The other day, I was on a marketing panel at Georgetown’s School of Public Policy (an invite from my wife who works there.) For my portion, I was asked to speak about branding and its importance in the buyer decision-making process. Indeed, whether you’re looking to attract a prospective student to enroll in your graduate program or whether you want to lure more buyers to your products and services as a business, the fact of the matter is your brand probably matters most of all.
The question is, how do you develop a brand that resonates? And how do you reinforce it (through your marketing operations)? Because unless you do both – and marry those two parts together – you’re generally handicapping yourself when it comes to effectively competing in the marketplace.
Let’s dive into both pieces.
First, Develop a Brand Narrative That Resonates
Over the years, we’ve been lucky to learn about the importance of narrative development from both Toby Trevarthen at Spatial Shift and Rob McLoughlin at DCDR. I give them all the credit because the work they’ve done has helped make the services we provide better that much better because we end up applying (in our own way perhaps) a lot of the concepts that they really pioneered in this field.
One of the key pieces I like about Toby and Rob’s framework is notion of internal vs. external when it comes to developing a strong brand.
Let’s start with the internal. If you think about it, a brand has to be authentic to the people in the company – everyone from the owners/leadership to the employees. It has to reflect their strengths, their values, their culture, and their purpose. When the company projects its brand, it has to be aligned with the people in it and who they are because, otherwise there’s a disconnect – it’s hard to be something you’re not, and you won’t be able to sustain a brand if it’s not real.
Makes sense, right? But internal is only one part of the equation. Companies have to consider the external – in particular the different audience segments they want to go after and their competitors. Why is this? Well, in a vacuum, companies can certainly create a narrative they want to project in the marketplace, but if it doesn’t resonate with audiences and is not unique from where the competition is, they generally won’t be as effective. That’s why it’s critical to consider audience demographics, challenges, and even emotional levers, while also taking into account competitor strengths, their narrative and their audiences.
If you do that, the idea is that you can project a brand that is not only internally authentic, but also meets customers where they are, and at a unique point from their competitors.
To illustrate this, I often tell my BMW joke…
Q: What’s the difference between a BMW and a porcupine?
A: With a porcupine, the pricks are on the outside.
If you think about BMW, it markets perfectly to those “pricks”[1] – the aggressive, ambitious types who want to show they’ve made it.
On the company side, BMW emphasizes performance “ultimate driving machine” and they never put out content or messaging that’s just about getting you conveniently from point A to point B. It’s not about practicality, after all, it’s about getting there in style with some horsepower behind it! Notice too, BMW is not aiming at the ultra-rich, and hence aren’t competing with brands such as Maserati, Lamborghini or Aston Martin. Their target audience is the upper middle class.
Meanwhile, on the audience side, that upper middle class audience may, in reality, be seeking some validation and demonstration of their “class” in a sense, as it’s a status symbol to be driving something like a BMW.
Obviously, that’s an oversimplification but you get the point: The brand narrative matches the audiences needs at a unique point. And indeed, other car companies (Audi, Lexus) are going after the same audiences, but not in the same way.
Second, Be Consistent with Reinforcing That Narrative Through Marketing Operations
Ok, so you’ve established your narrative and you’re done, right? Well, no, not really. Now comes the part that’s perhaps even more challenging: Paying attention to detail to make sure your narrative is being reinforced constantly and consistently in all marketing channels.
Here’s the reason it’s not easy: Every piece of marketing collateral, including all messaging, visual images, should reinforce your core brand narrative. If something is slightly off, you’ll end up diluting your brand in the marketplace. This isn’t just an academic exercise either. It has real-world implications.
Some examples off the top of my head:
- Brands that want to project being higher-end but flirt with discounting
- Brands whose narrative focus on a particular audience segment, but now want to go after a new segment
- Brands that want to be seen as progressive or social conscious but break their narrative to appeal more to an audience segment with conservative values.
- Brands that have established a narrative catering to older audiences but now want to attract a younger audience.
A great example of the latter bullet point: Think about certain beauty brands you know. Some of older, legacy ones are struggling to figure out how to project their brand with older generations (their traditional audience) while they try to acquire newer, younger audiences. It’s not easy. They try to seem younger in one area (for example, social media or YouTube) and more traditional in other channels (website). What happens is that brands end up with split personalities and in the end, dilute their overall value in the marketplace because audiences don’t know exactly who they are.
Repetition. The other aspect of marketing operations involves sheer repetition. Think about a company brand such as Tide. After years and years of seeing ads about how the product removes stains, Tide has basically become “the authority” on washing clothes. Whether that’s actually true or not isn’t the point. Their narrative in the marketplace has come from repetition about the same core idea. And now, if you ask most people to name the first product comes to mind that gets out stains, they’d probably think of Tide before any other.
That’s not to say you have to do a million-dollar advertising campaign. But it does mean being aggressive when it comes to your marketing, whether that’s the production of content, keeping up your social channels, or emailing audiences. The more you can put yourself out there, consistently reinforcing your core narrative, the better we think you’ll do.
If you ever have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us at Marketing Nice Guys for a free consultation. We’re here to help you excel at digital marketing.
[1] OK, not everyone who drives a BMW is a prick. It’s a joke after all.
