At our last meeting Lindy Yeates, Creative Director of Yeates Creative shared her brilliance on building a powerful brand. It was great to have her reinforce the importance of the work that we have been doing defining our businesses and positioning, is essential in building an identity. She also pointed out that a brand promise needs to come from the CEO level of the organization as it involves all points of contact with the customer.
Lindy defines brand success as the combination of an authentic and differentiating brand promise with a company that is aligned to be a “Promise Delivery System”. How many of us have responded to brand only to find that the experience is something quite different? Yeates Creative uses a three step process.
Step one in the process is having a clear understanding of who you are or what your business is. Ask yourself, what are your core values? What is the purpose of the organization? What are the goals of the organization? What is the business model; how do you make money?
Step two is to determine your positioning. How do you fit into the market and what makes you different? Questions Lindy asked where: What do you want to be famous for? What is your promise? Who is your idea customer? Who are your competition? What is your customer’s buying process and why should they buy from you? What are your primary and secondary brand touch points? List 10 words that describe your company.
Step three, the last step before designing your corporate identity is defining your brand personality. This is the expression of who you are and how you’re strategically positioned in the marketplace.
One of the exercises we did is “If you were…” For example, if you were a vehicle what would you be? If you were a celebrity who would you be? Get as descriptive as you can, tell a story, paint a picture and it will help you get a clearer idea of what you want from your brand.
Lindy did a great job and we had a lot of fun play around with our brands. My advice as always, if you want a professional brand, work with professionals. Start with a solid marketing strategy so you can answer the questions and provide the information and vision a designer needs to create a brand that will work for your business. Also, remember to communicate your brand promise to internally as well as through external marketing.
Happy Branding,
Liz
