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With literally thousands of products fighting for shelf-space and peoples’ money how do licensors and licensees get their products to standout and win favourability with investors, retailers and consumers?

Competition is fiercer than ever, no longer restricted to just similar properties or product ranges. New superheroes battle each other. David Beckham tackles Harry Potter; Bob the Builder fences Tony the Tiger; downloading mobile phone tunes pitch sharply against makeup or sweets, as the options of how to spend pocket money grow.

Convincing investors or retailers that yours is the next golden goose requires more than just having a good product or idea. It requires developing a strong brand. It necessitates being able to create and persuade real distinction and benefit that will translate into customer favourability and demand. The stronger that distinction and uniqueness, the better it will compete against other properties, including those with higher marketing spends or media dominance.

But what makes a brand? A brand is the essence of a product or service and a combination of the core rational & emotional benefits it provides, the way it looks or feels, its personality or approach. It is its DNA.

Creating distinctive brands can be difficult. In reality, on a rational level there can often be very little true differentiation between products or properties. Many are educational; many entertain; many are endurable; many save time or effort. Some are for occasional or short-term usage; some for everyday use. It is vital to look at these aspects and create and communicate a strong and preferably single-minded positioning which underpins your product range or property’s core benefits. However, real differentiation often lies within their additional emotional and perhaps intangible elements.

Once basic needs are met, favourability and preference of one product over another is most frequently derived from that item’s personality, style and the way it makes you feel. Cute or cool? Savvy or intellectual? Easy going or always busy? It is these elements which truly set a product or property apart from other offerings which otherwise provide similar rational benefits and usage criteria.

It is therefore highly beneficial to address your brand at the very beginning of your intended activity, fully developing and articulating all of its facets. Starting with a vision for your property or product range can help you see where you want it to go and give a good indication of the type of brand you’ll need to achieve it, along with distribution or product range requirements for example. Creating a physical ‘brand manual’ and/or ‘style guide’ that articulates and visualises the brand’s main attributes, it’s personality and style can help everyone in your organisation or involved in its development or marketing truly understand it and how to deliver it. It can also help guide future development and diversification.

Creating and communicating a strong and relevant brand can really help to gain buy in. Rather than seeing a two dimensional product or property, investors, retailers and consumers will be far more able to feel how good your brand is. Just like you’ve always told them it was.