Who IS Your Brand?

Let’s say you’ve segmented the market, targeted a promising group for growth and created a meaningfully differentiated brand positioning. Your brand may even be successful by now.

As the brand and business grow, it’s critical to continually ensure your carefully crafted brand positioning is embodied and communicated in everything your brand does and says – even (or especially) if you don’t have much of a media budget. Whether it’s the innovative product with a unique package and graphics, motivating online or in-store promotional materials, systems and processes, or consumer services scripts, each element can work to build the brand…or detract from it.

If you’re not purposeful and careful, your “brand” is nothing more than an undifferentiated product. While this may sound obvious (gee, you mean I should track my brand and make sure all elements work to support it? Thanks, hadn’t thought of that!) too many examples indicate just the opposite.

Are you at risk for becoming:

• The higher education brand that has marketing materials (website, brochures, social media presence) and career opportunity postings riddled with misspellings and grammatical errors? Is that where you would want to go to school to learn and effectively compete on the world stage?

• The state “brand” that proclaims to be the “gateway to romance” in the first 30 second ad, quickly followed by a separate 30 second ad describing how important it is to support a “road work alliance” to fix the terrifying images of crumbling infrastructure? The media buy may have been efficient but the overall message is confusing…which is it, the idyllic vacation spot or the potential disaster site?

• The telecommunications brand that seems to do everything it can to avoid communicating with its consumers? Really, a phone company   that doesn’t answer the phone? When they say your call is very important to them? Think about it.

• The major financial services company that tells a customer it will take 3 weeks to stop payment on a check the firm issued? That’s right;   it would take this bank multiple weeks to accomplish what a consumer could do on its website in under a minute. Is this where you want to invest and have access to your hard earned money?

This list (of real brand experiences) could go on for pages – and you likely have pages to add, and also shaken your head as you asked yourself what were they thinking? - but you get the point. Perhaps we should create an ongoing list of brand experience disconnects…feel free to add comments.

Brands evolve, managers change, stuff happens, but brand-building discipline should endure.  Most of it is just common sense with a marketing twist. Why risk what you’re investing so much in talent, time and money to create?

Mean What You Say, Do What You Mean

 

“Your call is very important to us and an agent will be with you shortly. Thank you for your patience.” Repeat every 3 minutes…

 

OK, if my call is so very important, why have I been on hold for 25 minutes? If this is how the brand (after all, consumer care – no matter how oxymoronic the term is in this case – is a key component of brand equity) handles the important calls, it’s amusing to think of how they might handle the ones they deem not very important.

 

Part of a brand’s promise is to be there for its customers/consumers over time – before, during and after the sale. And mean it. And do it.

 

If you mean that your customer’s call is very important to you then do what you have to do to respond, whether or not you have enough CSR’s. Even if it’s as simple as saying, “all of our representatives are serving other customers like you right now. We value your time. So, please leave your number and we’ll call you in the next 7 minutes.”

 

Amazon is just one of the brands that has figured this out. They mean it. And do it. Will your brand?

 

Then again, if your customers’ calls really aren’t very important to you just keep doing what you’re doing now. They’ll figure it out.

Some Get It…Do You?

You’re flying off to your next business meeting, with first class upgrade safely in hand. You’ll no doubt be treated to (or present) an endless series of Power Point charts detailing the state of your business down to the last sku. These days, it may not be pretty.

 

How much of your meeting time will be devoted to discussing your consumers’ current state of mind and behavior…beyond your revenue projections? Based on what?

 

At what point in the discussion, if ever, will you think, “hey, I have a job, I flew first class, but it’s likely that many of my brand’s consumers are struggling or fearful of falling off an economic cliff.”

 

When was the last time you asked your consumers how they’re feeling about life in general and your brand in particular? Then did something to show you “get it?”  Yes, they may say they want a lower price but in many cases, consumers just want to be understood…and derive some extra value from your brand when times are tough.

 

Hyundai, Denny’s and FedEx Office are just a few recent examples of brands that get it and somehow feel more relevant.

 

If you’re not empathetic, your brand won’t be either.