OK, I keep bumping into BRAND this week. If you haven't heard, I'm a big believer in the power of brand - it is the one way we can set ourselves apart in the ever-expanding world.
But brand isn't a new concept. It has always been around. We just haven't always been explicit about it on a smaller local level.
Think about the local companies you grew up with. You always knew who had best prices and who would return your call. You knew who had the unusual and who had the mundane. Each of them had, by default, a brand identity. But most of them didn't intentionally manage it. Who they where and what they were about just sort of seeped out.
And sometimes, what seeped out wasn't accurate. Or wasn't what they especially wanted to be thought of. Brand happens by default. And in a world where everything travels fast, default is a dangerous position today.
Brand begins at the core of the business. In fact, I think it is one of the outcomes of another of my favorite topics - mission statement.
I don't mean those mushy smushy rambling sentences about how wonderful your organization is. I mean the really clear, succinct statement about what your organization does to/for whom, within what value construct.
The mission statement is at the heart of it all. If you can't clearly say what you do, how can you do it? If you can't say who your market is, how can you sell it? And if you don't have a value construct, how can find your way?
Mission statements are a lot of work - but worth it. The hardest part is usually keeping it sweet and simple. "We make dog food from all natural ingredients for canine companions of all sizes and shapes. We make dogs healthy, dog lovers happy, and create a profit for our shareholders too."
That's not fancy, but there's no doubt about what the company does, to whom and for whom, and what values drive it.
And as soon as you read it, a sense of brand starts to seep through. Words like quality, health, wagging tails, trust all materialize in the mission's mist. You aren't manufacturing the concept of a brand - the mission is driving it. That's called authenticity.
The stages of building a visual brand identity come naturally too. When you know what your organization is about, images, colors, shapes, textures, and visual experiences suggest themselves. In the hands of a skilled designer, variations emerge.
Textual themes, descriptions, and messages all suggest themselves as well. And, the channels for communicating the brand, the products that enhance the brand, and every outreach activity all circle back to the same vision.
Suddenly, you have Brand with a capital B.
And once you have it, you have a way to separate your company and your product from others out there. As we move into a world with ever-more choice, much of it through the online space, how do people make a decision? Brand. The image your send about your company and your product and the consistency you use that builds and builds again upon itself.
You give people a short hand tool for talking about you. You reinforce the positives. You provide a way to test your marketing and outreach initiatives for appositeness - would our brand blast unsolicited email? Does that action map to the values in our core mission? Having a standard to measure yourself against helps you keep focus - and as we all know, focus is critical to business success.
Sometimes it seems like people worry about "how to build" brand a bit too much. Brand matters - but creating it isn't as complicated as it seems. The hardest part is the one that everyone organization has within its grasp - to really understand what the company does, to whom/for whom and within what value set. That's the biggest challenge - and the step that too many people skip. And it is a step that is especially important for technology and innovation companies.
Google has a great brand. But Google also has a really clear statement of who it is too: Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.
There's no smushy stuff there.
Here's Apple Computers - different in style from Google but also very clear: Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market this year with its revolutionary iPhone.
Do either of them leave any doubt about what they do? Do they suggest important values? And, does an essence of brand ooze right on out of these?
Often, instead of nailing down the heart of the organization, it's really tempting to skip ahead and ponder brand and brand representation. We get hung up wondering if this blue is the right blue and if the shape of the box reflects our brand. But, if that measuring stick - the succinct mission statement - isn't solidly there, what we testing the blue against?
People like to know what they are getting. That's the expectation brand sets and manages. But if we don't know ourselves first, how can we every communicate that? And in that self-knowledge, is where all brand begins.
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