How to influence the character of the Brand?
2019.07.17
People crave authentic connections
If you had a farm in America’s Wild West age, you would have literally “brand” your animal stock with the red hot iron stating that this cow is your property.
Early businesses adopted simple branding to avoid forgery, but the postwar consumer explosion took it to another level when men in suits realized that people tend to bond with brands by creating an emotional connection.
You can implement these tactics with simple, but not easy, steps.
VIRGIN brand goal
Step 1. Provide brand values to connect with
This is where a lot of modern brand strategy is targeted. Logo created by associating it with values and giving them a deeper meaning made possible for people to relate to them and make a connection.
As we tend to build TRUST among people who relate to the same values, the exact situation is with the Brands. Remember Brand is a personality. We trust the ones we can relate to.
Step 2. Focus on building T R U S T
People are incredibly time poor and are forced to make quick decisions from minimal information.
1 People have too many choices and too little time
2. Most offerings have similar qualities and features
3. We tend to base our buying choices on trust
There are too many choices in the market and customer is in lack of time. Most offerings have similar features. Trust is the base on which people consciously or unconsciously base the decision to buy.
Brand has to walk the talk. To make a promise and to keep it. Trust is the base on which people consciously or unconsciously base the decision to buy.
– If you say you deliver products in 2 days, but in reality it takes up to 7 days — people will distrust you.
– If all communication materials speaks that you are a high-end professional company and it takes 3 days+ to response to an email or phone call — people will distrust you.
– If your site is full of childish colors and you claim for producing high quality products — people will distrust you.
Have a vision for your brand — make a promise. And deliver it.
Really it is that simple.
Step 3. Inferred meaning of a brand promise is crucial
Buying decisions are often driven by inferred meaning from your branding alone, so getting a clear and effective message out there is the key to influencing consumers.
Identify where your customers are and where do you want to bring them. This can be done by simply answering these two questions:
1. Where your customers are? What pain points do they have?
2. Where do you want to bring them, how you can solve their problems?
And the gap between these two answers is the bridge between two poles in the picture above. This bridge can be the base of a Brand Promise.
Brand promise is a dreamland where you promise to take your customers to. To deliver products on promised delivery time. To create services in promised quality.
Example of a Brand Promise
Domino pizza noticed that there is some kind of dissatisfaction about pizza delivery services in the market. Most of the orders were late (delivery time was far beyond the one that was promised). So they made a Brand promise “30 minutes, or free”. And they kept it. Delivered on time, or the customer did not have to pay for it.
No need to mention that sales went up. Pure clarity of the brand promise message is the power.
Step 4. Control the interaction points with your brand
It all matters. The font, the color, the look and feel of photography you are using, the tone of voice…
And it all takes time. But there has to be a start somewhere.
It’s the whole experience of interaction with your brand. How you answer the phone, how you solve customer support issues, the tone of voice, the manner how you serve coffee at the meeting, does product quality meets the expectation of a customer, the experience of unpacking? Everything counts in building a sustainable brand.
Still not sure, start with Why
Having a vision for your company helps a lot in a Brand-building process. It can be like a starting point to which companies decisions and actions can align every now and then.
According to Simon Sinek Golden Circle theory, every company on the planet knows what they do. These are products they sell or the services they offer:
- We make pizzas
- Provide a shared drive services
- Sell food for beloved Youtube video cats…
Some of them even know how they do it, what makes them special and set them apart from the competition. Whether it is the delivery time or friendly personality characteristics, or eventually the price.
Very few organizations know why they do what they do. No, why is not about your aim to earn a million. That won't take you far. Why is not about making money — that’s a result. It should be a cause, a purpose, a belief. It’s the very reason why your organization exists.
Start with why.
When you know what you do, how you do and WHY you do it, you can start to amplify the rest part of the questionnaire. This would be the starting point of building the right brand.
Brand architect & identity designer
CONTACT:
hello @ linamass.com
+370 620 66742
Kaunas, Lithuania