If you've read any of my previous Forbes posts, you know how important I believe brand ideas are to a company. Maybe you agree, but work at a company where there are people in influential places who do not. Frustrating, right? Well, I have a very simple exercise you can try to prove the power of a brand idea.
First, why have a brand idea?
I believe all marketing activity (if not all company behavior) begins with a powerful, single-minded, truthful brand idea. The only way to get away from expensive and inefficient "random acts of marketing" is to have a well-articulated brand idea that serves to galvanize all behavior.
It’s not an understatement to say it’s sort of like giving birth to a company god. Once discovered and articulated, the brand starts to “speak” to you, tells you what it wants to do and becomes much more than a two-dimensional logo. It's not unlike a novelist whose characters tell the author what they want to do next (here’s a bit more on that).
Now, what do we do with brand-idea skeptics?
The exercise.
I do a presentation to clients entitled, “Don’t Just Brand The Channel, Channel The Brand.” And it’s all about the power of a brand idea. At the end I have the audience break out into two groups and equip each group with a flip chart, a pen and a mission.
I provide each group with a different manifesto that I compose beforehand representing a very different brand idea in support of a product. Thing is, the product for both groups is exactly the same: a bike. It’s only the brand idea that is different:
The mission for each group, then, is to come up with marketing ideas inspired by the provided manifesto. And I tell them, “It’s not about what you would do in the marketplace, it’s about what the brand, as articulated in the manifesto, would do.” Effectively, channel the brand and come up with ideas in these categories:
- A name for the bike
- A product launch event
- A social media idea
- A relevant spokesperson
- Anything else that comes up organically that the team agrees the brand “wants” to do in the marketplace
The point is, don’t just randomly name the bike, don’t just do a generic launch event, don’t just do any old social media, etc. Do all those things the way your brand idea would do them. That’s how you escape random acts of marketing.
Suddenly, they are very different bikes.
After about 30 minutes of brainstorming, I stop the groups and ask them to share their ideas with each other. What is always illuminating to the groups is just how different the ideas are even though it's the exact same product for each.
The “healthy living” brand idea, for example, inspires ideas that demonstrate the importance of health and give the brand a clear reason for being beyond the rudimentary function and attributes of a bike. The “clean environment” brand idea does the same thing only now inspires environmental themes and promotions.
It’s a beautiful thing.
Try it and see.
Go ahead and click on and print out those manifestos above and do the exercise yourself with your team. Or even create your own exercise with your own made-up product and your own manifestos. There may be some therapeutic benefit in having your teams develop two brand ideas for a made-up product (creates psychological distance) vs focusing on your own existing product. Just make sure it's the exact same product for each group.
Afterwards your teams will get it, your managers will get it and you will finally get what you know your company needs.
Permission to develop your own single-minded, powerful, galvanizing brand idea.
