When will you have your brand in place?
It’s an important question for every company, so I’ll skip to the answer….. it’s already in place. A definition of brand that I’ve always like is simply “the way a company, product (or even individual) is perceived by those who experience it.” If that’s the case (and I strongly agree that it is), then you established your brand the moment anyone other than yourself was aware of what you’re doing.
So, if that’s the case, what is our role in creating and managing our own brand? Now we can talk.
It helps to think of your brand as if it’s a person. Your target customers will inevitably speak about your brand in terms of personality traits and human characteristics. Think for a moment about some classic brands, Levi’s and Rolex. Even as you read that, I wouldn’t argue that you didn’t think for a moment about the product itself (more on that later) but what came to your mind immediately after that? My suspicion is it was some form of imagery. For me, my mind quickly goes to mid-century America for Levi’s (cuffed jeans, guys around a car kind of thing) and big racing yachts for Rolex. Your mind certainly could have been elsewhere, but that’s not the point. The point is that our minds are painting a picture for us loaded with feelings, emotions and associations. I am not thinking about denim or Swiss movement, I am thinking about the image and feelings that brand conjures up for me.
Now let’s jump to on-line restaurant reviews. Go ahead, look some up. My guess is you’re going to see a lot of reviews that include things like; “amazing view,” “super friendly waitstaff,” or on the other side, “we waited for ever,” “my bartender was super rude.” Sure, you’re going to see some mentions about the food, but you’re going to see a lot more about how someone felt about the experience than you are about how well the steak was cooked.
So, with all of this emotion, and not much about the product, what are we to do with our brand?
Step 1: Consider all of the little details! It only takes a moment to make a first impression (I know, back to humanizing things) so make it a good one. Think through every aspect of what you do, they all count. If you believe you’re a premium product, then that has to be communicated at every touch-point. Let’s look at even a simple email; is the template professional, clean, and consistent from person to person; do the images in your signature break when someone receives your note; do you land up in people’s junk folder because your shared server has been flagged; is your font 12 points when sent from one computer, and 10 points when sent from another, grey one time, black the next? Do your emails communicate “premium,” if you can’t even get it right? If another one of your value propositions is customer success (and it should be) but you don’t return that same email quickly, and with a solution that makes them ecstatic, your customers will FEEL you failed them. Neither example is about your product, but that’s the association your customer will make with your brand.
Step 2: Make it consistent. You simply must do the same things time and time again. To get someone to believe you’re honest takes time, to get them to think you’re not, takes a moment. There are more than 14,000 McDonald’s in the US alone. Have you ever seen one where the logo colors where wrong, or you didn’t know what was on the menu? If you did, send me that address, I’d love to look it up. If you say you’re about quality, but your returns are skyrocketing, does “quality,” come to mind for your customers? Think back to Levi’s. How many pairs have you had in your life? Have you ever had a pair that wasn’t bulletproof on day 1?
Step 3: Pay attention to what people are saying. A brand is not set in stone. Sure, you need to make it powerful and commit to it, but just like people (that personification thing again….) they grow and evolve over time. Make sure you respond to your audience. Two fantastic examples (one good, one not so good);
- In 1994 Federal Express officially adopted the brand name FedEx, taking a cue from its customers, who frequently referred to the company by the shortened name already.
- In the mid-2000s the hip-hop community had prompted Cristal Champagne (a brand a couple hundred years old) as a “must-have,” status symbol. A Cristal executive was less than enthusiastic about that new brand position, and the result was simple….. that large and influential community abandoned the brand.
So back to Rolex for a moment. What do they want you to believe about their brand? A clue might come from looking at their two biggest brand ambassadors: Tiger Woods and Roger Federer. As a reminder, both have become famous for being hugely successful in sports where time is basically meaningless, and neither have ever worn a watch while doing it.
