At the heart of all killer brands are the promise they commit to delivering to their clients. No matter how clever or memorable their brand image, if they fail to deliver on that promise, they fail. And those promises represent what the brand stands for. Feelings and emotions make a brand image design. and are critical in the way customers are influenced.
How to be heard in a world too busy to listen and with too much to hear
Failure to deliver on your promise or to be what you stand for is like a politician promising no new taxes. Mark my words. Those kinds of promises are a prescription for a marketing disaster.
So here are a few great thoughts and super examples on how to create a smashingly effective brand design:
Importance of brands
We like to quote from the book Funky Business Forever when we discuss brands or branding with our clients:
The ‘surplus society’ has a surplus of similar companies, employing similar people, with similar educational backgrounds, coming up with similar ideas, producing similar things, with similar prices and similar quality.
It is not easy being different, is it? But all the more important.
The key to a good brand is being different. There are 4 critical things to remember about brands and branding:
Every business has a brand, whether explicitly defined or not. The important question to be answered is how good is the brand?
Brands deliver an emotional connection to a business’ products and services. Most purchase decisions have critical emotional components.
Your brand represents a collection of your customers’ perceptions of how they see you, how they feel about you, and what they say about you.
Your brand communicates every time it touches a customer. This makes you, as a marketer, responsible for this communication ‘moment of truth’.
Most brands sell products or services. GM sells cars. Borders sell books. Real estate brokerages sell homes. Killer brands, however, satisfy the desire to get at the emotional heart of the matter.
Differentiation
A great brand example of differentiation? There is none better than JetBlue. JetBlue’s brand success centers on the achievable – the simple things – they knew would make a difference for their guests. This set the stage for direct TV and XM radio, the provision of first-class seats to everyone, more legroom, great snacks, and high-end service at lower end pricing.
No other airline others these value propositions. They are different and their brand stands out because of those differences.
Simple. Attainable. Targeted. They delivered.
Solving customer problems
“For the past 18 months, Best Buy’s U.S. marketing team has been working to reframe the retailer’s brand proposition. Now it’s ready to unveil its efforts. Best Buy’s new tagline, is ‘Making technology work for you.’ Best Buy sells high technology electronics and is a leader in applying technology to help be a leader in customer service.
Giving back
Ben and Jerry’s have a progressive, nonpartisan social mission that seeks to meet human needs and eliminate injustices in our local, national, and international communities by integrating these concerns into their day-to-day business activities. The focus is on children and families, the environment, and sustainable agriculture on family farms.
Much has been made of corporate America’s propensity for internalizing the fruits of doing business while socializing the costs. Ben & Jerry’s, by contrast, is dedicated to what they call “linked prosperity”, which essentially recognizes the possibility that business can and should be a powerful force for the betterment of society.
Delivering happiness
They don’t sell shoes. They deliver that extra dose of love we all need from time to time. There is no secret here. Zappos became Zappos because of the fanatical customer support it offered. That is the company’s brand. As Tony Hsieh, the CEO, puts it, “Back in 2003, we thought of ourselves as a shoe company that offered great service. Today, we really think of the Zappos brand as about great service, and we just happen to sell shoes.”
Happiness
Product presentation
Lifestyle brands march to a different drummer. They have a clear and distinct point of view, are outspoken, and inherently polarizing. For many brands, this polarizing effect is very risky, but for brands seeking to be disruptive in mature categories or sectors, it can be the path to huge success and bear great dividends. Whole Foods is a textbook case.
When brands have a clear, distinct point of view, it forces choices that may forfeit short term gain for long term benefit. It is a conscious decision to invest in the brand. The values of the brand permeate the behavior of the organization, the customer experience and, ultimately, public opinion. The result is a very powerful appeal to a much smaller audience.
Customer immersion
Magical, fantasy entertainment is what Disney is all about. Be bringers of joy, to be affirmers of the good in each of us, to be — in subtle ways — teachers. To speak, as Walt once put it, “not to children but to the child in each of us.”
Immersion
Disney does this through great storytelling, by giving our guests a few hours in another world where their cares can be momentarily put aside, by creating memories that will remain with them forever.
So is this what killer branding is all about for companies?
We think so.
Making promises and keeping them.
Some organizations work very hard to weasel in the promises they make. They imply great customer service or amazing results or spectacular quality but don’t deliver. No, they didn’t actually lie, but they came awfully close. The result: angry customers and negative word of mouth.
It’s very easy to overpromise. Tempting to shade the truth a little bit, deliver a little bit less to save a few bucks. Who will notice?
The customers notice. If you need to overpromise to make the sale, don’t bother. It’s not worth it.
The best way to generate killer branding is simple: over-deliver.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you.
It’s up to you to keep improving your branding and brand marketing. Lessons are all around you. In many situations, your competitor may be providing ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on continuous learning from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
What Everyone Ought to Know About Rebranding a Business
How Creative Branding Helps Your Business Marketing
A Crash Course in Creative Branding by Using a Distinctive Voice
Have you ever defined your favorite brands and questioned why? It is a key exercise we often use with our clients. It helps to avoid rookie mistakes in small business branding.
It also helps to evaluate what should be the heart of your company’s strong brand identity. It is all about how to be heard in a world too busy to listen and with too much to hear2
We believe the heart of all killer brands is the promise they commit to delivering to their clients. No matter how clever or memorable their brand marketing, if they fail to deliver on that promise, they fail.
And those promises represent what the brand stands for and their strong brand identity.
Related: What the Lego Brand Teaches About Branding Your Business
Failure to deliver on your promise is akin to a politician promising no new taxes. Mark my words. Those kinds of promises are a prescription for a brand marketing disaster.
Importance of a strong brand identity
We like to quote from the book Funky Business Forever when we discuss brands or branding with our clients:
The ‘surplus society’ has a surplus of similar companies, employing similar people, and with similar educational backgrounds. It is also like coming up with similar ideas, producing similar things, with similar prices and similar quality.
It is not easy being different, is it? But all the more important.
The key to a good brand is different. There are four critical things to remember about brands and branding:
Every business has a brand, whether explicitly defined or not. The important question to be answered is how good the brand is?
Brands deliver an emotional connection to a business’ products and services. Most purchase decisions have critical emotional components.
Your brand represents a collection of your customers’ perceptions of how they see you. It also represents how they feel about you, and what they say about you.
Your brand communicates every time it touches a customer. This makes you, as a marketer, responsible for this communication ‘moment of truth.’
Most brands sell products or services. GM sells cars. Borders sell books. Real estate brokerages sell homes. A strong brand identity, however, satisfies a desire to get at the emotional heart of the matter.
Let’s review eight strong brand identities and what they promise and what they stand for. This is the best way to appreciate the importance of branding.
JetBlue’s brand success centers on the achievable. They wanted it to represent the simple things. The things they knew would make a difference for their passengers.
This set the stage for direct TV and XM radio, the provision of first-class seats to everyone. It included more leg room, great snacks, and high-end service at lower end pricing.
No other airline others these value propositions. They are different, and their brand stands out because of those differences.
Simple. Attainable. Targeted. They delivered.
Solving customer problems
Best Buy’s marketing team, led by Drew Panayiotou, senior-VP marketing, worked to reframe the
retailer’s brand proposition. Best Buy’s new tagline, representing its brand identity is ‘Making technology work for you.’
A strong focus on solving its customers’ problems, wasn’t it?
Giving back
Ben and Jerry’s have a progressive, nonpartisan social mission that seeks to meet human needs. It seeks to eliminate injustices in local, national and international communities.
They do this by integrating these concerns into their day-to-day business activities. Their focus is on children and families, the environment and sustainable agriculture on family farms. Good targets, yes?
Much has been made of corporate America’s propensity for internalizing the fruits of doing business while socializing the costs.
Ben & Jerry’s, by contrast, is dedicated to what they call “linked prosperity.”
They essentially recognize the possibility that business can and should be a powerful force for the betterment of society.
Delivering Happiness
Zappos doesn’t sell shoes. They deliver that extra dose of love we all need from time to time. There is no secret here.
Zappos became Zappos because of the fanatical customer support it offered. That is the company’s brand.
As Tony Hsieh, the CEO puts it,
“Back in 2003, we thought of ourselves as a shoe company that offered great service. Today, we think of the Zappos brand as about great service, and we just happen to sell shoes.”
Small business branding … building trust
Look inside to find the best processor technology, the Intel tagline.
The trust mark is symbolizing customer trust and faith they are receiving the best in technology. Technology that is life-changing.
Product presentation
Lifestyle brands march to a different drummer. They have a clear and distinct point of view. They are outspoken and inherently polarizing.
For many brands, this polarizing effect is very risky, but for brands seeking to be disruptive in mature categories or sectors, it works. It becomes the path to huge success and bears great dividends.
Whole Foods is a textbook case.
When brands have a clear, distinct point of view, it forces choices that may forfeit short-term gain for long-term benefit.
It is a conscious decision to invest in the brand. The values of the brand permeate the behavior of the organization. They permeate the customer experience and, ultimately, public opinion.
The result is a very powerful appeal to a much smaller audience.
Small business branding … customer experience
Customer experience brings us space rather than a product.
Some would say that it fills a psychological need that other companies have not had to do in quite the same way.
The emotion is all about uplifting moments and daily ritual. Something worth remembering for small business branding.
Customer immersion
Disney is all about magical, fantasy entertainment. Being bringers of joy, to be affirmers of the good in each of us, to be — in subtle ways — teachers.
To speak, as Walt Disney once put it, “not to children but the child in each of us.”
They do this through great storytelling. They do it by giving their guests a few hours in another world. A world where their cares can be momentarily put aside. A world where creating memories which will remain with them forever.
So is this what killer branding is all about for companies?1
We think so.
Making promises and keeping them.
Some organizations work very hard to weasel in the promises they make. They imply great customer service or amazing results or spectacular quality but don’t deliver.
No, they didn’t lie, but they come close. The result: angry customers and negative word of mouth.
It’s very easy to overpromise. Tempting to shade the truth a little bit, deliver a little bit less to save a few bucks. Who will notice?
The customers notice. If you need to overpromise to make the sale, don’t bother. It’s not worth it.
The bottom line
The best way to generate a strong brand identity is simple: know the key requirements and over deliver.
Customer engagement improvements are worth the effort.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your branding design strategies? Such as creative branding ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Do you have a lesson about making your brand marketing better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add to the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.
More reading on brands and branding from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Do you make continuous improvement a focus of your marketing strategy? Most of the best marketing strategies we study and follow certainly do, and that is an awesome way to do marketing. Yes, the innovative Disney marketing strategy is making their business better and better all the while.
And their growth is all about their marketing strategy. Of course, if you are a family with children or grandchildren you certainly know this.
Too often we obsess about using digital techniques to DRAG customers to our website or social media accounts. But it’s so much easier to show up where they already have an established community — in real life or on the web — and just be a helpful, friendly human being in that environment.
Have you noticed? It is hard not to notice, isn’t it?
Let’s examine the reasons their marketing strategy is so effective:
Marketing, at its best, is about the future. Unfortunately, we spend most of our time stuck in the past. We research what already happened and extrapolate forward to produce a plan. It’s not that we’re lazy, we simply know a whole lot more about the past than the present or the future.
Here is an interesting story about how Pablo Picasso, the famous Spanish artist, developed the ability to produce remarkable work in just minutes.
As the story goes, Picasso was walking through the market one day when a woman spotted him.
She stopped the artist, pulled out a piece of paper, and said, “Mr. Picasso, I am a fan of your work. Please, could you do a little drawing for me?”
Picasso smiled and quickly drew a small, but beautiful piece of art on the paper. Then, he handed the paper back to her saying, “That will be one million dollars.”
“But Mr. Picasso,” the woman said. “It only took you thirty seconds to draw this little masterpiece.”
“My good woman,” Picasso said, “It took me thirty years to draw that masterpiece in thirty seconds.” [1]
Picasso isn’t the only brilliant creative who worked for decades to master his craft. His journey is typical of many creative geniuses. Even people of considerable talent rarely produce incredible work before decades of practice.
We already know that marketing is becoming more social, local, and mobile, just as we know that big data and new interfaces such as touch, voice, and gesture are becoming increasingly more important. What comes next?
Some excellent examples are shown here.
Brand identity
Youthful, magical, fun, and family-oriented, and true to the brand.
While establishing a differentiated meaning for a brand is tough, perhaps the greater challenge facing marketers today is the growing number of places consumers touch a brand. It’s become incredibly more complicated to execute a brand promise. This is what we call bringing the brand to life. Consumers are interacting with brands in myriad new ways, but brand organizations have to move much faster, with greater agility and responsiveness to consumer actions and reactions, which can be at warp-speed in this rapidly changing environment.
The heart of Disney’s marketing strategy is their brand. The brand is built into and reflected by its tag line … the happiest place on earth. They clearly understand that their brand is not about them. Rather it is about how the potential client community sees them, feels about them, and talks about them. They realize that their brand represents their current and future relationships. Their goal is to deliver emotional connection to their services. And they are doing it very well.
Build excitement: Let’s face it; Disney is not a low cost vacation. By providing custom touch points filled with useful and exciting content, unique to each families’ post-purchase, Disney is helping to build excitement. It works, and it’s brilliant.
Personalize: All customers are unique, have different needs, especially in travel. Since this is not a one-size-fits-all world, what everyone needs is different from just about every other person. Disney knew that and deliver a book that is unique for each family. They send a book that was specific to their hotel and reservation details … all the information needed in a custom 15-page book. It works, and it’s brilliant.
Times have changed since Walt Disney’s days but his marketing ideas are still amazing. Let’s take a look at a few of Disney tactics:
Continuous promotion – If there was one thing Walt Disney did well it was promoting his business. And he did so continuously. He made sure he kept his organization in your mind. When it came time to think of going on vacation, to a movie or any of a number of other things Disney always came to mind.
Build lifetime value – Go to a Disney attraction today and find people who have been coming back for decades and many times at that. Disney keeps their customers so happy that they keep coming back, again and again.
Web site
The Disney web sites are the physical center of this firm’s marketing. Their designs are very user friendly, yet contain the means to integrate all the strategy elements we discuss today. They encompass several ways to allow two way client engagements, including live chat, email and telephone.
Again little to no selling, as they let their products do the marketing. Their strategy reflects the belief that pushy sales pitches turn customers off, but personally relevant and interactive engagement switches them on. You can’t help but notice that all the material is put into the language of the client community.
Innovative Disney marketing … it’s the stories
The story is king – Walt knew that the story was the real reason people enjoyed his attractions. Even today, every Disney feature has a story behind it. People relate to these stories. It’s just part of the human condition. They are great at engaging people on a human level. Their stories abound at every turn.
Customer immersion
Always something new: Disney fans keep coming back because there’s always more to see. Disney’s motto isn’t “Lots of Rides”—it’s “The Happiest Place on Earth”. And Disney maintains constant interest by making sure there’s always something else to notice.
Interesting, interactive queueing areas for the rides.
Sporadic “spontaneous” performances by Mary Poppins or Alice and the Mad Hatter at various times of day.
Rides like the Jungle Cruise that are strikingly different at night.
Holiday theming. Different fireworks displays. “Limited-time only” eatables.
In the experience
Continuous theming: If you take away the theming, there’s nothing particularly special about Disneyland’s rides. Tame roller coasters, generic log flumes, perfectly ordinary carousels—off-the-shelf mid-range rides you could go on at any theme park. In fact, several nearby parks have far more extreme and exciting rides.
The thing is, Disney’s theming isn’t just slapping a few cartoon animals on the sides of rides. It’s all about the unique experience, complete and, in its own way, classy.
Engage customers directly: Disney was often seen walking around Disneyland talking to visitors. At other times he’d go to see a Disney movie and get people’s reaction to the picture. This was one of the ways Walt did his market research. You can follow this model also. Don’t always use a marketing research firm or some kind of online research tool, such as Google Analytics. While these are very worthwhile, there’s no substitute for interaction with customers. Get views about your products and services straight from the people who use them.
Details and more details: Enter any Disney property and you will see attention to detail everywhere. You know that something special is ready to happen. This is a key element of any content marketing campaign. Even the street signs on Disney properties pay attention to detail. They are rabbit ears with arrows on them. The company could have used normal street signs but where’s the magic in that?
Adapting to change
Disney parks are in a state of continual change with new entertainment. A very progressive company that keeps up to speed on consumer trends and needs. Certainly always eager to adapt their parks expertise to new areas. And certainly always looking to try new things, including marketing.
Can you change? Of course, you can. Everybody changes every day. But how versatile, agile, and quickly can you adapt yourself and your organization to stay relevant in today’s society?
Organizations are always evolving. What’s different now, is that we set a new speed record of change on a daily basis. Technology gives us unprecedented possibilities. And this sea of opportunities is pushing the traditional bureaucratic, controlled and hierarchical organization into an identity crisis.
Social media
Disney utilize all the main social media channels/platforms to engage potential clients. All channels are used to engage and share all their material in a conversational manner. They always looking to engage and learn and serve customers.
Short and sweet messages
80-90% of Disney marketing messages are short and to the point. As we said previously, many topics are used to produce many messages so as not to over saturate the market with the same messages.
Integrating the elements
All of these strategy elements complement the firm’s brand and messages. The integrating elements? The brand and the client educational element. The key is to have a central theme to the brand. In Disney’s case, the themes are all built around a family focus, fun, dreams, and happiness. Integration of all elements is the most important part of the strategy.
Walt Disney was a genius in many ways. His technological prowess is storied but it was his marketing genius that set him apart from everyone else.
Use a little of Walt’s business insight in your content marketing campaign and enjoy renewed and continuous business success.
Here’s the thing, the Disney dream isn’t just a new way of marketing, and it’s really a new way of running a business. They certainly understand this concept well and are using social marketing to rapidly promote their business.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
