Strong Brands Need Unique Cultures

Strong Brands Need Unique Cultures

Strong brands hardly happen by accident, or even by mediocre effort (and sometimes even an exerted effort if not well conceived, planned and executed can fall short).

 

A strong brand is more than what you tell the outside world — a strong brand saturates everything in its wake. It is your messaging, it’s in your visuals, and it permeates your team, both in how they behave externally and how they behave internally. Your team needs to truly understand the brand values and understand how they deliver on them.

Many brands have a single overarching theme that defines their core ethos. For example, Apple is at its core innovative and everyone gets that. They have been single-minded, consistent and relentless. FedEx has been about performance. Big Ass Fans is disruptive as noted by their former president, Jonathan Bostock, “The culture within Big Ass Fans was disruptive in everything it was doing.

Once you have an understanding about your brand ethos, it takes effort to put forth a plan as to how you will embed that within the operational steps your team takes.  You need to understand how to break down how you interface with your customers and key stakeholders. Your next exercise is decoding and roadmapping how your can build in the touchpoints and UX that your external relationships will recognize as speaking to your brand. And then deliver it consistently. Measure their experience — your team will focus on and deliver what they know you measure.

Delivering a strong brand does pay and it can be done. It will take focus and attention. And you have to have the patience to be consistent.