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Brand: a business tool that expresses who we are.
What phone do you own?
What make of car do you drive?
Which coffee do you drink on the way to work?
What brand of clothing do you choose for work?
What type of shoe do you wear?
Which footy club do you barrack for?
Are you a ‘Holden’ or a ‘Ford’ fan?
Drawing attention to these ‘brand’ choices and heightening your awareness of the choices you make each and every day can create a state of ‘status anxiety’ in many. Why?
On one part, few people enjoy being judged for their choices, mainly for fear of missing out or being rejected (as humans, deep down, we all still want to belong to the group). On another level, many of us use brands as tools and messages (some subtle, some not so subtle) to express visual and not so visual statements about who we are, who we want to be and how we want to be perceived by others. And herein lies the social anxiety or problem that ‘brand’ seeks to alleviate. Its also where businesses can take advantage if positioned effectively. Brand ‘tribes’ – those customers who have a mutual shared ‘love’ for a specific brand – find comfort, safety and acceptance in like-minded people.
A simple truism: we align, resonate and connect on a deeper level with people who we perceive hold the same values as ourselves. Brand is a business tool that enables businesses to create or encourage this ‘resonance’ or ‘alignment’ to occur.
Here’s a fitting quote often attributed to Einstein: ‘Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality; this is not philosophy, this is physics’. Einstein was, of course, no fool. This theory also encapsulates the principles of brand too – the frequency is ‘who we are’ – our identity, our values, emotions and what we believe. The ‘frequency’ is also the values of your desired customer. So match the ‘frequency’ of your customers to get the ‘reality’ you want i.e. attract more customers. Simple really?
Brand becomes a hugely personal and powerful physical expression, projection or manifestation of our own mindset – which is why there’s far more to brand than just a good-looking logo or a ‘look and feel’. There’s a whole psychological and behavioural aspect behind brand which both fascinates and intrigues me – and most brand strategists and marketers alike. In many ways brand is the pursuit of knowing yourself and your customer in order to get the business outcome you desire.
A brand therefore can be used as a powerful expression of who we think we are – our identity, or, at least, an identity that we want the world to see. Brand is a business tool used to communicate and visually express an identity, a character or a set of values. Its strategic intention is to help businesses send a message to the market, which states: ‘this is who I am’, ‘this is my identity’, and ‘this is what I stand for’. At the same time, brand also poses the question: ‘Do you want to be in my tribe?’.
The real power of a brand, however, is fully realised in its ability to speak to our subconscious desires and needs – invoking our deepest beliefs and values. Brand essentially leverages one of the most powerful forces there is – our beliefs; our desires – or in other words, ‘who we are’.
How does a brand do this?
By appealing to our subconscious desires, emotions and values we become emotionally attached to the brands we use. We eventually come to view them as part of our self-image and thus the psychological connection is complete. From a business perspective a lifetime customer is born (with the attached lifetime financial revenue) but ONLY if you continue to invest in the emotional attachment. Like any investment or relationship the bond can be broken if its not maintained.
By way of a quick example, Apple’s classic brand campaign – ‘I’m a PC, I’m a Mac’, demonstrated to the home computer market how a brand can directly reflect the personalities and self-perceptions of their users – i.e. who they are. That is how you use brand to resonate with your customer. That is how you ‘match the frequency’ to create the reality you want. Powerful stuff indeed.
So is your business expressing who you truly are to the market? Your identity? Your beliefs?
If not, maybe its time to make the unconscious conscious, realise the ‘real’ power of brand and reap the business rewards?
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I hope you learned something new, insightful or useful from this blog.
As The Brand Entrepreneur, I believe in helping businesses and savvy entrepreneurs ‘market smarter’ for serious brand growth. I do this by deeply defining your ‘ideal’ customer with The ‘My Avatar’ and ‘Ideal Customer Personality’ Workshops and then creating design assets that convey your ‘Why?’. Successful brands in the future care about customers, not branding. I believe that future is now. I’m passionate about creating brand stories & design assets that help brands get ‘in sync’ and connected to customers they ‘care’ about.
BE on the look out for Brand New ‘Brand Entrepreneur’ Brand Workshops for 2018!
Jamie Thomas – The Brand Entrepreneur