Brand wheel model for Brand identity

By James Last updated Dec 4, 2022

In today’s complex and challenging world, we are all faced with more and more options and less and less time to make decisions and choices.
Based on this, brands’ ability to facilitate consumer decisions, reduce risk and set expectations is invaluable.
In times of competition, only brands with a clear and distinct identity can stand out.
The further we go, the more important the brand and the role it plays in the success of the business.
Strong branding and creating a strong brand are one of the most important issues companies have faced over the years.

Brand wheel model for Brand identity

Since the 80s, in blind tests, including the Pepsi test, this phenomenon has attracted the attention of marketing experts, how people prefer Coca-Cola, but the test results show that Pepsi tastes better. The opinion of the same people is confirmed. That’s what he said.

This means that the brand is more than the product and its performance benefits as suggested by Mr. David Acker:

Identity + product = brand

If you think of powerful brands in the world, there are only a few in every industry that immediately come to mind, such as Coca-Cola, Walt Disney, Apple, etc. Over the years, each of these brands has had a unique identity. They created their people and were a powerful and profitable brand throughout.

It can be impossible to reach the level of these brands for many reasons, but the good news is that creating a unique and special identity for a brand is a process that many individuals and organizations around the world have spent decades studying and strengthening. Brands and research. They presented different models of interaction. Consumers with brands.

Today, well-known models such as David Acker, Kapferer, Keller, etc., university models, and Arnold and Uniluro models are used by industrial companies to design a new brand identity, as well as to evaluate and analyze existing and old brands.

One of the practical models in the field of brand identity creation is the Brand Wheel model, which was presented by the Ted Bates advertising agency in 2014.

(Ted Bates is currently the CEO of Cordiant Communications Group plc, one of the largest advertising and communications companies in the world, with over 156 offices in over 70 countries)

One of the famous brands whose identity is created by this company is the French brand Vichy, which produces cosmetic products.

Brand wheel model

Model components Brand Wheel – brand essence wheel

Attributes

This is an overview of what you sell or the services you offer. It is the result of the promises that the brand shows to the customers.

Benefits

The physical and perceptual, tangible and intangible, intellectual and emotional benefits that a brand promises to its customers.

Values

Behavioral frameworks give the brand a sense of predictability and trust. Values are defined to maintain and consolidate brand advantages.

Personality

A set of human characteristics assigned to a brand and creating a sense of ownership and mutual connection between the brand and the consumer.

Brand Essence

The most important aspects of a brand that introduce consumers to its key relationships are the heart and soul of the brand.

Stages of brand identity design using model Brand WHEEL

The first step in the implementation of this model is the design of the brand benefit stage, which begins by defining the desired product characteristics from a business perspective.

Then, with research on the target population of the brand (current customers or regular customers), the visible and hidden benefits that the audience is looking for to get this product are defined and classified.

Brand benefits are divided into 5 categories:

Functional benefits: Benefits related to product performance, defined as points of similarity (POP) and points of difference (POD) in other brands.
Financial Benefits: Financial saving benefits customers.
Emotional benefits: When a brand is functionally close, audiences are drawn to it, which gives them happiness, confidence, security, strength, and more.
Benefits of self-expression: Improving the standard of living and the desire of people to create a special and prestigious position in society is an important issue that brands present to the public for their benefit.
Social Benefits: A sense of belonging to certain groups has always been important given the propensity of people to socialize. This factor is the most important motive for creating community brands.

After analyzing the necessary and important benefits for the target audience, the company’s capability and policies are examined and the desired benefits are selected accordingly.

That is, those benefits that are beyond the capabilities of the company or are contrary to the goals and values of the brand are removed or modified.
Added to these benefits are benefits from the heart of the company and its research and development department.

Among the advantages, the importance of one or more limited items is much greater than others, and this is considered the reason for the brand, which is called the essence of the brand or its philosophy.
On the one hand, the company has the necessary opportunity to present it to the public, on the other hand, the customers also demand it.
The point of this section is that the amount of benefit perceived by listeners decreases over time.

The task of a brand strategist is to manage the benefits and move them within the brand’s value framework through marketing elements.

The second step is determining commodity values.

One of the pitfalls brands see is a lack of consistency in the promises they make to audiences.
Determining the principles of values and determining the brand’s dos and don’ts can greatly protect the brand from instability and instability.

With the passage of time and the increasing pace of change, including the changes and unpredictability of the value framework, the need for a structure that balances profit and value over time seems more important

Therefore, determining the human structure becomes one of the basic stages in the design of the brand identity.

Personality is a set of human traits that are attributed to a brand and are a measure of maintaining a brand’s values, benefits, and identity that people can understand.

Many people have worked on models for creating and evaluating brand personality, the most famous of which is Jennifer Acker’s five-dimensional model, known as the Big Five.

The first five categories are; Intimacy, excitement, competence, experience, and power.

There are other models for analyzing and creating types that rely on psychological theories, including the model based on archetypes, derived from the famous theory of Jung.

Mark and Pearson took the concept of Jung’s archetype, which Campbell divided into 12 archetypes, and for brands, there are 12 personality types (ruler, genius, actor, rebel, innocent, explorer, magician, lover, hero, a supporter. and a layman). ) was approved.

And the last step is to define the character of the brand, the first thing that the audience understands about its identity.

At first, these qualities were only perceptions, which later became conscious, that is, qualities that contain all the senses.

Therefore, emotional elements, include all material effects with the five senses, including name, logo, symbol, slogan, packaging, music, perfume, taste, and any kind of sign or unique symbol. developed according to the brand personality, within the brand value.

A test sample of the Malt H brand (San H sub-brand)

The Son H brand belongs to Alford Company, which produces all kinds of concentrates, juices, drinks, and syrups, which started its operations in 1356 in the cave industrial city of Save City.

Based on the market expansion and brand development plan and the production of different products with different packages, it also added the production of carbonated juices (Sanh Cool Brand) and malt drinks (Sanh Malt Brand) to its program.

Here’s a look at the identity of the Malt H brand, which includes various flavored malt beverages, which is one of Sun H’s sub-brands:

Benefits of the brand: quenches thirst, restore the body after daily work, feels light, drinks the gods, refreshes.

Brand value: maintaining quality and freshness in all conditions, both in production technology and in raw materials, matching the taste of products with the various tastes of customers.

Brand personality: personality characteristics of the Malt H product; Courage, courage, strength, strength, seeking

Branded protagonists follow the archetype pattern and are second-tier here and explorers.

Attribute layer: Logo of ground cream and brown malt, a sign of naturalness, bitter taste, black color, large glasses

The character of the captain (symbol of a hero for the people of the Scandinavian region, who often drank beer because of the lack of grapes)

Important question:

Is this sign easy to understand for Iranian people?

Are the benefits and features based on the research and findings of the psyche of the public?

Lack of research on the brand and incorrect use of the model has such consequences.

In this article, we talked about the Brand wheel model for Brand identity and brand essence wheel, but we think that we can still use your experience to produce a better and more comprehensive article.
Share your experiences with us.