, resisting the urge to constantly change your brand assets, getting outside help when you need it, protecting what you’ve built and making sure the people inside the business share the same idea of what the brand is there to do. The fun of something new eventually wears off, but the value of a brand comes from what you continue to build, protect and maintain long after the honeymoon is over. Get full access to Doctor Branding at gdayfrank.substack.com/subscribe