Renewable energy sources for health and healthy lifestyle brands

Wanted to share this presentation of 40 renewable energy sources for brands, grouped within these dimensions. Common denominator across all the examples is that these brands clearly understand their place in people's lives. 

Brand differentiation for health and healthy lifestyle brands

Differentiation is the ability of your healthcare or healthy lifestyle brand to stand apart from others in your market, in ways that are important to your audiences and supported by your organizational strengths. It reflects not only how you're going to play the game, but how you're going to play it differently by creating meaningful, genuine and lasting points of difference. 

But most brands are failing. A 2006 study by Copernicus Greenfield showed that brands in 48 out of 51 product/service categories were perceived to be undifferentiated by consumers. And 80%+ of products still continue to fail, according to Ernst & Young, because of lack of differentiation.

Yet the benefits of differentiation as shown below (in terms of profit margins, operating earnings, market cap growth) are tremendous, as demonstrated by Y&R's Brand Asset Valuator.



So why are most brands failing. Because differentiation actually requires you to think different and do different, starting with your strategy. Which requires original thinking - which is sorely lacking today. But there are some brands that are truly differentiated, and that transcend their categories.

These brands:

• are aligned - with the culture of the organization behind them (e.g. Nike, Southwest Airlines)
• are relevant and deliver on their promises - what people want and performing the way they want them to (e.g. Ikea, Nordstrom)
• are surprising - raising the bar relative to expectations (e.g. Virgin, Jones Soda, Cirque De Soleil)
• tap emotions - as product benefits have become table stakes (e.g. Harley-Davidson, Tiffany)
• execute brilliantly - through their actions and interactions (e.g. Ralph Lauren, Zappos)

Is your brand strong enough

Do you ever take time during the day to ask yourself a very simple question: is our brand strong enough to be the one that customers will want to do business with next year? Or 2-3 years down the road? 

Why do customers seek out your brand? What do they expect to see from you; to gain from you? And where do they think/do you think you really shine? There are many other questions like these, and they're important to answer. Because as easy or hard as it is for you to answer them, so too is it for your customers. 

Here are a few ideas for you to ponder as your brand grows and matures. 

• explore your strengths: what do you do best, what do you have the ability to do that you're currently not doing, what should you be doing to build your strengths for the future

• express your strengths: are they "brandable" as unique processes or services; which others can be used to build your image with current and prospective customers

• extend your strengths: how can you leverage your strengths in specific areas where you have little or no experience - through new products and services, with new partners, through new channels.

So, are you strong enough?

The proactive health and healthy lifestyles brand

Healthy brands are proactive. They are enablers. They allow us to be more and to achieve more, than would otherwise be the case. 

Here's a list of the differences between proactive and reactive (soon to become irrelevant) brands. Proactive brands:

- lead with actions versus words

- are coherent rather than consistent

- engage rather than lecture

- transform rather than preserve

- encourage relationships versus individuality   

- are bottom up versus top down

- let us inside versus hiding behind the curtain

- extend beyond their category

- liberate customers versus control them