Crowd at the Heads Forum at the Swiss Brand Congress
On 23 June, Heads presented its brand profiling at the Swiss Brand Congress. The organisers had expected around 70 visitors for this part of the forum programme, but more than 120 congress visitors were interested in this approach to brand strategy, causing the staff at the Dolder Grand to sweat for a moment. Once additional seating had been organised, the event got underway. Heads managing director Ralph Hermann opened by explaining how the agency had stumbled upon the parallels between profiling and branding rather by chance. The initial spark came from a brand workshop in which a triviality led to the true brand values of a company. So the agency looked for a way to improve its brand analysis so that such findings were not left to chance, and found Brand Profiling via Criminal Profiling. With Brand Profiling, the agency is able to create an extremely accurate profile of a corporate brand and define an authentic and effective target positioning in a matter of weeks. To understand the approach of brand profiling, it helps to look at criminal profiling. Of course, this has little to do with what we know from TV and cinema. Dr Thomas Müller, Europe’s leading criminal psychologist and case analyst, explained the thinking and procedures that lead real profilers to their goal. For example, he stressed the importance of taking oneself out of the equation when judging. Experience can distort the view. “I would never have believed it” is one of the most common spontaneous statements heard in the neighbourhood of a convicted murderer. And in crime scene analysis, “it is the amount of information and the different ways of looking at things that lead to the perpetrator,” says Dr Müller. “The crime itself is only part of the crime scene information. What happens after the crime is also very important. Was the victim carelessly left behind? Moved? Prepared? Staged? Such behaviour often says more about the perpetrator than the act itself. Behaviour reflects needs. Recognise the needs! The key to the solution is not the crime, but the motive”, says the criminal profiler.
Ralph Hermann began by explaining the theory behind branding rules and then gave the floor to two Heads clients who had used brand profiling to gain new insights into their business.
Alex Hirzel, Head of Marketing at MS Direct, presented how brand profiling in the merger of MS Mail Service and rbc led to a new, strong corporate brand that employees of both companies could identify with. Brand Profiling was able to significantly reduce the passive resistance that can occur during a merger. And the customers of both companies felt that the merger had not destroyed any of the corporate values that were important to them, but had added new values.
Rolf Weber, Head of Marketing & Communications at UP-GREAT, presented how brand profiling led his company to a new brand promise. Through the process, the company became aware that the qualities UP-GREAT was most proud of were well received by customers, but that more customer-relevant issues were being neglected. Today, these customer value-oriented values are part of the brand promise and are lived by the UP-GREAT team in their daily work. Rolf Weber: “Brand profiling has helped us to discover blind spots and to focus even more on the needs of our customers.”
Read more about criminal profiling in the book “Greedy Beast: Success. Humiliation. Vengeance” by Dr Thomas Müller.«Gierige Bestie: Erfolg. Demütigung. Rache»