Are People Listening to Your Brand?
Brands are alive. They have personalities, strengths, weaknesses, qualities and most definitely they have life spans. Let us take that concept a step further and talk about a brand’s senses.
Not to argue that a brand literally has a sense of taste or smell. There are, however, a multitude of brands that rely primarily upon those senses to attract followers, whether it is a chain of restaurants or a perfume. Those brands represent and communicate directly to those senses, and because of that, they require a unique insight into what triggers those senses.
Instead, we are keyed on the other three senses.
A brand must have a sense of sight in order to communicate a vision. There is no way to express a leader’s goals for the future if the brand can’t reflect that vision. Likewise, a brand has to be able to see where it is going or it will go nowhere. It also needs to see the audience it desires in order to appeal to its members. Vision, of a vision, for a vision.
A brand also must be able to touch people or it cannot move people. To make a connection on a personal or emotional level requires direct contact. That is why a brand has touchpoints – and why it has thousands of them. Large and small, a brand must recognize the significance of each of these touchpoints in order to promote itself and ensure the consistency of its message.
Most important of all, a brand must have the ability to speak. Take away a brand’s voice and you have a stage with no actors; an orchestra with no instruments. A brand’s voice is its means of expression, the frequency for delivery of its message. It makes the brand promise, and it delivers it continually.
The question you need to ask: who is listening to your brand’s voice? Is it the audience you envision? Or is it a darkened room with some people listening, some paying a little attention – and some comfortably asleep?
Your brand’s voice is its most vibrant sense. It needs to be clear. It needs to be concise. It needs to be free of noise and distraction.
It needs to be your voice – alive and amplified.