The Page Group believes in what Nigel is presenting here…brand purpose is critical to growth and success, but it starts even one step further forward with understanding all that you can about your distribution channels and who and how they engage with your company. Only then can you craft a brand purpose that then must be communicated out to everyone inside your organization so they might reflect that brand purpose every day as they engage with your consumers. Only then do you build brand relevance and importance with your audience. Good Read…thanks Nigel.
I honestly can’t remember how I came to see this video. It features Katy Woodrow-Hill, the head of planning at Dare, describing her top four tips on becoming a ‘doing’ brand. But I thought the ideas were well worth repeating here.
I have amended the order in which the tips are given for what I hope is a good reason. One of the biggest mistakes that marketers make is to focus on what they want to do or say without connecting it to the brand’s purpose, the difference the brand is intended to make in people’s lives. You need to start there and work out how to best publicize the brand.
1. Make what you do relevant to what you stand for
Good works are great in their own right, but if you want get the most out of your investment then you need to tie the actions back to what the brand stands for. The obvious example of a brand that does this superbly well is Red Bull. The brand invests in a myriad of different sports and events but they are all tied back to the idea that Red Bull uplifts mind and body.
2. Make what you do relatable
Assuming that your brand can make a difference in people’s lives, then the key question is whether what it stands for – the promise, positioning, personality – resonates with the target audience. What you do has to mean something to them, it has to resonate.
3. Make what you do simple for people to understand
So true but so often ignored in practice. “People will figure it out,” has to be one of the most over-used excuses for poorly executed creative. One time in a hundred the audience might be so intrigued that they want to figure out what is being shown or said. On the 99 other occasions, they simply click away to something of more interest.
4. Make it describable so that they can easily share it with someone else
If people find your brand worthwhile, they will want to talk about it. Help them do so. Give them a simple, memorable description of what makes your brand meaningfully different, something that might give people pause for thought. Think of the description as a slogan for the digital age.
TPG Social Media