Branding a Bakery

Case Study: Independent, one woman bakery in Central Texas.
Challenge: Create a brand that will give the business an identity.
Idea Wanted: Brand the business so that it gets more business.

The Background: This small, independent bakery has been in business for four years. It is named for, and run by, the owner; a young Italian woman who came to the states to go to school and ended up starting a business.

She gets the largest slice of her business from making wedding and special occasion cakes, although she also bakes gourmet cookies and pastries.

Her frustration is, that while she has a core of loyal customers, she is still not widely known in the community and not many people know exactly what she does. Her lone effort to market herself is through an email list she compiles from customers who come into her store.

Advice: Create a brand for the bakery by first developing a brand promise and then a signature slogan that crystalizes the image of the business for consumers.

To do this we took the business through our brand promise development process:

• First, identify the top three values under which you operate your company. Her top three values were: family, honesty, passion.
• Second, develop a mission (not a mission statement) for the business. Her mission was to heighten the experience of any event where her cakes were served.
• Third, create a vision of the business when it fulfills that mission. Her vision was to be the baker of choice for special occasions in Central Texas.
• Fourth, write the brand promise based on your values, your mission and your vision

After the brand promise is developed, craft a signature from the brand promise that vividly communicates the brand to potential customers.

Our Ideas:
1. Brand Promise: To create memorable cakes for events that people will remember and talk about long after the event is over.
2. Signature: "Creating Cakes that Create Memories"

The Lesson:
Brands need to be built on the truth. There is nothing more true than your values, because they are what they are. Take the time to articulate your mission (your purpose for being in business) and your vision (the eventual destination of your dream). Going through this process guarantees that you end up with a true brand, not one concocted by a marketing spinmeister.

You will also find that if you are willing to do the tough thinking, it's actually easy to build a brand about which customers can become excited. Your dreams are big and exciting and so is your brand. Your big, exciting brand will also be sustainable because it was founded on the truth.

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