For a brand message to have any real impact, to influence behavior and seed advocacy, it requires more than awareness and publicity. It must advance a relevant higher purpose, cause or belief system that people who share your brand values can quickly resonate to. Only then will your message create any lasting marketplace advantage.
It is not the quality of your products that causes the category to tip your direction. Absent a refined brand WHY, new innovations and technologies will ultimately find themselves playing the circular, commoditizing price-and-feature game. Your competitive advantage gets real traction when you are crystal clear about the human-relevant purpose you exist to champion.
An identifiable cohort of consumers exists who share your beliefs and then want to integrate your ideas and products into their own lives. It is their ability to understand and embrace your purpose, your WHY, that causes them to prefer your brand. Because what you make offers a tangible way to flag their purpose and priorities to the world around them.
Beliefs Are Powerful And Can Be Enlisted To Change The Trajectory Of Brand Growth
- Beliefs are emotional and rise from deep within to inform decisions
- Beliefs run underneath the analytical radar to impact feelings and actions
- Beliefs help people understand and engage with your brand
- Beliefs are respectful of how we’re wired (our biology) to take action
Yet we find that belief systems are largely undernourished as business strategy because of a flawed assumption that a better mousetrap is the motivating tool to draw consumers in. Ultimately, products in any given category will be more similar than they are unique. Frankly, there isn’t any proprietary tech advantage that can be sustained over time to withstand competitive dilution. Instead, people are magnetically drawn to leader-type brands that communicate what they believe.
When Brands Become Symbols Of Values We Hold Close
Health, wellbeing, achievement, creative exploration, better relationships, education, love, serving others – there are so many places a brand can live to inspire users and improve their wellbeing.
The process to explore and refine a brand’s “why” begins with the consumer and works backward from there. Here are five components of a successful “why” exploration:
- Core beliefs that are consumer centric and address how the brand contributes to improving users lives and the world around them.
- Based on those beliefs, Why the company exists, its core mission and higher purpose.
- How the company will fulfill its belief-driven higher purpose and mission.
- Therefore, What business the company is truly in and assets required to fulfill that promise.
- The company Brand Stand (purpose) that expresses the business’ true north and becomes an embedded guide for decisions on strategy, policy, employee policy and recruitment, innovation and marketing.
An optimized purpose and mission will lead to brand advocacy and evangelism.
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by Robert Wheatley, CEO of Chicago-based Emergent, The Healthy Living Agency.
At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define and articulate what makes them competitive and valuable. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.
Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education
