What’s under the skin of your brand?
10 October, 2022. Written by Gerri Hansen.
Something is about to get forgotten by hundreds if not thousands of brands.
In our race to hit 2022 year end targets and drive impressions, prepare for Black Friday and get our heads around new technology (NFTs, the Metaverse being current buzzwords that have everyone scrambling) are we all being consistent and authentic in our marketing or has the narrative got lost? Really revealing what the business stands for, values, and most importantly, feels like? As we all draw near to 2023, have the hard yards been spent on truly understanding the brand, and ensuring the marketing plan and activity are going to bring to life your true narrative?
We all know that age old story: consumer meets brand, brand understands consumer, consumer falls in love. When customers feel connected to brands, more than half of consumers (57%) will increase their spending with that brand and 76% will buy from them over a competitor (source: SproutSocial). So while you are chasing the sales, take a moment to think about what is going to drive a connection with your customer, which ultimately is going to help you achieve your commercial goals too.
The art of good brand storytelling is not lost, don’t get me wrong. There are hundreds of fabulous copywriters out there crafting excellent stories. But how genuine are they? Sometimes something gets lost between the sofa cushions of a business’s Brand Identity Guidelines and their Marketing Plan. It’s too open to interpretation and the core essence of the brand is so manipulated that we, as consumers, don’t get a clear picture that we can buy into and remain loyal to. The best brands paint a picture and consistently draw their consumers into their world, offering solutions to their needs, resonating with them on an emotional level, and it all starts with a deep understanding of their own brand story.
To quote a well known piece of research by Headstream: “if people love a brand story, 55% are more likely to buy the product in future, 44% will share the story, and 15% will buy the product immediately”. This is powerful stuff. So why do brands lose track of themselves?
In over 20 years of working with brands big and small, there’s been plenty of time to observe where the opportunities are missed and brands get side-tracked:
1. Visual Identity Guidelines only take you so far
Particularly in the SME world, there are a lot of businesses who might get some Visual Identity (VI) guidelines created and think “that’s it, I’ve got my brand”. Unfortunately, VI only goes so far. Yes, it will tell you what colours to use, typography, imagery, and depending on how good your designer is, might even give you some guidelines on photography, icons or illustration. You may have even done some work on your Brand Values. Or developed a Mission or Purpose statement. But here’s what’s missing: your collective narrative. Your proposition. Your personality. Your promise. A good set of brand guidelines should help you tell your brand story starting with the stuff that really matters (the heart of your brand), then adding the elements that help you communicate it clearly and consistently (messaging) and then the visual aspects that help your brand be recognisable (identity). Here’s a simple overview that I share with my clients:
When working with a new client the first thing we ask for is the Brand Guidelines to see what state they are in. Then we really focus in on the Heart and Messaging elements because this is the root of good, genuine story telling. Working to define your unique proposition and your brand personality really helps to drive all the direction not only for your visual identity and marketing plans, but in driving engagement with your employees who can identify more deeply and act as credible ambassadors – so it’s important not to skip through the stages in a rush to get your brand out there.
2. Over reliance on agency thinking
Amazingly this is most often happening in larger organisations where there are serious budgets at play. In my time working in the corporate world we were all trained on brief writing and I was lucky enough to work for a forward thinking Marketing Director, Heather Smith, (now MD of one of the UK’s largest insurers) who inspired me to really be creative and lead my agencies through a single minded proposition. Yet there are many agencies capitalising on brand and marketing managers who don’t have time to think for themselves. Bad brief writing, or no briefs written at all, are too often pinged off by email to an overworked Account Director with a plea for help. Or in the best cases, a brief is written with some direction about channel, spend and target audience, but relies on the agency strategist to come up with an emotional thought or purpose to pin together the campaign. The result is ineffective spend, inconsistent creative and unclear messaging – and ultimately a missed opportunity, a lost connection with your customer. Not only that, your agencies aren’t able to do their best work. According to BetterBriefs/IPA’s recent research, 78% of marketers think their briefs provide clear direction while only 6% of agencies agreed. Brand owners must know their brand the best and help their partners understand it well enough to deliver their message consistency and authentically. Luckily, the IPA joined forces with Marketing Week’s Mark Ritson and BetterBriefs to design this handy guide .
3. Managing a portfolio
Now here is where things get tricky. If you’ve got one brand it can be hard enough to really get under the surface. But what if you are managing multiple brands within a group or portfolio? This can be an even tougher task – where does the emphasis lie, do you tie them together under a single proposition or let them stand apart with separate narratives?
The truth is it depends on the type of brand portfolio you are managing – are you operating a Masterbrand with key product lines? A collection of strong sub brands under a parent group or acting as an endorser to sub brands that stand alone but rely on the master to provide credibility? Either way, it is vital to spend time to clearly understand the role of the master brand, as well as building distinct propositions and personalities for each of your sub brands to provide space and a territory that each can own authentically. When we do this with clients we usually start with a series of workshops, a sensory exploration, interviews and research, really taking the time to understand the business, their values and the unique nuances of each brand in the group. Having gone through this process recently with Exclusive Collection, their Group Director of Sales & Marketing, Stephanie Hall, said ‘for someone who has been in the business for nearly 13 years now I have never felt so much clarity on the brand, how each property plays its part, a positioning that provides guard rails to move and develop within.’ This is a great place to be – putting a stake in the ground for your brand and being able to consistently tell that story, but having some flex so that you can adapt when required for tactical opportunities.
4. Marketing not having a seat at the table
This last one is a bit sad really. As a marketer who is passionate about the role that storytelling and brand can play in driving business metrics, too many businesses see marketing as an afterthought or simply as a service function. A recent report by Deloitte cited that only 26% of CMOs regularly attend full board meetings, this behind HR, Legal counsel, Risk, Finance… yet which of these people is closest to the customer? Which of them is really going to help create deep brand loyalty and advocacy? To further the issue, many business owners and their teams are stretched to the max and those given marketing responsibilities often don’t have the bandwidth or expertise to prioritise building the brand beyond the creation of a logo and maybe a website (see point 1 and 2). The danger here is that they might be growing from a commercial perspective, but leaving the soul of their brand behind.
The future is multi-sensory
We love working with brands to help them unstick their marketing challenges, joining the dots between strategy and execution, as well as really bringing their proposition to life in the flesh. And so it is not surprising that one area we are really passionate about is the field of sensory marketing. One of the fastest growing themes for marketing in the future, we are increasingly seeing the need for brands to truly connect on a human level, particularly with Generation Z consumers who not just want, but expect, brands to deliver personalised experiences and rewards. Some of the most challenging and rewarding work I did was in leading the brand experience at Coutts. For a 325 year old private bank, even simple things like changing the poetry in the client toilets, personalising the coffee and tea service, or changing the artwork, really helped clients bond and create an understanding of the brand on a deeper level: bringing to life what the CEO coined ‘the Coutts aura’.
Fostering a deep understanding of your brand on a multi-sensory level will help to enrich and embed your brand experience. “Every consumer company should be thinking about design in a holistic way, using the senses to help create and intensify brand personalities that consumers will cherish and remember” (source: Harvard Business Review). On a recent panel about the future of hotel room design, Nicolas Sunderland of NSI Design Ltd discussed the possibilities of pre-ordering your room scent, sounds and aesthetic - saying: “the room is yours, exactly as you want it. That level of personalisation is what people expect”.
Let’s uncover your story
We love getting under the skin of a brand, and have developed our unique BrandSensory® process to help brand owners really see themselves through their consumers eyes from every aspect, fleshing our their personalities and crafting a strategic narrative to be told time and time again. More case studies and news to come, but for now, we’d love to hear your thoughts so do get in touch, we’ll put the kettle on. Let’s get together.