What is an Investor Brand and why do you need one?

The upheavals in the markets in recent days are a reminder that Greenspan’s legendary “irrational exuberance” isn’t restricted to markets going up. It can just as easily manifest itself in “flash-crashes”, making your investors nervous and driving your price and value down as stocks perceived as unsafe are unceremoniously dumped.

In future issues:

Auditing your current Investor Brand
Setting goals for your Investor Brand
One-way communication – or a dialogue?
The rise & rise of social media. You can run, but you cannot hide
Investor blogs and their cousins
The megatrend of CSR

Previous issues:

More...

Well built, an Investor Brand can give your share price resilience

An Investor Brand won’t stop the market panicking, but it should help investors make more informed and rational decisions about how they perceive your stock, and it should ensure that your stock is more resilient in the face of market panic.

What is a ‘brand’ anyway? And why does the concept apply to investment?
Before we go any further, we should perhaps consider what a brand actually is, and why the notion applies to the ‘investor’ part of your business as well as the marketing side. A brand is more than a product, and more than a logo. One of our favourite definitions is: A brand is what people say about you after you’ve left the room.

So, it’s the set of value-associations linked to your name. In the case of marketers, that translates into higher margins. In the case of investors, it translates into stocks that are more accurately valued and that are more likely to be directly associated (by recall) with your strategies. Investor Brands carry a greater degree of familiarity for investors. People feel they understand them and where they’re going.

A strong brand creates space between you and other stocks competing for the investment dollar
It differentiates the value of what your stock offers from that of your competitors. So it’s about your stock’s overall reputation and profile, and it’s about ensuring that your stock is chosen over another investment options in the same or another asset class. Equally, when markets fall, it’s about having the information and awareness in the marketplace that minimises your downside.

To help achieve that, Churchill Pryce IR suggests that a robust investor brand needs to have associations and present messages to the market that are:

Meaningful
Memorable
Clear
Concise
Comprehensive and
Compelling.

We'll expand on this more in future issues.

Time’s up.

Mike Tisdall
Investor Communications specialist and Managing Director – Insight Communications

Always happy to talk

We’ve been in the Investor Communications and Branding business for over 30 years, helping a blue chip list of Australasian companies retain engaged and loyal shareholders.

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