Start-ups often focus on getting operations off the ground and quick hits in sales and marketing to provide immediate lift. What they don’t pay attention to – much to the detriment of the young enterprise – is the careful crafting of their fledgling brand to provide a long-term flight plan. Here are the three mindsets that cause the death spiral
Sure branding’s important, but it’ll have to wait
We’ll get it out there now and fix it later
We’re so good we don’t need a special brand
I culled this from a wonderful article on branding for startups in Fast Company magazine that explores the entrepreneurial phenomena of branding nearsightedness that causes startups to auger in.
Brands are incredibly complex. They are not about marketing. Great brands are about action. I think all of us marketers can agree with this sentiment from Owen Rogers, a senior executive at international design firm, IDEO. Here are the five essential attributes for sustainable brands from his presentation at the ’09 Sustainable Brands conference.
1. Brands Thrive on Passion
He asks, “Do you remember where you were when Obama did his inauguration speech and how it made you feel?” Obama became a brand overnight because of his action. It’s about excitement, drive, emotion, connection and relationships. It’s about the things we feel. As marketers, it’s what we need to tap into, but is difficult to quantify. “Infectious” is another way to view the passion surrounding a brand. Is your brand infectious?
2. Brands Have Many Voices
He uses Comcast as an example. They are a classic technology infrastructure brand. All they used to talk about was their technology, bundled services and and price. Typical behavior for a commodity. But here is how they repackaged and repositioned their technology into emotions their customers can relate to and buy, and at a more expensive price than the commodity players.
3. Brands Create a Point of View and Express it Honestly
Who would you rather be next to a dinner party; a wallflower or a conversationalist? Target is a great example of a brand that has a point of view. They are consistent and loud, even if not everyone is on board with their point of view. Sustainability is a point of view that is ripe for the taking if companies would look at it as something more than just their CSR efforts. To own it – and few have done a great job at it – means creating something that is real.
4. Brands Are About Participation
Companies understand the value of bringing consumers into the conversation, but few brands do a good job of actually engaging the customer in participation. They’re still learning how to engage. There is an interesting study about the power struggle on Wikipedia that demonstrates consumer participation perhaps better than most, because you can see and measure the participation real time.
5. Brands Never Stop Evolving No one likes change, but it’s such a positive attribute for a brand to have. It speaks of innovation, conversation, movement, learning, and many more positive attributes. It keeps you thinking about the possibilities of what you can be. IBM is a great example. They started with punch cards, then to copiers, then to increasing your business efficiency, and now to creating a “Smarter Planet.”
Can Sustainability Be Thought of as a Brand?
Branding sustainability is about what you do, and not about what you say. Here are five examples of companies that demonstrate their actions with sustainability as a brand attribute.
Sustainability Thrives on Passion = Starbucks: Through its “Shared Planet” initiative
Sustainability Has Many Voices = Honda Insight: While Prius sells it’s miles-per-gallon benefit, the Insight captures the emotion of being green in this spot.
Sustainability Has A Point of View and Expresses it Honestly = Muji Rushi: They sell by showing consumers all of the things they don’t need.
Sustainability is about Participation = Patagonia: The original tin shed where this outdoor retailer got its start is home to one of the most engaging sites on the web.
Sustainability Never Stops Evolving = Nike: The shoemaker began making Jordan 23′s 23 years ago, and have evolved the product line to demonstrate its sustainable manufacturing.
“Sustainable brands sing when they are delivered with passion, speak to their customers in an appropriate voice, when they embrace true participation, and they never stop evolving. If you think of sustainability as a brand, it will free you up to new possibilities.’
A nice bit of storytelling by Google, and all in the confines of its search window, which makes for one helluva product demo as well. It’s so well crafted, that the emotion the spot evokes has attracted more than 4 million views on YouTube. What do you think of it?
What if you could write your 30-second elevator pitch in under five minutes? And it was actually good?
Buzzuka.com helps you do just that. At first I thought it was a gimmick site. But it really works.
Buzzuka.com is a project by Phoenix brand consultant, Paula Satow. I know Paula, have seen her impressive work, and have yet had the opportunity to collaborate with her. Until now.
Give it a try. You briefly answer these questions, and your story writes itself. Then you take some sandpaper to it with a final edit, and you’re in business:
Step One
What is the pitch for: a person, place or thing?
Give your pitch a title
Upload a photo of your pitch
Who’s my target audience?
What’s their problem?
What’s my solution?
What’s different about me?
What’s the benefit I deliver?
Step Two
What’s the WOW Factor for my audience?
What’s the WOW Factor for me?
Step Three
This is where you finalize your pitch and make it perfect
Create a blurb
Create SEO through tags and links
As I wrote this post, I worked through the above steps on Buzzuka.com and came away with this 30-second pitch. What do you think?
Once you’ve created your pitch, the site makes it easy to share it with others and start generating your own buzz.
One final thought, and Paula you might have to forgive me on this one because I do like your site, but the mixed metaphors in your logo tell me too many different stories. Here’s the way I read it:
Buzz = conversation
Buzzuka = powerful shoulder cannon
So I’m thinking it’s a play off of blasting your story out to the world to generate buzz. But then I read the tagline, “Bee Yourself,” which plays off of “buzz,” as an entomologist might, also asking the user to focus on their uniqueness. Wow, your logo sure tells a lot of stories.
What do you think? Write your 30-second story and send it to me. We can share them in a later post.
This is not the actual Staples truck that almost clobbered me yesterday. It's added here for visual impact.
An attorney once told me, “You better get it in writing in case you get run over by a beer truck tomorrow, just so your heirs know what the deal is.”
Well, I almost got run over by a Staples truck yesterday. And then a funny thing happened.
I was walking from our agency to the UPS store carrying Christmas gifts like chord wood destined for Seattle. All of a sudden, this large Staples truck comes nearly careening around the corner and onto the parking lot access road I was just stepping into. I heard him before I saw him and stopped in my wing tipped tracks. The clean cut driver deftly pumped his breaks. The bright, shiny delivery truck hissed to a stop. With an apologetic smile, he waved me across the street.
But the funny thing was, as soon as I looked up and saw the Staples’ logo on the gleaming truck, I knew he wasn’t going to run me down. There was a very basal emotion of calm that arose inside me, and it was directly associated with their brand.
Where do you think that calm came from?
From their advertising campaign, website, and the easy shopping experiences I’ve enjoyed in their stores. Like the ad guy I am, I immediately appreciated the power of the brand, even as it almost clobbered me outside my own agency.
Then I asked myself, “Would I have reacted the same way if it were just a big ‘ol nondescript white van, a Shucks Autoparts truck, or a delivery guy for Schlitz Beer?” Probably not. I instinctively knew everything was cool, even as I stood in the cross hairs of the Staples van’s hood ornament. Kind of creepy stuff.
