Brand Success Factors in Singapore

1) Boldness and being remarkable. Take a leap of faith and be bold in their offerings. For example, I noticed nearly all local optical shops look and feel the same. Where is the differentation here? If customers cannot find the tipping point, only their shop appearances and price matters.

2) Design matters. Design their own line of products to innovate and differentiate themselves. Design gives a huge competitive edge in brands. More importantly, they need to harness design thinking to solve their business challenges.

3) Customer Service or User Experience. Singaporeans have a huge gap to fill in this aspect. No brand experience is complete if staff are not trained to deliver the critical human touch. Stop talking Singapore Airlines, be Singapore Airlines.

4) Building a Brand platform. We are talking about customer engagement here. Brands should think about serving customers beyond the store. How can brand engagement START after customers END their purchases with them. Start them thinking about the next 3 visits. As the marketing mantra goes 'It's always easier to retain than to get new customers'.

Please leave your comments if any. Image taken from Nanyang Optical Website.

The coolest tribe around

YAMI Yoghurt is arguably one of the most successful, soft serve, take away yoghurt brand in Singapore. It  delivers not only consistent products but also continous innovation in its range of localised flavours.

More importantly, YAMI marketers had started their own tribe or ardent fans which rank in the thousands today. Yes, they are possibly the 'coolest' tribe around in Singapore; The YAMI tribe. Here are more examples of their marketing strategies using some of the concepts I mentioned earlier like Brand Platform and Consumer Stardom. Drawn from their very own tribe influences to promote the brand!

Brand Platform: YAMI FaceBook Page, YAMI Twitter and even a recently launched YAMI Times for e-coupon cutouts and deals. A multi platform approach that singularly point towards creating buzz and talk for the brand. All these without spending tons of money on ads, ads, ads. Good job. 

Consumer Stardom: You can find these YAMILebrities displayed at their counters featuring their very own tribe members. She looks pretty hot in such a cool tribe. :)

Picture taken from YAMI Yoghurt FaceBook Page


I have got a small request. Can we have YAMI yoghurt that does not look like a regular soft serve ice-cream? Some innovation please? If  YAMI can reinvent their unique way of serving YAMI yoghurt, it will surely be another remarkable product like the cone pizza. Same product but different delivery, worth taking another look. Let YAMI tribe followers have more things to talk about the brand and hopefully spread the word. YAMI's future looks promising in the days to come, scoring in brand engagement.

Please leave your comments, if any.

How to market yourself using a brand platform.

"Leong, you gonna tell me its about branding again right?" Partially right.

However, a person who solely brands him or herself may not be enough. In the context of the current job market, the skills of marketing yourself to employers becomes an ever more important skill. If you do not stand out, you do not stand a chance. Here are some tips from a branding platform point of view.

Creating a brand platform
A brand platform communicates about you and works for you only. It is on 24/7, 365 days. It never stops. It is a virtual representation of you (or your brand) that never sleeps. What is that? It is basically a set of communication tools. Think of them as your personal sales agent. They speaks about you and what you stand for. Be it a LinkIt account which profiles yourself, a blog or FaceBook profile. Monster and JobsDB are some of the pioneers of creating that platform for job seekers and employers alike to hook up with one another. Nothing wrong with that except that a rather 'template approach' makes you look like yet another job seeker. If you want true differentiation, you need to work a little harder.

Video, Blog or build your own website
These are basically medium which you easily use to market yourself. They are no longer confined to big corporates or brands with deep pockets. When you start spreading ideas about your skills and capabilities, you are bound to get noticed. Spread your ideas, what you do, what you are good at etc. An idea is only as good if someone knows about it and accepts it. Share smartly and this platform will work even harder and more effectively for you.

To sum it all up, a brand platform for yourself or your products/services can be achieved by:
1) Choosing a suitable medium to begin with and it can be multiple (FB, Twitter, Web page, Blog). Some marketers call this integrated marketing.
2) Branding (Communicating your brand intent/personality or what you stand for)
3) Keeping an open communication or conversation with your target audience

Essentially, you are already creating an experience for your prospects or employers before arriving at the door. Isn't that worthwhile with a little investment of time that goes a long way? Make it go viral and it cost you nothing except your time.

If you think this blog is useful, share it with someone. Please leave your comments, if you have any. I would also like to credit Seth Godin on his platform blog which got this started.

Next posting will be on branding leadership. Stay tune.