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Why your brand is dead in the water

August 14, 2012

Here’s how most brand evolve.  The organization’s leadership huddles up at a corporate retreat (or if it’s a start-up, around the kitchen table) and decide on a tagline and maybe a logo.

The tagline becomes the battle cry of the brand and they’re off to the races.

Or worse yet…the organization hires an agency who claims to “do branding” and after a little deliberation, the ads have the new tagline and logo and voila, the brand is launched.

Fast forward 6 months or maybe a year.  The tagline and the brand are limping along.  No one really uses them anymore.  And if they do, they think of it as the “theme of the month” and assume it will just go away over time.  And it does.

There are many reasons why a brand fails….but the biggest one in my opinion is that the employees are not properly engaged and connected to the brand.  Without a huge investment of time, energy and some money — the brand remains a superficial cloak that can easily be pulled off or shrugged off when it gets to be a challenge.

Your employees are the key to a brand’s long term success.  It’s that simple.

When we are asked to develop a brand for a client, we require the step we have dubbed “seeding the brand” which is the whole idea of introducing the brand promise to the employees and letting them take ownership of it — deciding how to deliver the promise, how to remove the barriers to keeping the promise and how to keep the brand alive inside the organization.

If a client won’t agree to implementing that stage of the process, we won’t do their brand work.  No ifs, ands or buts. Why? Because it won’t work without that step. And I don’t believe we should take their money if we can’t deliver success.

Discovering and then building a brand takes a village.  And you have to start by including your own villagers.

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Where does your brand live?

August 30, 2011

…How does your brand come alive?

When we talk about a company’s brand, in most cases people’s minds jump immediately to their logo.  No argument – a logo is a vital element of how you communicate it.  It is the visual representation of who and what you are.  But your logo is just the beginning of it.

Others might point to your tagline and suggest that’s where your brand lives.  Again, it’s an important communication tool for telling people what your company is all about.  But where both your logo and your tagline fall short is that they’re one-way communications.  You are showing or telling, but your audience is not actually experiencing your brand.

Brands really come to life when an experience confirms or amplifies the promise that your logo and/or tagline might offer.  Here are some key spots that you might not think about from a brand point of view.  But, they’re places where you can truly bring it to life for your employees, customers and vendors.

Your office/work space: You know what they say about first impressions.  One spot where many first impressions are created is when someone comes to see you for the first time.  Whether you have a retail space, office space or work virtually through an extranet —  how it first appears to your audience will stick for a long time.

• Does it feel very corporate and official?
• Is it welcoming and kind of funky?
• Could it be called cluttered or filled with interesting items?
• How about neat, with everything in its place?

All of that speaks to your brand and what matters to you.

Your “first day at work” experience: Never forget, your most active and important advocates are your employees.  And for them, there are few days more memorable than their first day at work.  What is that day like for them?

• Are they assigned a buddy who helps them get oriented to your workplace, the people and the procedures?
• Is there a small gift (maybe a hat with your company logo on it) waiting for them at their new desk?
• Do some of their teammates take them out to lunch?
• Are they given training or is it a baptism by fire?
• Is everything ready for their arrival or are you scrambling to get paperwork and supplies to them?

Think how many people are going to ask them “how was your first day?”  From a brand perspective, what do you want their answer to be?

Your “return” policy: Even if you are a corporate lawyer, you have your own version of a return policy.  How do you handle an unhappy client?  What do you have in place to avoid making them unhappy in the first place?

• Do you have a guarantee tied to your pricing or billing?
• Do you have a confidential way for them to register a complaint?
• Do you offer refunds without restrictions, boundaries or tiny type?
• Do you have an apology gift or letter that is ready to go in the case of a hiccup?

Remember that an unhappy customer is likely to tell more than twenty people why they’re unhappy.  Do you have policies and procedures in place so that your brand comes out smelling like a rose when those stories get told?

Just like everything in else in life – we can talk all we want, but it is our actions that really tell the story.  How you wrap your brand around key experiences like those first impressions, the first day of work and when things go wrong will go much further in terms of creating a lasting brand.

So where do you think your brand is most alive and vibrant?

 

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Taglines that stick

May 5, 2011

 

I think most taglines used by businesses today are a cop out.  They feel good but promise nothing. A reader wrote and asked if I’d talk about the other side of the coin – what makes a tagline great?

Creating and using a strong tagline takes real courage.  A tagline that will last for decades is one that makes a bold statement or promise.

So what do you need to consider as you evaluate your own tagline?

A strong tagline makes someone take pause. It might be the person it’s directed at like – Just Do It.  Or it might be the employee who has to keep the promise – when it absolutely positively has to be there overnight.

A memorable tagline should be a bit daunting.  That’s why it’s impressive.  If BMW has told us their cars were a nice ride, would you have remembered?  But who doesn’t want to drive the ultimate driving machine?  Talk about setting high expectations!

An enduring tagline is tied specifically to the product/service: Another element of a strong, test of time tagline is that we connect it to the company who owns it.  We don’t remember it just because it’s clever.  We remember who said it.  Take this little quiz. Who told us “you deserve a break today” or promised us “we try harder.”

This is where the generic taglines about “our people” and quality lose their steam.  Who doesn’t believe they provide good quality and that their people are dedicated to their jobs?

A memorable tagline tells a story: In a single sentence, we got the picture when Timex told us “it takes a licking and keeps on ticking.”  We can only imagine what might happen if forgot the warning “don’t leave home without it.”

We learn through stories.  We teach lessons through stories.  And we buy and sell around stories.  It’s much easier for us to remember a story than straight facts.  Which is why a story telling tagline sticks.

A powerful tagline points out how the product/service is unique: Who doesn’t know the unique advantage of an M&M?  They “melt in your mouth, not in your hand,” right?  The Marine’s tagline reminds us that they’re very choosy about who they let into their club.  “The few.  The proud.  The Marines” lets us know that there’s exclusivity to their brand.

Everyone wants a strong tagline but most businesses are afraid to make a bold promise.  What happens if it doesn’t get there overnight?  Or if the watch breaks?

Good marketers understand that a tagline is not an absolute.  Sure, every once in awhile you’re going to miss the mark.  But how you handle it when you fall short is part of the brand promise too.

 

Related articles

• How Not to Rewrite Your Tagline (mpdailyfix.com)
• Writer Wanted. Must Know Every Famous Advertising Tagline (adweek.com)

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