Bringing the Brand Positioning to Life

Question:

We have just finished a brand positioning exercise. What are the most effective methods of bringing the brand promise to life?

Answer:

Now that your brand positioning is determined, it is time to bring your brand promise to life.  The first thing to do is to communicate that new promise. One way is though your brand’s identity system from its name and logo to its tagline, colors, type fonts and other brand identity elements.  The tagline, in particular, should communicate the brand’s promise. Even if you do not change another element of the brand’s identity, the tagline should at least allude to your brand’s unique value proposition or promise.  Next, the brand promise should be translated to carefully crafted messages intended for various audiences  - an elevator speech for internal audiences, a selling script for salespeople, a press release boilerplate and an “about us” section for your website. Additionally, you can craft brand stories that reinforce what your brand stands for and what it is promising.

In conjunction with developing the brand promise communication, it is important to focus on the brand promise proof points and “reasons to believe.”  First, it is useful to identify all of your current brand proof points and reasons to believe and make sure they are visible to your customers and potential customers.  It is also useful to articulate these in support of your brand’s promise in written brand communication.

Next, you should identify all of your brand’s customer touch points to understand what platforms you have to reinforce your brand’s promise. Following this, you can ideate new brand proof points at each customer touch point and even ideate new touch points at which you can reinforce your brand’s promise. The proof points typically are real customer experiences that your brand creates, especially those that are beyond simple brand communication. These might be delivered through product functions or features, new job functions, specific customer services, the selling environment, system or process improvements or focused employee empowerment.

Once your employees are grounded in the brand’s new promise and positioning, you can offer training and incentives for employees to find individual ways to reinforce the brand’s promise in their day-to-day work. You can even invite them to brainstorm new ways to deliver on the brand promise.  Some organizations have even implemented brand behavior recognition and reward systems for their employees.

The opportunities for bringing the brand’s promise to life are almost endless. Once there is organizational consensus around what the brand stands for, then it is easier to rally employees in support of brand’s values and promise.

I hope this is enough to get you started in bringing your brand’s promise to life.