How to create and launch a brand

Learn how to define and differentiate your brand, and plan a launch campaign that will make it famous, with marketing communications expert Barnaby Benson

Every organisation needs to differentiate its brand and plan how to promote it - but very few have the marketing budgets to commission branding, or ad agencies to provide the strategic thinking that will ensure success.

Whether you’re a startup about to launch a new product or service, or an established company looking to revamp an existing one, Barnaby Benson’s masterclass will provide you with the tools and know-how to plan how to position your brand and then get it noticed.

An experienced marketing and branding professional, Barnaby will take you through the qualities that define a brand - its purpose, positioning, personality and values - and help you develop your core proposition: what your brand offers that’s compelling and unique.

As if that wasn’t enough, you will also learn how to choose the marketing communication tools that will achieve the maximum impact from a modest budget, looking at how successful challenger brands have used visual and verbal identity, packaging, websites, online advertising, traditional advertising, sales emails, social media, events and PR.

You will leave this unmissable masterclass with a clear positioning statement for your product or service, and a marketing communication plan that sets out how you’re going to promote your brand.

Content

• Strategy: defining your business purpose, assessing the market characteristics, identifying your target audience and setting your marketing objectives

• Define your brand model: purpose, positioning, values, personality and proposition

• Communications strategy planning: by looking at examples of brands that have achieved success through smart, selective use of two or three types of marketing communications, you’ll see their potential. Then, you’ll plan what would work best for your brand. We’ll look at: visual identity, tone of voice, websites, social media, blogs/newsletters, traditional and online advertising, sales emails, packaging, events, sponsorship and public relations.

• Completing your communications brief and implementing the plan: you’ll learn what information you need to prepare powerful communications and a clear brief – either for your own use or to brief your suppliers.

This course is for...

• Owners, managing directors and marketing managers of small and medium-sized organisations, startups and not-for-profits who want to differentiate and define their brand, then develop a low-budget – but impactful – marketing communications strategy.

• Charity marketing managers who need to define their brand and refine their marketing communications but aren’t sure where to start.

• HR professionals who want to articulate their employer brand and plan an internal marketing communications campaign to influence employee perceptions, attitudes and behaviour.

Course preparation

• You need to have a brand you want to promote.

• Attendees should identify three brands they admire - one of which should be from their market.

Tutor profile

Barnaby Benson is a brand communications writer and strategist, trusted by many consultancies to help create and develop distinctive brands. His clients have included Investec for The Partners, Old Mutual for Brand Union and Barclays for Landor, plus Imperial College Business School for OPX. Before setting up his own agency, Barnaby was an advertising agency account director for 10 years, involved in planning and creating campaigns for a wide range of products and organisations. He and his colleagues write a blog of copywriting and communications, and they occasionally tweet.

All Guardian Masterclasses are fully accessible - but please contact us if you have any queries or concerns.

Full course and returns information on the Masterclasses website