It's almost passe to even use the term "branding" or "brand" now, they have been buzz words for so long and yet throughout the years there seems to be a lot of different ideas about what those words mean. Marty Neumeier, in his 2003 book The Brand Gap, begins by explaining that a brand is not a logo, a corporate identity system or a product itself. He defines it as "a person's gut feeling about a product, service or company." In other words your brand is what people FEEL about your company, your goods, or your service, because as much as we want to say we are driven to behaviors by logic, in the end "we're all emotional, intuitive beings, despite our best efforts to be rational."
What each company can try to do, and the reason they hire ad agencies and marketing firms, is to influence the way people FEEL about your business, your services, your products. That is done by crafting the message, using the right words, conveying the emotional connection through everything from TV commercials and print ads, to websites, bill boards and radio spots. It takes some time to properly build a brand, but when you hit the mark you know it! It's when people bring up your company name on the streets and they can articulate your message, in their own way maybe, but generally they hit the mark and use the words you want them to. In fact it's an interesting experiment to try some time, just to hit the streets and show people your logo, JUST your logo, or your company name and see what the response is when you ask them to tell you about it. What would people say? Would they recognize your logo? Could they verbalize your tagline or slogan? Would they know what you offer generally? What emotive words would they use to describe your company? Be prepared to have thick skin in some cases, people may not know you like you think they do!
In some cases, if you have done the job right and you have cultivated a well known brand, it may come back to bite you. Do you want to guess when that is? When you or your company have not fulfilled the well established message of that brand! When you have sold yourself as one thing, and not performed up to the promise.
A few years ago I received a call from a client that in the construction industry, and he had spent time and money with our firm to really garner a reputation of trust because of longevity, they had been a family owned business for over 100 years, they were thought of as high end, superior materials and service. They were the people you called when you wanted the job done right the first time, and with products that withstood the test of time. Business was good, their brand firmly entrenched in the minds of the local consumer, until a series of jobs went very wrong because of recently hired installers that did not perform up to the standards that had been groomed over years and years of working within the industry. The employees were fired, but damage had been done.
The president of the company received phone calls, and they all contained the same basic idea in very plain terms. They went something like this, "Your website said.....", "We hired you because we had heard your radio commercials for years and they always said...", "We trusted you to do this right because you have always said you were one company that....". Nothing is potentially worse than building your brand, instilling in people the gut feeling that YOU want people to have about your company and then behaving contrary to that feeling. Clients and customers feel suckered, betrayed, and hurt. They get that "I've been had!" feeling, that replaces the trust they had in your message.
The age old saying that a happy client may tell one person, but an unhappy one will tell everyone they know has stuck around for so long because it's very true. That means you have to act quickly to repair this damage. A violation of your brand can be a company's undoing in the worse case scenario, OR it can be an opportunity to reinforce your message all the more. That's correct, I said sometimes your mistakes as a business can turn into the greatest opportunities to make people even more a believer in your brand!
In the example I mentioned we advised the president of the company to contact the unhappy customers personally, if at all possible in person, even if that meant calling and setting an appointment to come and talk face to face. When he met with them, the most obvious initial response was that it went without saying that the inadequate work would be torn out and rectified ASAP at no charge, and the completed project would be overseen by he himself so that it was certain to be satisfactory. The second thing we told him to do was to follow up within a day or two of their meeting and simply send them a personal, hand written letter that included a gift card to a very nice restaurant and movie theater to send them out for entire evening on the company's dime. It was a nice and UNEXPECTED touch that went the extra mile, and established how important they were to the business. They were not just paycheck, they were valued and appreciated for their patience. The result from such a simple procedure? Those same handful of customers turned into the biggest brand trumpeters you could imagine.
Suddenly the story coming from them was not, "Can you believe how poor a job that was?" to "Can you believe that the president of the company came to our house and fixed it all personally? That's right they paid for a night on a town besides that!" The brand was not just restored, it was felt even more personally and strongly because of a very small investment in time and gift cards. They knew that the message was real, the president of the company lived it, and the company made sure it always left a customer happy.
I have heard it said that you never want the sun go down on an argument, normally that thought is relegated to a spouse or familial relationship. I think the concept works for business-client relationships as well. If something has happened that violates your brand, don't wait to jump in and turn the situation from something bad and damaging to a chance to reinforce and strengthen your message. Sometimes all it takes is the extra mile of dinner and a movie, and that's a small price to pay to keep your brand intact. People just want to know that you hear them, you are good to your word, will fix your mistakes and that your commercials and websites and ads all truly MEAN something to you and your employees.
From where you are to where you want to be!
Doug
