A company’s “brand” is a weird thing.
If you ask an average employee what their company’s brand is, or their brand strategy, they may not be able to answer you directly. If you take to google to see how a brand should be described it will give you a vague answer like “brand is the company’s identity” or “brand is a story which makes it stand out from competitors”.
Let’s make this much simpler.
That’s it.
The easiest way to figure out your brand is to survey 100 people who are familiar with the company. If all 100 people describe your company as "cheap", then your brand is "cheap". It doesn't matter what ads you put out, how much you push the narrative that your products are cutting edge, or anything else. Your brand is "cheap".
Now… the job of a brand team is to try and shift and control the narrative of what others say about you - to make that shift from "cheap" to "efficient" or "innovative". The biggest challenge with this is that you can't really tell them what to say; you have to guide them in that direction. Let's use three examples to see why this is the case.
- 1. Don't do Evil - Google's famous, former slogan was "Don't do evil". The phrasing was simple and direct. The point was that the company should continue to build for the good. While good in theory, who isn’t going to take shots at one of the largest companies in the world and call them out for the “evil” that they are doing? Over time, this slogan was consistently used against the company, especially as the company began to track users more and more. Gizmodo famously put out an article called "Google's Broken Promise: The End of 'Don't Be Evil' and googlers even sued the company saying they broke a promise.
- The “trust me” CEO - There are too many examples of this to even talk about. I’m sure you know at least a few CEOs who constantly try to tell the world how what they and the company are doing is the right thing. The thing is, the people reading this almost always interpret this the opposite way. This is a person in power telling my what to think? No, I’ll make up my own mind. A great example of this is the “crying CEO” of 2022. The CEO was trying to show how much he cared, yet it was interpreted as “out of touch” and “cringe-worthy”.
- The teenager relationship - Who is the person every teenager wants to date? The person that their parents tell them not to. When a parent tells a teen what they should do, you are deciding for them. These budding adults want to be seen as individuals - and making an individualistic decision means doing something that they parent, their main figure for decision making, wouldn't do.
While we aren’t teenagers our entire lives, there is a general human need to feel independent and in control of your reality. When it feels like someone or something is telling you how to feel, that aspect of independence is ripped away - and hostility can replace it. There’s much more nuance here - but the point of these examples is to highlight that brand has to be subtle. Being overtly direct can have the opposite impact that you are attempting to create.
Alright… so let’s go with an example. How would you describe the brand “Jeep”? Take a second. What’s the first word (or two) that comes to mind?
Personally, I’d call it rugged. I’m going to assume you picked something similar. Why is that? Do they say rugged everywhere? Not really. But…
This is the first image on google search
These are the features they highlight
This is the slogan on the Wrangler page
They are building a perspective in your mind of what the company represents - and they are ruthlessly consistent. I don't think they make any images of these vehicles driving through cities. They talk about their products as the means for you to have adventure. They lean into their history as military vehicles in the 40's. They don't need to tell me that their vehicles are rugged - I can come up with adjective on my own. And I will essentially decide to purchase this vehicle or not based on the fact that I want others to perceive me as rugged.
What's impressive about this is that Jeep's, by definition, aren't all that rugged. In 2023, they were the second least dependable automotive brand in the world, meaning they're pretty prone to breaking. This would suggest that product features are actually less important than product perception in a purchasing decision. While we may think of this product as rugged, in reality, it is probably not a vehicle I'd really want to be driving in the mountains in the middle of nowhere….
So where does that leave us? A basketball coach named John Wooden poetically defined a person's character. He said, "The true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is watching." A company's brand, in many ways, is extremely similar to a person's character.
Creating a feeling inside of a person is hard. It doesn't come in a day, a week, or a year. It comes with a consistent march of all teams, people, and products in a singular direction. Brands take years to build, and they can crumble in days without strict oversight and conscientiousness. The rewards for this monotonous labor, however, are immeasurable. It allows you to be perceived as a rugged vehicle when you're prone to breaking down or as a nutritious snack when you're full of sugar.