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Brand Harmony Branding: Part 2 of 3 Today, I'm revisiting my basics. It's easy to avoid going back to your core beliefs, but it's really healthy -- kind of like taking a posture class. At this moment I'm focusing on my fundamental beliefs about branding, based on the idea of Brand Harmony. Branding is often thought of as a process of "getting our name out there" or "positioning." Branding is considered something we do "to" our customers, akin to the way cowboys brand helpless calves. Uh-uh. No. My most fundamental belief about branding is that you don't brand your customers. They brand you. This is 2008. At this late date in history, nobody wants to be told how to think. People want to decide for themselves. Sure, people are impressionable, but they ultimately make up their own minds. As I wrote in my book Brand Harmony, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him think." (Shakespeare was much more eloquent in Hamlet, with "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.") Contrary to the (still) prevailing (anachronistic) view of marketing, it is not possible to use sheer brute force to "brand" customers. Interrupt them enough times with loud, clever messages, the thinking goes, and they will be brainwashed into buying your product. The problem with the philosophy of brute force is that it rarely works. For every AFLAC duck, Geico gecko or Budweiser Clydesdale, there are millions (billions?) of failed ad campaigns. The most powerful brand impressions (i.e. beliefs) people have about products and companies are not formed by advertising or other traditional marketing communications. Motivating brand impressions are formed when all interactions a customer has with a product or company blend to communicate a clear, compelling, differentiating story. This is Brand Harmony. The philosophy of Brand Harmony is a description of how customers create brand impressions, not how marketers try to force brand impressions. The marketer's job is to orchestrate the entire set of interactions, experiences and encounters in a way that creates a sense of Brand Harmony, encouraging a customer to create desired brand impressions. The best proof of Brand Harmony is to ask loyal customers of any company why they love doing business with that company. They will describe a coherent, integrated experience, with many mutually-reinforcing components, resonating in harmony. Even if they love a company's ads, those ads will be only minor contributors to a strong brand impression. I'm writing this piece at 30,000 feet on a Southwest flight from Las Vegas to Chicago. I stopped typing during a moment of turbulence ("Flight attendants, please take your seats"), and during that pause I asked myself why I'm writing about Brand Harmony, since so many readers of this newsletter have either read Brand Harmony or heard me speak about the topic. The answer to the question is simple: Because Brand Harmony drives my business thinking every day, and in every situation. Yoga enthusiasts think about breathing in every practice session, and Yoga teachers remind their students about breathing in every class. I, similarly, am guided by Brand Harmony at every moment. I hope this newsletter reminds you to do the same. Take Notice As a customer, how well do companies you do business with create a sense of Brand Harmony? How often do you notice brand dissonance, and how does it affect your impressions of companies? (I experienced brand dissonance last night during my stay at the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas.) How do you compare? On a scale of 0 to 10, rate your company on how well it creates Brand Harmony for customers. 10 is perfect harmony, where every part of the story reinforces every other part of the story (like a Tolstoy novel), and 0 is complete dissonance, where all interactions with your company are out of sync. Where do you see room for improvement? (If you’ve previously done this exercise in one of my workshops, or while reading Brand Harmony, how does today’s score compare to the past? Are you getting better … or worse?) Try this
Identify some of the worst occasions of brand dissonance in your company's
interactions with customers. Pick out three, and begin to address them,
this week. Remember, Brand Harmony is not an on/off switch. It is more
of a dimmer switch. With each improvement, you make it easier for your
customers to create clear, compelling, motivating brand impressions
of your organization. |
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© 2008 Steve Yastrow. All rights reserved. |
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