Brand Building Fundamentals: Brand Promise

Brand promise is the collective experience people have with your brand once you combine all other factors of your brand foundation. So it's not tactical or directive. It's the essence of the brand.

You may be familiar with some of the standards:

• Disney: Fun family entertainment

• Coca-Cola: To inspire moments of optimism and uplift.

• Nike: Authentic athletic performance

Makes sense for billion dollar brands. But what if you're not that?

A number of years ago I worked with the local Freestore Foodbank. An amazing organization that helps people get back on their feet through a range of services. When we talked with internal people, they gushed about their ability to help people transition into positive life situations.

But people outside the group thought they only gave away food.

We found that food was the catalyst to everything else.

If you haven't eaten in three days, chances are very good that you don't have much interest in talking about clothing, job skills, housing, etc.

Food comes first.

The brand promise became: Using food as a gateway to life transformations.

It captures the essence of the brand and gave internal audiences a focus.

Brand Building Fundamentals: Positioning

The best companies know they have to own a unique place in the hearts and minds of their consumers. In simple terms, this is positioning.

You can leverage a number of vectors including relevance, clarity, distinctiveness, and a whole lot more. But you cannot be all things to all people. Remember, this is about standing out in the hearts and minds of the people who have a chance of caring about your brand.

In his book, Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely tells the story of Salvador Assael who, through a series of trades, ended up with a collection of black pearls in a day when everyone wore white pearls.

You might think the fact that they were different would do the trick. It didn't, any more than a black t-shirt is exponentially better than a white t-shirt.

Assael teamed up with Harry Winston who crafted the black pearls into luscious pieces of jewelry with premium pricing. Now, the product had exclusivity, a connection to a superior brand and a price tag to match all the glitz and glitter. Soon, black pearls were a necessary item in any reputable jewelry case.

Trying to sell black pearls didn't work. Positioning them as exclusive alternatives did.

Brand Building Fundamentals: Desired Consumer Experience

Brands often talk about what they bring to the market. The smart ones also think about how they want their audiences to respond. In brand building, this is the Desired Consumer Experience (DCE).

Branding only from the inside out opens the door to confirmation biases. It's just too easy to convince yourself that your brand is smart, innovative and darned good looking. But your brilliant product without an audience isn’t worth much in the market.

I like to consider three vectors for DCE:

1. What do you want your audience to THINK about the brand as a result of an interaction?

2. How do you want them to FEEL about the brand?

3. What do you want them to DO?

A few DCE examples:

• (The brand) helps me feel like I can own my future

• (The brand) is always working on my behalf

• (The brand) helps me take care of what's important

• (The brand) makes me feel like a rock star!

I tend to lean towards emotion in the DCE partly because emotional connections are longer lasting than simply having consumers think "I always get a good deal."

Ultimately it's your call. Just be purposeful in your choice.

Brand Building Fundamentals: Points of Difference

Every successful brand must have attributes or benefits that make them stand out in the hearts and minds of consumers and stand apart from their competition. These are the points of difference in the brand foundation and are fundamental to helping your brand win in  the marketplace. They are what give your audiences a reason to turn your way versus the competition.

These can be rational, as in distinct product quality features or maybe even the fact that it's tied to a particularly strong parent brand/organization, or emotional, as in the way the brand makes its audiences feel.

Key here is that points of difference should be elements of the brand that competitors can't copy easily (think under six months). Unless the brand is willing to fight for trademarks, you can expect your assets to be copied.

One of my favorite examples of the nuances between points of parity and difference comes from the classic Miller Lite campaign. In this campaign they touted "Great Taste," a point of parity in the category plus "Less Filling," a point of difference at a time when consumers wanted fewer calories without sacrificing taste. Brilliant.

Brand Building Fundamentals: Points of Parity

What your brand does that qualifies you to be in the market will not differentiate you from your competition. They're called points of parity in brand building—so you can move on to what matters.

The name is fairly transparent: these are elements the brand offers that enable them to be seen as a player in any particular category. I often state it like this: If I were a billionaire and wanted to get into your category, what would I need to offer in order for people to take me seriously?

The list often starts with things like: wide range of products, good quality, a variety of experts on staff, size of company, efficacy, good value, etc.

In workshops with some larger, established brands rethinking their way, the list can fill several pages—which is perfect for the group to work through. Because many established brands fall victim to believing their Points of Parity are what separate them from their competition. They don't! They simply keep you in the game.

The next step in the equity building process is to identify Points of Difference. These are usually much harder to nail down—some brands may only have one or two true differentiators.

I'll discuss those in my Points of Difference post.

Brand Building Fundamentals: Brand Personality

Every brand has a brand personality. Not every brand chooses to manage that personality. That's a mistake.

Brand personality has been defined as the human characteristics that embody the brand or brand experience. Helpful? Didn't think so. Let's rethink this.

Brands can be fun, free willed, playful, studious, a work horse, etc. But those attributes don't drive much energy into the brand. Worse, your interpretation of "fun" may be decidedly different than mine. So we could work on the same brand using "fun" as the brand personality and end up in vastly different areas. I think that's an issue.

I recommend people start with analogies (cars, famous people, bands, etc.) and then unpack what makes them work for the brand.

You might start with mountain climber Reinhold Messner. But everyone might not recognize that name. Unpacking that might get you to: Courageous, personable mountain guide: skilled, knowledgeable, engaging, with an intense desire to help others succeed.

It can be short or long. Just help people get on the same page and visualize the potential so internal and external audiences connect with the same powerful personality.

Branding Should Be Logical

Over the last 15 years+ I've dug into and created branding programs for start ups to global conglomerates in almost every category and channel imaginable. What has become abundantly clear is that the strongest brands, and companies with zealous employees and brand  fans, are crazy simple and logical.

Logical. Sounds almost too easy, right?

In the market I think it's a combination of vision and purpose—very few companies set out to confuse their audiences and make it difficult for them to find the products and services they want.

Logical branding doesn't mean overly simple. It means people can easily understand the path from one end of the communication spectrum to the other, whether that's in the portfolio strategy, equity, architecture, Web site or customer service rep responses.

Behind the scenes it involves the kind of brand building tools people inside those companies will use to bring the brand to life. It's been my experience that too many agencies promote complicated tools and "proprietary methodologies" that are hard to explain and harder still to use, and therefore end up in a drawer. The brand spends money on the agency but doesn't improve the experience or the brand.

I think logical is better.