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Branding: Location or Invention
Everywhere I turn today, organizations are actively involved in brand work, but when I dig deeper, I am often amazed at both the lack of clarity I'm encountering and just how unreasonable most peoples' expectations are of what the tools and processes involved in a brand strategy engagement can accomplish.
Many otherwise smart people think they're going to re-invent their brands with advertising and that they will be able to do it tomorrow or with the drop of their next brochure. Refreshing a brand is not reinventing a brand.
Brand communications take place over a very long time horizon and I'm here to tell you, that if you expect that you can reinvent an existing brand, please reconsider your expectations.
A brand is like a river delta in that everything the river carries downstream ends up being deposited in the delta. Brands accumulate. They are the sum total of experience, communications, expectations, images, associations, victories, defeats, commentary, opinions, etc.
Strategically, this has profound implications. There is no such thing as an instant brand change.
While a person might get up one morning and decide to fundamentally change who and what they are, friends and family are not necessarily going to believe it, no matter how persuasive the changing individual might be. The old aphorism, “A leopard doesn’t change its spots� exists for a reason. People believe that, while behavior might change, character is a constant. The change has to be authentic & consistently expressed over a long time horizon. Brand is experienced as character, not as behavior. Behavior certainly is important because it drives perceptions about character. But to confuse the two isn’t useful in developing strategy. Brand, like character, takes a long time to communicate.
Since brand is the organizational/product/service analog for human identity, people are not going to believe that your organization, product, or service is capable of instantly changing its spots, either. At least not without very visible and tectonic change, as in a big staff shakeup that results in different leadership across the board. Even then, brand is unbelievably durable. Have you forgotten the Exxon Valdez?
I am reminded of my time at Arena Stage. Zelda Fichandler departed a decade before Molly Smith arrived to take the artistic helm. But for anybody who knew the organization, Zelda was still very much there. People opined that her DNA was in the paint on the walls. Those of us who have personally experienced Zelda’s force of will, her intellectual horsepower, and her personal presence understand the durability of her virtual presence and how it persists – even today – some 15 or so years after her departure. As a brand equity, Zelda Fichandler is momentous to Arena Stage.
One can refresh brand expression over a shorter time horizon, but it is impossible to reinvent the brand, itself, without taking a lot more time. Brand – like human identity - is a good news - bad news thing. Good news: with skill and good strategy, a budding or weak brand can be considerably strengthened. Bad news: if you damage an established, strong brand, you have your work cut out for you. Get ready for a generation’s worth of disciplined work. Your aircraft carrier won’t be turning anytime soon.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that branding work won’t produce results. It can and does produce big payoffs – even in the short term - but only when organizations bring clarity, focus, and sound strategy to both their processes and expectations.
A brand refreshment should address – and fix, if necessary – brand expression. If you expect that you can reinvent an existing brand, please reconsider your expectations.
Good branding work – for existing brands – pays off quickest when organizations focus on 1) clarifying, 2) aligning, 3) harmonizing, and 4) simplifying brand expression. While this sounds easy, it isn’t. It requires a rigorous and in-depth discovery process, disciplined distillation of findings, and penetratingly clear creative and art direction. It also usually requires sacrificing more than a few sacred cows, something that isn’t easy or comfortable – especially with old-timers.
So, if a brand can’t be reinvented, what can be done to use branding principles to strengthen performance?
First, locate the brand DNA. Determine those essence elements that define the brand. Since brands accumulate over time, the strategic question revolves around what character essences should be emphasized – not invented - in brand communications. Emphasis drives focus. Focus drives effectiveness.
Hang your hat on authenticity. People can smell a phony a mile away whether it’s a phony person or a phony brand. Locate and express, not invent and express – unless you’re working on a brand new baby brand.
Branding engagements can fail for a host of reasons. In our experience, they fail most often when the strategy work that drives expression is fundamentally flawed. A whole lot of work can be done to create something beautiful, but if it is inauthentic – beauty won’t save it.
To succeed, brand expressions must resonate with the people for whom they are created. Brands resonate when they harness truth to their purposes. Brand expressions sing when they are textured, unique, and somewhat idiosyncratic – just like human identities. In the same way that we often love people as much for their quirks as for their strengths and virtues, we love brands in the same way.
Posted on March 29, 2006 07:00 AM | Permalink
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