Your brand is your promise delivery system

In the simplest terms, a brand is the promise that you make to your customer. In an ideal world, it’s a promise delivery system that you and your team can live by 24/7/365 anywhere in the world. Comprehensive. Organized. Intentional. Structured. Sustainable.

We know that a lot of people (especially in the B2B world), when they hear the word “brand”, they think oh, it’s my color palette. It’s my logo. It’s the way I speak to my customers. It’s the imagery that I use.

These are all important hallmarks and pieces of the puzzle, but brand is made up of much more than that.

As we see it there are three core aspects to brand:

1. First is your brand strategy, which is really everything from what‘s your point of view, to the story that you’re telling the market on why you’re different, to your positioning against the competition, to the messaging you use to support the positioning, to ultimately, what are the exact words you’re communicating to customers? You know, why should they care? How are you solving their pain? Where do you fit in their belief system?
2. Second is identity, which is all of the visual creative design components mentioned above, and more.
3. Third is brand experience, which is really everything. Your everyday interactions with your customers, across every human, digital, and other touchpoint.

Sounds simple. Actually complex. There are so many different layers and components involved, and the key to all of it is that you really need to learn and understand who you’re talking to, to be able to align your brand with what those people need.

What makes one brand or brand strategy stand out over another? We like to say that the best brands are easily personified. Is a given brand helpful? Heroic? Friendly? Intelligent? Gentle? Powerful? Wise? All of the above, you say? Nope. You can’t be everything to everyone. You can’t be the cool, innovative disruptor and the experienced, reliable brand all at the same time. You can’t be the premium priced, high quality brand and the low cost, value-leader option, too. You’ve got to commit to a lane.

As you navigate the brand development process with your leadership and investor stakeholders, it’ll take both emotional and financial investment to develop a narrative that’s right.