Your brand is a stranger
How to think about branding in an age of skepticism
Branding gets used and abused. Companies recognize the value branding can create in a way they didn’t five or ten years ago. This has led to it being misunderstood and misused by people looking for shortcuts and sure bets.
In this post I’m going to attempt to provide a simple framework for thinking about branding and solving branding issues when they come up.
Before we go any further it’s probably a good idea to settle on a a definition for branding. I don’t really want to dwell on this but it’s an important part of where we’re headed, so here goes:
Branding is the art of shaping perception and differentiation.
Now, this is my definition after working in branding for 20 years. There are undoubtedly a hundred other definitions. This is fine. The much more important question here is the follow up, “Doesn’t everything a company does shape the way it is perceived?” Well, yes, at least everything you see or hear. Because branding touches every aspect of experience, the lines between what is and isn’t branding are hard to define.
So while branding is a discipline that isn’t sales or finance or even marketing, the walls between these disciplines are glass at least and imaginary at most.
What’s required at this point is a framework — some way to think about branding so we can understand what it’s good and bad at, as well as how to make decisions about brand that help your business and don’t destroy it. So here goes:
Your brand is a stranger.
Again, let’s define some negative space here. Your brand is not actually a human — you don’t have to buy it lunch or hold the elevator door for it. It’s also important to clarify that I’m not talking about “personal branding,” the deeply insidious notion that you need to simplify your human existence to a vignette with bullet points. So in a slightly longer format: It is helpful to think of a brand as a person because our slowly evolving brains do not have a separate filter for understanding the components of a brand.
But why a stranger?
We see strangers every day. And while the vast majority of them remain strangers, some become acquaintances, friends, and even spouses. Every good friend we’ve ever had was at one point a stranger. The same is true for brands. We see tons of brands every day. The vast majority of them don’t grab our attention but some do. We interact with many brands occasionally (acquaintances) and a much smaller group of brands play crucial roles in our lives (friends and partners).
Let’s take this idea for a test drive by re-framing some branding situations as personal situations:
Your brand is just starting out: The first impression you make is very important. It’s probably a good idea to listen, ask questions, and understand your environment before blurting out a bunch of personal details.
You want your brand to be trusted: Saying “you can trust me” just makes people think of all the reasons you shouldn’t be trusted. Trust is earned through experience. People are more likely to trust you with something small before being willing to trust you with something bigger. If you betray their trust you may never get it again. This happens with data breaches all the time. You get a form email that mentions their “commitment to protecting your privacy” which somehow never came up before they violated it, along with a link to a credit monitoring service. Does this feel like trustworthy behavior to you?
It’s time to rebrand: The way that people talk about you doesn’t align with how you see yourself. People are focusing on what you’ve done in the past instead of who you want to become. This isn’t just about a new wardrobe, although that can help, it’s much deeper than that.
You want to be best in class: What does this mean in human terms? If you interpret it as trying to be better than other people, you’re likely to come off as a jackass. Instead, what are the ways you can show that you’re a good friend or partner? Do what you say you’re going to do — follow through. Show you listen and care. Find ways to prove you understand your audience without simply saying it. Who are you going to believe, the company that advertises a World Class Product, or the one with a No Questions Asked Lifetime Guarantee?
You made a mistake: Both companies and people make mistakes. Only companies have press releases about them. Own up to the mistake. Be clear and thoughtful about how you can make it better. When Lexus needed to do a recall shortly after launching their brand in the U.S., they decided to pick up and drop off the recalled cars at owners homes while providing loaner vehicles. Each Lexus was returned cleaned and detailed with a full tank of gas. That’s how you apologize. While some times explaining yourself is good enough, showing people you care through action is often much more powerful.
You want to create brand attributes: Again, both brands and people have attributes. Somehow with brands they’re used as a way standardize communication which often comes off as robotic. Humans don’t standardize communication. We use different vocabulary, jargon, and intonation when we speak to different people. This isn’t being fake. Everyone speaks to their grandmother differently than they speak to their best friend. It’s important to remember that we all contain multitudes. We’re all capable of being friendly and fickle, talkative and taciturn.
Brand attributes shouldn’t be all sunshine and rainbows. No one wants a friend who’s in the same mood every time you see them. That gets old fast and the same is true for brands. We like and accept people for their flaws and brands need to remember this. It’s OK to show weakness. This is what Domino’s did when they admitted their pizza was terrible cardboard and committed themselves to improving it. Since then their share price has increased over 60-fold.
