There is a large South Australian organization that has a new branding campaign they are implementing.
A brand is the real-time, sum total experience, perception and related story that prospects and customers create about something or someone that exists in someone else’s mind.
Or the idea or concept of you inside the minds of your prospects and customers.
It could also be a point of differentiation.
To illustrate with an example; on a farm with thousands of cattle that all look the same, it is hard to find one that is different or that stands out.
Now, when a farmer puts a “brand” on cattle, the branding differentiates that cattle and helps the farmer identify it from all the other brands.
It gives the farmer a reference point or a position that they can relate all other cattle to.
It helps reveal the needle in the haystack, so to speak.
When a company has a brand for their product, service or solution, the branding differentiates that product, service or solution and helps prospects or customers identify it from all the others.
To be commenting on it, obviously, I have seen the campaign before.
But, not recently, so I’m playing a guessing game now…
Off the top of my head I take a guess at the slogan and write it on a piece of paper, it’s something about being different.
I then pull up their webpage and their actual new slogan is pretty close to my guess.
I got it basically 50% correct.
And here lies an important lesson about brands.
One, that people don’t recall your slogan as best you think they do.
But I want to concentrate on the second lesson…
Electing what your brand should be (and all of the connotations that has) and embodying what that, should be are two very different things.
Far too many large organizations have a marketing budget, and they spend it ALL on graphic design and advertising.
This is not a brand by the way.
This is branding, like what happens to a cow.
Far too many businesses (and marketers) get this distinction wrong.
In other words, the electing what their brand should be is part of brand creation.
But, they fail to spend any resources on embodying that brand.
I can tell you this is true because I am a customer of this large South Australian organization and they don’t embody what they elected!
On the promised end, that is marketing, they say one thing, but on the delivery end, it is a very different customer experience.
Electing in this case is easy to do: a few graphics and a big ad buy.
Any business can do that.
And it’s not even important (congruence is.)
In fact, I know brands that have terrible graphic design, intentionally (and most importantly congruently.)
The terrible graphic design actually fits their positioning and brand.
They have elected their brand, and terrible graphic design is congruent with how they embody what they have elected, and it’s amazingly effective for them.
This is effective in the millions of dollars.
Electing, in this case, leads to outputs, which is far easier to justify than outcomes.
Yet, outcomes are what matter in marketing and sales.
Marketing and sales outcomes only come from embodying what you have elected.
It stops refunds, repairs and returns
It guarantees recommendations, repeat and referral customers.
And embodying what you elected is really hard.
It means you can’t bullshit your customers.
And how do you get every one of your touch points with every one of your prospects and customers embodying your brand?
We got a graphic design firm too great a pretty banner and we bought newspaper ads and so on.
The latter is what is effective.