The other day a few guys came to my house to replace my air-conditioning unit. Their company has been around for 90 years. Being a marketer, I couldn’t help myself.
“Wow. Good brand equity,” I said.
One of them looked at me and squinted.
“Well, yeah, the first guy was awesome,” he replied. “But when he died some other folks took it over and really ran the name into the ground: selling people stuff they didn’t need, snotty service. So when we bought it, we had to rebuild a lot of the trust.”
Light bulb: branding is never something you “finish.” There’s no saying, “I built my brand. I win! That’s all, folks.” It’s something that must evolve and be constantly monitored. Events can change it (hello, Iraq war). Organizational shake-ups can change it (goodbye, Steve Jobs). Even deflated footballs can … well, more on that later.
Brand is not what you say about yourself, but what other people say about you. And what they say about you is as fickle as the day is long.
Elements of a Brand
I can’t say it enough: A brand is not a logo.
Branding includes messaging, customer experience, repeatability/delivery on expectations (QC), position in the market relative to competitors, unique selling proposition/position — and, yes, your visual style and iconography.
A brand is a promise of an experience. The actual experience is the payoff (or lack thereof) of that promise.
And when the promise and experience don’t match, your brand suffers. The promise of Tom Brady is that he’s a squeaky clean All-American. Recent headlines hardly pay that off.
Or, for a visual example:
4 Steps for Ensuring Your Brand Is On-Brand
How can you be sure what people are saying about you aligns with what you’re saying about yourself? Below are four easy steps:
Step 1: Identify Your Ecosphere
Ask yourself, who are your constituencies and stakeholders (that is, your customers, employees and clients)? What are your communication touchpoints (on-site, in-print, display, social, press coverage – or really, anywhere people learn about you)? Who are your competitors in the space? How are they positioned?
All of your answers add up to the ecosphere in which your brand lives.
Step 2: Discover Your Brand
Remember: This is not what you think it is, but what it actually is. Interview stakeholders and current customers. Interview strangers and those less familiar with you. Interview your mom. Interview my mom. Perform a Google search (it’s surprising how many brands neglect to do this). Look for social-media mentions and press coverage.
Step 3: ID Your Vision State
In a perfect world, what do you want people to say, feel and think about you? Does your actual brand match your perfect brand?
If not, the gap between the two shows you where the branding work needs to be done. That work could take the forms of more targeted content, better messaging, a more prominent public persona or a new “look.” But, again, don’t expect a new logo to solve it all.
Step 4: Determine Whether Your Brand Promise Matches Brand Experience
If it doesn’t, you have a big problem, my friend. If you’re selling a Tesla experience but providing Ford Focus quality, no amount of rebranding is going to fix it — unless you either step up your operational execution or you get real and call that Focus, well, a Focus.
Once you’ve gone through these four steps, take a deep breath… and begin again. Remember, a brand is never “set,” it’s a permanent iteration.
If you’d like to see me talk about this in the flesh, check out my Vlog on brand equity here.
Can you think of a brand that manages to succeed despite a gap between promise and experience? If so, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.