How to Build Key Requirements for a Strong Brand Identity

Have you ever defined your favorite brands and questioned why? It is a key exercise we often use with our clients. It helps to evaluate what should be the heart of your company’s strong brand identity.

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 is if they fail to deliver on that promise, they fail. And those promises represent what the brand stands for and its strong brand identity.

Related: What the Lego Brand Teaches About Branding Your Business

Failure to deliver on your promise or be that strong brand identity is like a politician promising no new taxes. Mark my words. Those kinds of promises are a prescription for a brand marketing disaster.

Importance of a 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, with similar educational backgrounds, coming up with similar ideas, and 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’s 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. A strong brand identity, however, satisfies a desire to get at the emotional heart of the matter. Let’s review 8 strong brand identities and what they promise … what they stand for. This is the best way to appreciate the importance of branding.

Differentiation

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

Best Buy’s marketing team, led by Drew Panayiotou, senior VP of 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.

Giving back

Ben and Jerry’s have a progressive, nonpartisan social mission that seeks to meet human needs and 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.

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 Hsieh 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.”

Building trust

Look inside to find the best processor technology, the Intel tagline. The trust mark symbolizes 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, are outspoken, and are 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 experience

Customer experience brings us a 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 rituals. Something definitely worth remembering.

Customer immersion

Disney is all about magical, fantasy entertainment. Being bringers of joy, be affirmers of the good in each of us, be — in subtle ways — teachers. To speak, as Walt once put it, “not to children but to the child in each of us.”

They do this through great storytelling, by giving their 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 come 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 a strong brand identity is simple: know the key requirements and over-deliver.

Walmart Customer Experience Designs Are Failing Improvement Efforts

Is your business focused on improving its customer experience? Many businesses are these days. Walmart is one of these businesses. But are the Walmart customer experience designs failing improvement efforts?

Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it.

–Peter Drucker

Peter Drucker certainly understood the real meaning of a great customer experience design, didn’t he?

The end state quality of what the customer received was what counted. Including the experience of the customer while he purchased the service.

Often that is what was remembered the most.

Companies lose customers for a variety of reasons, some of which they never discover. Sometimes customers walk away after a single unpleasant experience.

Other times they’re frustrated by a series of small perceived problems. Is a lack of a customer experience strategy costing your company customers?

Do you know the answer? It is not rocket science, is it? It is a key secret to your success, however.

The truth is, it usually takes significantly more time and energy to find new customers than it does to lose them. So you can be sure a strategy to build a positive customer experience can pay off when done well.

All the marketing in the world cannot make up the damage when it is done poorly or ignored.

Customers today engage with businesses in many different ways, leading to numerous touchpoints and tremendous opportunities for positively influencing their customer experience.

If one considers the hundreds of interactions each customer has throughout his/her lifecycle with a company, how do you define a customer experience to focus their limited resources?

When it comes to coupling the Wal-Mart customer experience to their marketing, they don’t yet grasp the importance of the improved design, do they?

But customers are often less tolerant of their experience (if average experience or better) if the company focus is lower prices.

What constitutes a great customer experience? (See our article on the nine truths to improve customer experience and service design.)

The quality of a business’s customer experience is ultimately determined by the way customers feel after their last interaction. If the customer is unhappy, the customer experience is bad.

If the customer doesn’t have a feeling one way or the other, your business’s customer experience is mediocre.

If the customer feels good, your business’s customer experience is satisfactory. But if the customer feels delighted, your business’s customer experience is a substantial competitive advantage. (See our article on the laws of customer experience).

https://digitalsparkmarketing.com/employee-empowerment/

is the only one that matters to success to most companies. Why shouldn’t it be the same for your Walmart store?

But should it be that way though? It shouldn’t and here is why I conclude this.

Walmart’s customer experience … creating good feelings

When a business does something good for someone, that somebody feels good about them. Are you familiar with Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream brand?

They are leaders in this type of discrimination. Other than the focus on lower prices, can you name one thing Walmart does to create good customer experiences?

(SeeWhat Ben and Jerry’s Can Teach You About Social Commerce Business)

customer satisfaction walmart — **Why customer satisfaction Walmart?**

Deliver happiness

Feelings and emotions certainly have a significant role in the way customers influenced in the marketing process.

Zappos and its business culture of ‘delivering happiness’ certainly has established this as one of its distinct customer experience designs.

No evidence of Walmart’s customer experience strategy in this area.

(See Zappos’ Marketing Strategy… What is Their Difference Maker?)

Walmart’s customer experience … product presentation

Have you ever been in a Whole Foods grocery store? If you have, you will remember the emphasis on the visual presentation of their products. Draws your eyes to many, even if you are not looking for them.

Helping customers visualize and sometimes taste the products. Traditional product aisles and a product presentation at Walmart.

They work hard at just getting to average, don’t they?

(See How Whole Foods Marketing Uses Social Media to be a Difference Maker)

Walmart’s customer experience … employees don’t care

If you hire people that are not delighted to be social and servicing people, you’ll likely end up with employees that don’t care. Nothing is worse for a customer’s experience.

Most Walmart employees don’t have a positive service attitude, do they?

Walmart’s customer experience … solving customer problems

Walmart's shopping experience — **Walmart’s shopping experience does it make a difference?**

Being very good at solving customer problems is a great way to create a good experience. Very needed in the technical product lines of computers and electronics, for example.

The standout in this category is Best Buy with its Twelp Force and Geek Squad home services.

If you want to ask technical questions on electronics products, better do it before you get to Walmart is our experience.

Limited solicitation of customer feedback

Many customers are itching to tell you how to improve. If they are not given an opportunity, it degrades the experience.

Likewise, customers always feel good when they see positive improvements.

I have never seen a suggestion box or any activity where Walmart solicited my feedback. What about you?

Walmart’s customer experience … limited employee authority

No empowerment for employees to do the right things? You might as well build a robot to respond to customers.

Nothing worse than have an employee that knows what needs to be done, but is not empowered to do it. Little to no evidence that Walmart empowers employees much.

Little to no personalized customer engagement

Employees who rarely smile and engage socially at one on one engagement are at a very serious disadvantage in being able to create a delightful customer experience.

In the longer term, the business needs to build relationships, particularly with its best customers. Hard to do with no personalized engagement.

Poor to average personal engagement is how we would rate Walmart.

Walmart’s customer experience … poor follow-through

If a customer is told X will be done, they should feel that it will happen. Hopefully faster and better than promised. If something unexpected happens, a good experience demands the customer to be notified and kept informed.

Not much experience with Walmart on this criterion.

Don’t meet expectations

If promises are not kept, expectations by the customer not achieved, negative experiences result. Too negative and your business will lose the customer forever. The absolute last thing you want.

I can’t ask a lot of Walmart without going to extremes. Average at best on this criterion.

The bottom line

So, in summary, here’s the thing: social isn’t just a new way of marketing, it’s a new way of running a business.

Many businesses certainly have figured this out and are using social marketing and improved customer experience to grow their business rapidly.

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. But believe in the effectiveness of delightful customer experience. And put it to good use. Don’t be happy with average as Walmart seems to be.

It’s up to you to keep improving your creative, social marketing and customer experience efforts. Lessons are all around you. In this case, 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.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy improving your customer experience?

Do you have a lesson about making your customer experience 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.

The Subtle Art of Creating a Successful Corporate Image Design

At the heart of creating a successful corporate image design is the promise they commit to delivering to their clients.

No matter how clever or memorable their brand image, if they fail to comply with that pledge, they fail. And those promises represent what the brand stands for. Feelings and emotion, as Freemantle states, are critical in the way customers are influenced.

The next big thing in brands always starts out looking like nothing at all. If it was easy to see coming, everybody would be doing it already and the market impact would be minimal.

So you can never create something truly new based on what you already know. The only way to find it is to start looking. Not all who wander are lost. The trick is to wander with purpose.

Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.

How to be heard in a world too busy to listen and with too much to hear

corporate image design — **Corporate image design.**

Invest the time and money into a professional picture, and it will be worth its weight in gold for your brand. Make sure you smile.

Why? Because a smile can build trustworthiness.

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:

Also see: Brand Identity Design: What It Is & How to Do It [+ Examples]

Corporate image 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 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’s products and services. Most purchase decisions have critical sensitive components.

Your brand represents a collection of your customer’s 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.

Corporate identity design inspiration … 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-tech 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 primarily recognizes the possibility that business can and should be a dominant force for the betterment of society.

Delivering happiness

They don’t sell shoes. They provide that extra dose of love we all need from time to time. There is no secret here. Zappos became Zappos because of the positive 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 excellent service. Today, we think of the Zappos brand as about great service, and we just happen to sell shoes.”

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 precarious, but for brands seeking to be disruptive in mature categories or sectors, it can be the path to huge success and bear high 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 benefits. 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.

branding design inspiration — **Branding design inspiration.**

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 the child in each of us.”

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.

The bottom line

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 excellent customer service or exceptional results or spectacular quality but don’t deliver. No, they didn’t 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 see. 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 entirely up to you.

Looking to create a smashing brand image?

Need some help in capturing more customers from your branding design strategies? Such as creative branding 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 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 in the section below?

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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 Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn