Dropping Some Branding Knowledge | Resound Creative Blog

Is your brand imprisoned by a single product? 

Don’t worry…we know someone on the inside who can help you escape. Some guy with an insane plan and a blueprint of the prison facility tattooed all over his body. 

Once you’re out you’ll be on the run, wanted by the Feds—and of course, you’ll be caught up in a steamy love triangle. 

But don’t worry…we’re gonna get you out of here. 

All right.

Now that Prison Break’s out of my system…let me properly introduce this month’s branding topic, along with the overarching question. 

If your company finds itself branded all around ONE product, how does it pivot away from that? 

Should it? 

If so, then how does a company with a Johnny-One-Note product line rebrand itself so that people see a unified, authentic, corporate identity that stands behind all of its products? 

To anchor this in a real-world case study, how does a company like Axon, (formerly Taser International, the company known for building Tasers comes to mind…) steer away from being overly defined by one product in the first place? 

Tough questions…but if you feel like one product or service has put your brand in prison, here’s our thoughts on making a break for it. 

https://youtu.be/lgof12A0QPw

Count the cost. 

Rebranding your entire organization is a huge endeavor, so before you go down that road, think broadly and strategically. Consider the big picture of your brand, your products, and where you might be heading.  

A little more about Taser International, which dominated the market for Tasers and then, (surprise, surprise), became singularly identified with selling Tasers. While Taser had other products, breaking out of the one-product prison came at a price — rebranding their entire organization as Axon Enterprises, a supplier of body cams, drones, and all kinds of law enforcement accessories. 

While we can chalk up Axon as a success story — one of a challenging, but necessary rebrand from a single product brand to a broader corporate identity — consider them an exception.  

They’re also a good case study of why establishing your organizational brand clearly, purposefully, and early on can give you a sense of where you want to go beyond one product.  

If your company houses multiple products, define your brand in a way that allows it to house all of those products in a cohesive, authentic, and yet recognizable way. 

Piece of cake, right? 

We grant that it’s not a trivial undertaking. But if your company houses multiple products, developing your brand into one that can lend full support and identification with all those products is well-worth the thought and planning. 

When it works, it’s pretty phenomenal. 

If you think of companies like Apple or Nike, you see that this strategy of an overarching, organizational brand is one that drives demand for all the products they sell. Sure, the products themselves have their own brands, many with their own unique identities. But they all carry traits of the overarching corporate identity. 

They’re all part of the family. 

For a fun analogy, you can think of a household brand as similar to the royal families that ruled England in an unbroken dynasty. Every member of the family shared a recognizable surname, not to mention a set of colors, a legacy, and a distinct family crest. While some of those royal families had to rebrand themselves (I’ll tell you about how the Windors of Windsor Castle weren’t really the Windsors some other time), the concept of a royal family name leads me to another situation — one where companies and brands need to be careful because the single product is a person. 

You’ve probably heard of Dave Ramsey. If you haven’t, he’s a financial guy who became a household name for his advice about getting out of debt. He’s also known for Financial Peace University. But while his main thing, the one that he’s been doing for a long time, is finance, budgeting, and getting out of debt, Dave Ramsey has also built a larger platform, with guest speakers appearing on his show and weighing in on a number of topics.  

You might think, well of course, Dave Ramsey…makes sense that his brand and company are going to be wrapped up around his identity as a person. But the truth is, in the branding and B2B industries, many firms face unique challenges because their brand is based on one person.

The individual-as-product legacy persists in accounting, tech, and even in law. While it’s often common practice (particularly in law, where a firm that was established by two or three people will take their last names as the brand), having a brand based on one or a few people comes with its own liabilities.

For example, having a brand name like ‘Schmidt, Miller, and Johnson’ makes sense if the imprint and legacy of those individuals still animate your company’s community, network, reputation, and current operations. But if those original founders are long gone and forgotten…a team of new leaders might be stuck carrying on a name few people recognize. 

Of course, a founder’s legacy can be memorable, and for a successful company, it’s usually a net positive. Companies carry a founder’s name, or a historical brand name for this very reason. 

But if an individual’s legacy has completely dried up, and taken any inkling of purpose, or recognition with it, that can do a huge disservice to the brand. Over time, the name gets institutionalized. It becomes a single product that really doesn’t mean anything about the original people…even if those two or three generations out in the company still reference them. 

Having a person’s name as a brand brings both risks and benefits. In a similar way, having your brand or company associated with a single product raises the stakes. While a name runs the risk of drifting into irrelevance, a single product that defines a whole brand or company might tarnish the company if its reputation suffers.  

If, for example, Dave Ramsey appeared in all the tabloids as debt-ridden, disheveled, and camped on the street begging for change, what would that do to Financial Peace University? 

Nothing personal, Dave. 

Just using you as an example. 

Companies might fall into the single product band pipeline because they’re concerned about the bottom line. They’re focused on finding a product-market fit that will make them profitable, or maybe one that will keep the lights running for another quarter. They want to get that first product to work, so they’re excited. 

After all, nothing beats a wildly successful, life-changing product…like the fidget spinner. 

Like Taser International, it might be tempting and easy early on to let a single product become the entire organization’s brand. But in time, most companies are likely to start building products and services that may not fit into that original product’s identity. 

This is where wrapping your whole brand around one successful product becomes a prison. When you start offering other products, your corporate identity is stuck…and it’s going to be time-consuming and emotionally draining to pivot the brand from being so tightly bound to the product and not to a larger, purpose-driven identity. 

For most companies making this pivot, the antidote is a complete rebrand. 

Before they get to that point, emerging companies need to think about where a particular product might take them one day. 

Is the brand they’re building one that’s only embodied by one product? 

Or are they tapping into some deeper purpose, and a vision of how any products and services they offer will make the world better in a particular way? 

Better yet, what if brands or companies start to realize that they’re not their products, but rather, they’re a set of ideas? A way of thinking, visualizing, and problem-solving that approaches problems in a unique way?

What if a company’s purpose, values and way of thinking and approaching problems are baked into every product it makes? 

What if that purpose should be? 

In my experience, and having studied, helped, and worked with hundreds of B2B brands, a successful brand is one whose unique philosophy infuses and characterizes each of its products. 

A successful brand thinks carefully about what it does, how it sounds, and the message it’s sending…and people notice that. Over time, and as they get to know what that brand really values, loyal customers learn to trust it…and this trust carries over when that brand or company rolls out new products or services. 

If you think about a brand like Husqvarna (one that makes top-notch chainsaws), there’s a reason why customers respond well to all of their products, and usually welcome new ones. It’s because Husqvarna’s values carry through in every one of their saws. When they make a new one, people know it’s going to be powerful and reliable, just like its brothers and sisters. 

The same goes for corporate identities like Nike. Their ‘Just Do It’ philosophy is evident in everything they do. Their vision of helping people achieve athletic victory transcends demographics, geography, and even specific products. 

People trust a brand (and its products) when the brand’s philosophy informs everything it makes and does. 

So…you’ve got a purpose and a vision. How do you carry that purpose, vision, and brand philosophy through every product and service you offer? 

Great question. 

As with most parts of authentic branding, forethought, and intentionality lay the groundwork for any brand strategy session or discovery process. Thinking carefully about what your purpose is, and how your products and services express that core purpose also helps you when it comes time for brand expression and even things like fitting your product to the market. 

But remember, the flip side of authentic forethought is a kind of passivity: building your brand on whatever works, whatever the founder’s name was, or whatever’s successful. 

Not choosing and defining the track you’re on might mean having it defined for you. 

There’s something to say for branding agencies. 

For rebrands and thorny branding problems, bringing in some help means valuable, outside perspective. That could be a branding agency like Resound, or it could even be setting time and resources aside for a thorough self-audit. It meant mean talking to your customers, colleagues, and team members, and then using all that input to make some thoughtful branding decisions that build on a true identity. 

And even if your brand is heavily associated with a product, that might not mean you need to break out of jail…or that all your branding efforts are sunk. 

Rather, let a successful product take you back to your roots. Ask yourself: in what ways does this product, its success, and how people respond to it reflect the truth of my organization? What we’re all about? Our vision of how one corner of the world can be a better place through the work we’re doing? 

Now we’re talking. 

While the journey may not end there, looking at your products through the lens of values, identity, and underlying purpose puts you in the driver’s seat. Rather than being passive and sailing wherever the wind takes you, you’re thinking good and hard about the track you’re on and where that track might take you. 

While there’s no silver bullet to the dangers of becoming associated with one name or one product, the branding process pins a lot of hope on one, easily forgotten fact. 

You’re already remarkable.

Even if you create one product and sell it exclusively to an island population in the North Atlantic. Even if you’ve let one product and its success take you down a track you’d rather not be on. 

If you’d like some help working through your values, your purpose, and how the products you offer might set you on a certain brand path, you’ll find wind for your sails in “You are Remarkable,” my book on B2B branding from the ground up. 

And if you’re just joining me, check out more of my hot takes on building authentic brand identity in the articles and podcasts posted on Resound’s website. 

Or reach out to the team and we’ll get started. 

Until next month, happy branding. 

Last month, I wrote about how authentic brands that last and endure build a loyal community. This month, I’m tackling a logical, highly relevant follow-up question. Given the polarization that’s put everyone in our country under increasing pressure to take sides, can authentic brands be canceled?

It’s possible… and with an ever-increasing list of notable examples, brands facing backlash and cancellation are becoming less and less of an anomaly.

While there are many ways to embroil your brand in some kind of viral, meme-worthy controversy, (if that were my topic, that might be a fun article…) the question I’m asking is: how do authentic brands serve their customers and continue to resonate, even amid a highly politicized culture war? 

Furthermore, aside from walking the tightrope of not offending—or to be realistic, of offending some people in a way that doesn’t do lasting damage—how do brand and company owners know when it’s time to speak up or stay quiet?  

When it comes to politics, conventional business wisdom says always stay out of it. While I see the level-headedness and caution inherent in that approach, it’s actually not a one-size-fits-all for every brand.

So, is there a right time to take a stand?

If there is, and if they must wear one jersey or another, how do authentic brands do it without getting canceled, forgotten, and booed out of existence by everyone in the stands?

It’s a thorny question but, by all accounts, a good one. Like many thorny branding questions, the answer takes us down to motives, intentions, and the extent to which a brand or company, its team, and even its customers understand identity. 

https://youtu.be/S5i79bVKKLI

Believe it or not, the first and foremost defense against getting canceled is a good offense. 

Brand companies that, for any number of reasons, step away from the consistent, authentic identity that they’ve built to score political or social points pay the biggest price…and usually see the biggest backlash. 

The rule of thumb here can be expressed in a simple question—does taking a political stance (or refusing to take one when it’s all the rage and the pressure’s on) make sense given who you really are? Given your brand’s authentic identity?

Is it a clear and logical extension of your values, who you are and who your customers know you are, and the overarching purpose behind everything you do?

If not, and if stepping out into a dicey conversation has no connection to what you do and who you are, should you expect that new, controversial website banner or political hashtag to come across as genuine?

Probably not…and chances are, it won’t.

On the other hand, if your band has had a clear ideological strain from the beginning (brands like Ben and Jerry’s, Chick Fil-A, and Rolling Stone magazine come to mind) and if your values, message, and actions have reflected those political leanings for a long time, taking a stand might be consistent with your values. Chances are, the customers you resonate with will recognize that and the outrage that leads to calls for cancellation will be minimal.

In short, and to the extent that any first line of defense is probably a good thing, a brand that knows itself, and navigates political winds in a way that’s consistent with its purpose and core values, is more likely to keep an even keel.

Even, as you sometimes hear when war breaks out, the game goes to overtime, or a jury goes to deliberate, when all bets are off. 

As we increasingly see political stands and calls for cancellation on both ends of politics in America and even the world, more and more brands are getting caught in the crossfire.  

Running with my first premise—that a brand which is authentic, which has done the hard work of finding its frequency, knowing its purpose, its values and who it is has a built-in defense against stepping out of its lane and getting canceled—I’ll go even further. 

A brand that knows itself is defensible in a hostile, even in a back and forth, increasingly fraught political environment. 

I can think of two reasons why that’s the case. 

Even if there’s a political firestorm going on and a lot of temptation for a brand to take sides or have a strong opinion, a brand that knows its own identity through and through will be better able to decide. That brand’s a better position to know if the issue or conversation is one it should be talking about, regardless of what everyone is saying. 

At least, in many situations. 

If core values and purpose are aligned to actions, expression, and every part of a brand’s interaction, that brand has a pretty good sense of what they’re all about…and which conversations and stances would align with them.

In any case, you’re more likely to have flushed out your thinking before some of these conversations arise. Any stance you take, or don’t take, is pretty well aligned with everything else you’re already doing. 

If, for example, you’re Ben and Jerry’s, your fair-trade ice cream will probably sync well with other political stances you’ve taken. The initiative makes sense and goes with the grain of the ethics and values you’ve said you care about since day one—the environment, global poverty, Birkenstock wearing and the like. You have a reputation for being vocal on one side of certain political conversations, so when you get loud…your customers will continue paying eight bucks a pint for ice cream because they’re familiar with that. 

And while not all of them might appreciate or agree with your political stances, weighing in from a side you’ve traditionally weighed in on will be no shocker. Not if it’s baked into your values, your stated purpose, and the authentic brand identity you’ve built from the inside out. 

To hop to the other side and take another example, think of comedian Dave Chappelle. 

It’s no big secret that Dave Chapelle (and with him, Netflix) have taken heat for some comments from his stand-up comedy about transgenderism. But despite the controversy, and some very angry Netflix employees, Dave Chapelle continues to sell out his stand-up shows. 

The reason why comes back to the fact that he’s authentic and on-brand. Going all the way back to his controversial sketch comedy show, he’s always been the guy that says whatever he thinks, and doesn’t discriminate when it comes to skewering people, habits, and even sensitive cultural topics. 

It makes sense that even if people disagree with them, they’re still likely to think: “Yeah, that fits him. That makes sense. How much for tickets?” 

Whatever side you’re on, if you’re grounded in your values, your purpose, and your core beliefs, you’re operating from an authentic place. 

When some parts of the national or political conversation start creeping into that territory, well…you might be inclined, or even expected to respond, and you might not be. But whatever the case, you probably won’t fall into the pressure many brands and companies do by thinking: everyone’s talking about this… we need to react! We need to say something, fast. 

Rather, and in a way that’s much more winsome and consistent in the long run, you’ll be able to navigate clearly, cautiously, and in a way that fits the beliefs and values your brand identity has already been expressing for a long time. 

Where hot-button topics often spark the fire, social media brings the gasoline. 

A word of caution that’s no big surprise—be careful what you post, when you post, and who posts it. 

If you’ve decided you’re not going to weigh in on the latest headline, the last thing you want is someone from the marketing department going ballistic on your LinkedIn page. 

While conversations and impressions and social media are a bit like vapor—here one moment, and then poof, many brands and companies have done themselves considerable damage by trying to bandwagon, (or by being asleep at the wheel while someone in their office is trying to bandwagon) on the latest hot button issue. 

It makes sense that people are passionate about it, and sometimes overly so.

So, if you choose to make a bold statement or say something in the heat of the moment, you’re likely to end up backpedaling, backtracking, or even wishing you hadn’t said anything. While whatever you said might (and likely will) blow over faster than you think…it’s no alternative to staying level-headed and banking on an authentic brand identity as you make your choice. 

Remember, if getting active on social media in a sensitive conversation doesn’t vibe with who you really are, there’s a lot of wisdom in staying out of it. 

These ones aren’t easy, and we can’t prescribe answers to them one way or another. 

But if your own answers are shocking or surprising… perhaps it’s time to bow out of that Twitter war and work on the basics of your brand’s identity. 

My final hypothesis on this edgy, slippery issue is that authentic brands look and sound confident. 

Where true confidence that wins respect, builds loyalty, and comes across as authentic only comes from the intrinsic identity and functioning of an organization itself, flamboyant stances meant to grab attention come over as weak, hollow, and inauthentic. 

Knowing who you are and what you stand for, and in many cases, being brave enough to stand by it, conveys strength. Honesty. Humble, genuine, confidence. 

Brands who build their identities with this self-knowledge, and with the discipline to walk it out consistently are in far less danger of responding to political conversations with some kind of PR panic button… uh-oh, oh man… should we say something? We better say something. 

If that’s how you’re going about it, then maybe you shouldn’t. 

What if speaking out or putting out a manifesto in haste will probably cause more problems, come across inauthentic, and put you that much closer to those shrill, critical calls for cancellation? 

Rather, slow it down. 

Build your brand one day at a time. 

Live out your values; if you’re not sure if you’re doing that list them, write them out, and think about how they apply to everything you do. 

One of our core values here at Resound is local culture. Having thought and wrestled with how to make that value into a reality, we made a habit of shopping locally, and even giving gifts from local businesses in the Phoenix area to our clients all over the country. 

Telling someone in Texas or Toronto about our favorite Tempe delicatessen, or mailing a gift that’s sourced or manufactured a few miles away is one small way we honor the community that shaped us. 

While it surprises our clients, that surprise usually turns to interest, and even appreciation. 

You’d be surprised how small, but consistent habits can communicate what you value and the fact that you try (of course, not perfectly) to live those values out. 

Implement them wherever you can.

If there’s a way you’re missing the mark, or not living up to a value you’ve gone on record about, think about ways to build it out that are small, practicable, repeatable and winsome. 

Brands with authentic identities and remarkable track records. 

Ones that know themselves, what they stand for, and how others perceive and appreciate them. They build authenticity by being themselves; by showing up consistently and confidently from the central transparency of a purpose worth living out. 

Of course, only time will tell. But in my estimation, and even while authentic brands that combine self-knowledge with character, humility, consistency, and self-restraint aren’t bulletproof… they’re pretty hard to cancel. 

Trend chasers? Copycats? Knock-off brands that look like all the others? Any brand that goes on a downtown protest just to win a thousand customers?  

Not so much. 

With that wrapping up my thoughts on how (or how not) to get canceled, I want to come full circle, and remind you that your brand, company, organization, or solo practice already has a remarkable identity. 

Even if you don’t know it, or even if you can’t articulate it just yet. 

If you’d like some help working through your values, your purpose, or how to translate those into an authentic brand expression that’s not likely to be canceled, you should check out my recently released book on B2B branding: ‘You are Remarkable.’

And if you’re just joining me, you can learn about the steps of building, and building from an authentic brand identity in the articles and podcast that cover a whole host of B2B branding topics. 

Or give us a shout and talk to our team. 

Glad to have you and happy brand building! 

How do you truly connect with your brand’s audience? Through story. Great stories stick with us…and the reason why is no great mystery.

They resonate.

From Star Wars and The Godfather to the plays of William Shakespeare, a great story survives time and change because for audience after audience, something true and potent sunk in.

That is, if we break apart the plot of the first Star Wars film, we see a template of events that are millennia old — a young hero who yearns for adventure is pried from home after a trusting guide, and a chaotic chain of events thrusts him into the innards of the Death Star itself. The events are both deeply familiar and yet invigorating…because, on some level, we see our own life parallel the hero’s quest.

So we watch.

In other words, stories like Star Wars don’t exist in a vacuum. They land, and land well, with their brand’s audience…and with subsequent generations of audiences who love the story so much they consume fan fiction, dress up for conventions, and in some countries, lobby to make Star Wars an official religion.

If you’re just joining us, don’t worry. This article isn’t part of a Star Wars series and we won’t be talking about the new Obi-Wan show.

Rather, it’s a series on authentic B2B branding…and my point is that potent brands reach people with the posture and messaging of a timeless classic story. If you’re just joining by the way, you can read more about how the elements of a brand that guides its customer (the hero), mesh with the elements of story by reading this article on how to tell a remarkable brand story.

https://youtu.be/jgXdwIebNHA

Riffin’ on story brings me right to the heart of it.

On the top of the branding pyramid, way above the foundation of a true, authentic purpose —  and above the narrowing, rising layers of personality, metaphor, archetype, history, location, and brand story — we find a sharpened, or…if we’re still talking pyramids, a crudely sharpened capstone. As magnificent as it may look, the whole structure is pointing at something:

Your brand’s audience.

Every author knows that when you’re telling a story, you need to pay attention to your brand’s audience. The same applies for a large corporation, a regional B2B branding agency like Resound, and your own company.

Who’s your brand’s audience? Which hero are you aiming to guide to the finish line?

While most companies have a good, or even a statistically sharpened understanding of who they’re trying to reach, the question is worth asking again, and as simply as possible, from a brand and brand story perspective.

You might respond that I’m forgetting one thing — your brand or company has more than one audience.

Take it easy.

If you’ve got more than one audience, (or more than one product), you’re in good company. In fact, even if you create one product or offer one service, you’ve probably got a few audiences already in the bag.

When we think of any given brand story, four distinct audiences come to mind:

Depending on your type of organization, the specifics of each of your brand’s audience will vary, but the categories will remain roughly the same.

For instance, a non-profit doesn’t have shareholders, but it does have donors who make a financial investment. An ethnic grocery chain’s “community” may not only be its neighborhood, but also the ethnic community in the city in which it plays a role…and that “community” probably includes other competing businesses in the grocery industry.

For each audience, there will be a specific adaptation of your brand story which makes the most sense to that audience.

The story should stay the same, but the way you tell it will differ, depending on whether you’re advertising on the front page of your website or talking with your employees.

Your employees, for instance, need to have a deeper understanding of the story, so that they can in turn relay that story to customers. Even if they don’t regularly interact with customers, knowing the larger story gives employees a sense of purpose at work.

By contrast, an investor needs context, which helps him see whether your goals are plausible given the backdrop and setting of your business.

Customers often don’t have time for much context. They may only give you a few minutes to tell your story, if that much. In other words, your plot and purpose need to move!

Your local community, on the other hand, doesn’t want a sales pitch. They’re not interested in giving you money or buying your service. Instead, they want to hear things like how you’ve helped the community, provided jobs for people, given opportunities, or sponsored community groups.

So, you’ve identified the purpose of your organization and the values which result from that purpose, which together form the core of your identity. You’ve used some tools to further define your identity, and all of this culminated with the idea of a brand story.

But it isn’t enough to just have a good story.

You have to tell the story.

This entire exercise is pointless if your brand story sits on a document filed away on a server. You have to make these ideas about your brand concrete: turning them into images, colors, content, a brand voice, and ultimately into relationships with your customers.

There are many different ways to tell your brand’s story. You can create a video, or write a book. You can write an article, or design your collateral with your brand’s story in mind. You can create a greater sense of identity through your logo, images, and other artifacts within your organization.

But the brand story is the genesis of everything else: all of the other expressions of your brand expand outward from that single point.

The process of expressing your brand outwardly might be gradual. You might begin with a logo or an email signature. Then it might expand to some signage inside of your own office or an update to your website. Or you might just begin with your elevator pitch, and how you talk to people about what you do and your ideas.

The important thing is that, having documented your ‘why’, your values, and your brand personality, you want to take action as a team and ensure that it fuels what you do day to day. You want to make sure that it guides you as you interact with customers, as you communicate in your marketing, and as you make decisions.

These are things you agreed were important; the truths about your brand.

Remarkable brands, (and even if you don’t know it yet, yours is one of them)…resolve to live those truths, not hide them beneath the latest marketing trends or corporate logo.

Everywhere the light touches your brand, your authentic personality should come shining through…and resonate like a classic dose of the hero’s journey.

Well, remarka-fans, this was quite the journey.

Now that we’ve come full circle to your brand’s audience and purpose, we’re excited to tell you that this whole series of articles has been drawn from chapters of our recently released book on branding: ‘You are Remarkable.’ 

It’s out now on Amazon, and if you like what you’ve been reading here, the book will put even more wind in your sails.

If you’re new to the series, we’d also recommend going back to the start and reading through our series on B2B branding.

If your company’s going through a rebrand, if you’re wondering how to take your company’s purpose and show it to the world in a way that’s winsome, scalable, and authentic…we’ve designed our resources to take you there, one step at a time.

You can also give us a call and chat with our team.

If there’s one thing we love more than getting to know remarkable brands, it’s helping them step up to the plate of showing their brand’s audience how remarkable they are.

Thanks for reading and happy branding!

This is it, remarka-fans. How to tell a remarkable brand story

This month, I’m cutting right to brand story—the heart of a brand’s posture toward the world and its customers, and the final piece that ties a brand’s expression, identity, and strategy together. 

If you love a good story, (seriously…who doesn’t?), and if you know that telling one can mean the difference between scaling your brand dramatically or getting little traction with the same old strategies… then you’re in the right place. 

Welcome to the writer’s room. 

If you’ve been following my series on discovering your brand’s purpose and remarkable identity, and then using it to build a winsome, potent brand expression, then you might sense that we’re nearing the summit. 

And if you’re just joining in, that’s also swell… and if you enjoy the view then you’ll probably find the previous stages of our branding journey worth your time. All of the tools we’ve discussed so far, from your brand’s archetype, metaphor, and location to its own slice of history, culminate in your overarching remarkable brand story. 

A well-developed brand isn’t an image.

Or a tagline.

Or even a killer color scheme. 

Those are ways of expressing the brand…but they’re no substitute for its story. In many ways, and when it comes to what the busy world sees and hears, a brand is its story. 

https://youtu.be/CZ7FflRDxJ8

Hollywood screenwriters and those who study ancient civilizations love to tell us that there’s only one story. 

Maybe two… and on the note, the variations I’ve heard are: 

1) a stranger comes to town. 

2) a stranger goes on a journey.  

But if you’re a fan of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey, then you’ve probably had a taste of how much debate, speculation, and back-and-forth exists amongst story and movie buffs. 

Seriously. 

There’s enough of it to fill a thousand masterclasses. But the good news for B2B’s is that the elements of story sharpen down nicely for those building a brand. 

A classic story has five key elements: the balance, the unbalance, the quest, the crisis, and the new balance.

In plain English, here’s what those five elements look like:

Shall we try it? 

The key elements of any story can be stated in five sentences following this format. 

Balance: Once upon a time there was a quiet village where a humble dentist minded his own business. 

Unbalance: Suddenly, a dragon started attacking and burning down the buildings. 

Quest: The dentist went on a quest to find the dragon’s lair and slay the dragon. 

Crisis: He found it, and the dragon was about to kill him in a blaze of fire, when he noticed the dragon just needed a few root canals to relieve the pain in his mouth. 

New Balance: He helped the dragon and brought it back to the village as his loyal pet.

To give another example… one in which you can pick out the elements for yourself:

Sometime in the distant future, the crew of a starship is exploring the galaxy for signs of intelligent life. 

Suddenly, they are attacked and boarded by a horde of three-headed alien dogs, or cerberi. The captain and her two first officers flee in an escape pod to go looking for help, searching the galaxy, only to discover that every planet in the area has been conquered by the cerberi. 

Realizing they must either fight or die, they come up with a clever plan to displace the alpha dog with themselves. The trio succeeds, the cerberi now follow their lead, and they return to their ship as heroes.

This basic structure works for any story.

You probably use something like it already when you’re telling someone about a significant event that happened in your life… or just trying to catch them up on your day.

The structure also works for presenting the story in which your brand plays a role.

Not every story you tell about your organization will have value for your audience, of course. A story that is all about you and never about them might be interesting but it won’t really matter to them. 

For example, the literal history of your company can be presented decade by decade as a “story”, but that story might not do a good job communicating who you are and why anybody should care. 

Instead, think about the larger story in which both you and your audience are characters. It is your audience, not you, who should fill the role of the “main character” in the story. Their perspective, as well as your perspective, should guide the way the story is told.

Your brand is not the center of the story. 

Rather, your customer is the hero, the one at the center of the story. 

Your brand is the guide, the trusted authority who helps your customer reach a positive, transformative ending.

Having oriented your brand as the guide and your customer as the hero, here’s how the other elements play out in real time. 

The balance of your story is the context, the “world” in which the people your organization serves operate. It’s what your audience currently takes for granted as “normal.” 

Again, it isn’t what your organization or industry necessarily thinks is “normal,” because there may be a gap between the way your industry views the world and the way your customers view the world. Try to describe the balance from the point of view of your audience, before any problems come on stage. For instance, for a non-profit that helps spay and neuter cats, a few stray cats roaming around. 

For a company which sells a new system meant to replace the decades-old software tool everybody uses that its competitor never updates, the balance might be how things worked just fine in 1995. The balance might be more general for other brands: like a world in which people commute everyday to work, or a world in which people are busy and easily forget things.

The unbalance of your brand’s story is the problem you’re trying to solve… or just a change in circumstances that disrupts things. Think bigger than just the specific problem solved by a product or service to the overarching cause of those problems. 

The unbalance is about the problem in the world which it is your brand’s purpose to address, the problem you exist for the sole purpose of solving. 

The unbalance might be the neighborhoods flooded with stray cats that keep having kittens, or the consequences of people using frustrating outdated software. The unbalance might be the stress drivers all feel on the road while commuting, or the damaged relationships when people forget and miss an important event. 

The quest, then, is your audience’s journey to find a solution to this problem, looking in every direction and searching through all of the options. 

For instance, the quest might be finding some way to cut down on the stray cat population or searching for ways to fix the software, or looking for a more comfortable way to drive. 

At some point along the quest, your customer runs into you. You become their guide along the quest leading them to the solution. 

The crisis is the point when you come to the rescue! You help them start to neuter the cats, or start to replace outdated software, or start to improve the comfort of driving, or start to better remember what is important to them. The crisis is where your purpose as an organization intersects with the problems people experience.

The new balance in the story is your vision for the impact your organization will have on its customers and on the world. 

Perhaps you envision neighborhoods with stable but gradually shrinking stray cat populations. Maybe you envision people who are more productive because they have more user-friendly software. Maybe you envision people who are more relaxed on the road, or a world where people spend more time together because they don’t forget. 

Your brand might have multiple stories at multiple layers, of course. 

To start with, there should be a story for each specific product or service your brand offers. But even bigger than those stories is the story for your brand as a whole, the one that makes you who you are, and will most likely endure past particular products or services.  

For instance, each model that a car manufacturer sells may have its own story—the kind of problems it’s trying to solve in the lives of intended customers. These stories are parts of a bigger and more important story, though, which is the story of that automotive brand… not to mention its values, history, and the crisis in the world that demands its attention.

If you’re looking for an overarching brand story that incorporates the five elements, you should probably be asking: 

Why do you exist? 

What’s the problem in the world that your brand uniquely solves?

What do you care about? 

How is the world a better place because of your work? 

These pieces all come together in your brand story. 

Ultimately, tools like a metaphor or a remarkable brand story are about the feeling or experience of the brand, not the definition. 

What defines your brand are its vision, purpose, and values. A metaphor or a brand story are a way of giving color and drama to a vision, purpose, and values that might on their own seem dry and lifeless.

One more thing: your brand story needs to be authentic above all else. 

Don’t worry about making your characters more “interesting” or the plot more exciting. 

Be truthful, and stay true to your values. Telling an honest story is what will engage your audience… and with any luck, show them your true, remarkable colors. 

If you’d like some expert consultation on your brand and its story, then check out the resources on our website… or better yet, skip to the quest and give us a call. 

We’re all about brand story… so much so that we wrote a book about how to discover it, express it, and use it to find customers who resonate with what you have to offer. 

It’s called ‘You Are Remarkable’ and it’s out now on amazon.com.

Until next time, happy brand building! 

There’s any number of highbrow ways to kick this article off. 

Where to start? 

In going with a splendid example of a no-frills metaphor, I’m torn between: 

William Shakespeare: “All the world’s a stage.” 

Vincent Van Gogh: “Conscience is a man’s compass”

Dr. King: “We will transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony.”

Eminem: “You don’t get another chance / life is no Nintendo game.” 

Simon and Garfunkel: “I am a rock. I am an island.”

And finally, assistant to the Regional Manager Dwight Shrute: “Always the Padawan, never the Jedi.”

Decisions, decisions…

Whatever you pick, an artful metaphor can prime our minds with a clever, inventive shortcut. If the comparison is clear, obvious, or something we use every day, we don’t even think about it.  Although there’s no harm in slowing down to ponder the fact that an elephant in the room—an ultra-obvious, overriding fact or secret no one wants to talk about—weighs down the atmosphere, and creates the same claustrophobic tension as a seven-ton mammal wedged against the walls.

Of course, metaphors aren’t literal. 

Ones that try too hard, make no sense, or get their wires crossed end up on internet lists of ‘worst metaphors written by high school students.’  

Take THAT to the bank and smoke it! 

It was one peach cobbler of a tax audit. 

The backyard oak tree was a proud, brown, twelve-foot column… with branches and leaves.

I could do this all day…but I’d rather pivot to how B2B companies, national brands, and pretty much everyone presenting themselves or their services to the world can, (and should), use metaphor to help people grasp their remarkable identity.   

Built thoughtfully, and with the truth in mind, a good brand metaphor fleshes out an organization’s qualities, strengths, values, expression—everything that helps someone resonate with that brand’s story. 

https://youtu.be/ReIOEXKW1iI

In previous articles, I discussed all the components of building an authentic brand identity. I followed that up with a series on understanding your brand’s story through the lenses of a brand’s history, location, and archetype. 

Assuming you’ve done the work of pinning down those aspects of your brand, how do you go about actually composing and narrating your brand’s story? 

Lots of ways, actually. 

But the one way I’ve found especially helpful is the brand metaphor.

The literal story of your brand, after all, is often not something that most people can grasp on an intuitive level…even if you’re able to see how your pest control company is the hero of a grand epic tale about termites and roaches. When you try to tell that story literally, the focus is going to get stuck at just killing bugs. 

Nothing wrong with killing bugs. 

But your brand story should be told in a way that resounds outward in distinctive visual and verbal expressions—something that can be uniquely expressed by a logo, a choice of typeface, or a company name. “We kill bugs” is not unique or distinctive. So, instead of a brand story that ends at what the brand literally does, in most cases, I try to work with a brand metaphor.

Metaphors work because they help us understand something unfamiliar through comparison to something familiar. Ditto for something abstract; we understand it better because a metaphor makes it concrete. 

Most of our language is metaphorical at its roots… and even the word ‘roots’ is a metaphor from plants. So a brand metaphor is a tool for understanding a brand’s story through a comparison— one that makes me feel the same way that people should feel when I interact with your brand.

Not everything in a brand’s metaphor has to correspond to something in the real company. Rather, the similarity is in how the metaphor makes me feel. My experience with your company should remind me of how your company’s metaphor makes me feel.

For instance, my own company, Resound, uses a college basketball coach as its metaphor. 

This doesn’t mean everyone in the company shares an interest in basketball—some of us like hockey better, or even improv comedy—and it doesn’t mean that the ‘net’ or the ‘scoreboard’ or the ‘court’ in basketball somehow correspond one-to-one to something in the operations of our business. 

What it means is that we want the feeling that we have towards a college basketball coach to be the same kind of feeling that our clients or audience have when they interact with Resound. We want to guide and educate, and we coach out of a love of the pureness of the game rather than the glory of an NBA franchise. 

We’re not teaching the fundamentals like a high school coach, but we’re also not interested in coaching professionals with ulterior motives that pull them away from the team. We want the team to be successful—to provide strategy, and call out points of weakness and strength. 

At the same time, it’s on the team, not the coach, to execute. 

We’re not there to take over our client’s business, because it’s their business. We’re there to coach them, and provide guidance and encouragement from the sidelines.

Your company’s brand metaphor should be something several steps removed from what you actually do. The metaphor won’t be effective if it is too similar to reality. 

For instance, a Veterinarian’s office wouldn’t want the metaphor to be “a doctor’s office” or “a zoo” or “a farm”, because those things are too similar to the reality. Any of those metaphors would distract us from the reality rather than illuminate it. On the other hand, it might work to say that the brand of your Veterinarian’s office should feel like a cruise, or a carnival, or a superhero, or a military base, because each of those gives us a clear and distinct picture of what interactions with your brand should feel like. 

Finding the right brand metaphor takes some creativity, but once you’ve found it, you’ll recognize that it “feels right.” Having found it, you’ll probably find that your brand’s metaphor can then go on to inform everything else your business does to express itself, from advertising and copywriting to interior design.

I always emphasize that your brand metaphor should be under the surface, not overt. 

Your customers should not know what your brand metaphor is, but your employees should. 

If your Veterinarian’s office is supposed to feel like a military base, that doesn’t mean that you all wear uniforms; if it’s supposed to feel like a cruise, that doesn’t mean you have to put seashells on the walls and label the walls ‘port’ and ‘stern’. 

Rather it means that the way a customer feels when they interact with your website or read what you write or look around your waiting area should produce a similar feeling in them as they might get relaxing on an ocean liner… or in boot camp, if that’s your ticket. 

The metaphor may guide your choice of imagery, but it should be subtle. 

A metaphor is not the same thing as a theme, which looks more like the literal decorations and suggestions found in parties or gatherings… or in every Christmas episode of ‘The Office.’ 

A theme occurs when your Veterinarian’s office literally does call itself “Camp Paws”, lines the walls with sandbags, passes out ‘dog tag’ dog tags, and calls the doggie treats “MRE”. Themes can work for a certain kind of business… that is, if they’re in line with the definition of that business.

But much of the time themes look like amateur branding. 

If you can’t answer the question “why?” in response to a theme, then please, don’t. 

Even a themed business would need a distinct metaphor, removed from its theme, to help guide decisions about how the brand expresses itself. An Italian-food-themed theme park, for instance, might have “family gathering” or “first day of summer” as a metaphor, rather than “pasta sauce.”

Good metaphors fuse connections without drawing too much attention to themselves, it’s a good bet you’re trying too hard if your brand’s metaphor comes with party decorations and designer napkins. 

I dig metaphors because they’re often underappreciated. 

Along with brand story, brand archetype and a few other tools, they help frame things for those responsible for articulating and illustrating on behalf of the brand. Designers, copywriters, and even employees going about their day-to-day business all know how the place should feel and what feeling they want to leave with customers who interact with them. 

It gives any team a powerful picture of the emotions and experiences that somebody should leave with… and reminds them of just why their B2B company, or organization, is remarkable. 

If you’d like some help crafting a few metaphors of your own—or better yet, a subtle, compelling brand metaphor that will help a wider audience resonate with your brand story—then drop me a line. 

Resound is all about building brand expressions with the help of a stellar metaphor that embodies an organization’s unique identity, purpose, and story. 

Give us a call, or check out my detailed, step-by-step branding book  ‘You Are Remarkable’ out now on amazon.com.

Until next month, happy brand-building! 

Unless you work in the candy industry, you probably didn’t know that M & M’s only became a household name after selling their candy-coated chocolate exclusively to U.S. Servicemen in World War II. When the servicemen came back home, demand for those orange, yellow, and red candies we all recognize skyrocketed.  You probably don’t know that M & M’s were the first candy eaten in space, or that there were no red ones between 1976 and 1987, when a bogus study linking red food dye to cancer scared the American public.   Would the M & M’s you see at every counter be as famous, or as big a part of everyone’s life if World War II never happened? Perhaps the vast majority of people would have never heard of them, or perhaps they’d know them by a different brand name. While we’ll never know, it makes you wonder. If you think about it, the story of each brand we use and recognize is deeply tied to the historical events that shaped it over its lifetime. Along with a brand’s location or setting, a brand’s history leaves an indelible stamp on how that brand expresses itself, how it grows or shrinks, and how the world around it experiences and recognizes it.  Even if no one aside from a brand’s founders knows that history, the events, trends, economic demands, and cultural appetites make a mark nonetheless.  And in deeply important ways that contribute to a brand’s story, and even its eventual success or failure.

https://youtu.be/MSdjavA0NLs

The context of a brand’s story is not only its place, but also its time.  If you’ve done the hard work of figuring out your brand’s identity, values, and core purpose, and if you’ve factored in the ways your brand’s location shapes everything about it, then a final step would be taking note of what’s happening all around you.  Consider the recent years that have seen your brand grow, begin, or change course, and ask yourself:  What’s been going on in the world? Have there been any major shifts in the status quo? Or is the world ready for one? What’s going on in your world right now?  And what’s going on in the industry?  What historical context helps define the changes in society, culture, or your industry? How did all these changes get to where they are?  Answering these questions should give you a sense of your brand’s historical context… and your impression of recent history prepares you to ponder the follow-up: What does all this mean for your brand?   How does recent history, or everything that’s happening today, contribute to your brand’s story and expression? How does it shape the way people think about it or respond to it?  It may not be so easy to distill the answers… or to separate how time and history have influenced your brand from how your brand’s geographic location has.  But a good way to practice, and no doubt a good exercise in and of itself, would be asking how our own individual histories shape the people we are today. 

 We’re all shaped by the memories of our own history. No exceptions. How we think about ourselves has a lot to do with the story we tell of what has happened to us, and how we got to the present moment. Our fears, aspirations, and present behavior patterns are often echoes of what worked for us in the past. For organizations, looking back and reflecting on their history is an important component of their brand story… and with a handful of direct, but not necessarily easy questions, that history can be unlocked.  When was your brand founded?  Why was it founded?  If the company has been in business for 30, 50, or 70 years, how has the industry changed?  How has the company changed? How did the world change?  What were the big, emotional moments in that history, either the successes or the failures, that shaped the way your company operates today?   How did you react to big events that happened within your business, or on your team? 

We’re often influenced heavily in how we think about ourselves by moments of great emotion, the high points and the low points of our lives. Organizations are very much the same.  Both individually and collectively, we remember feelings rather than facts. So, looking at a brand’s history, what were the moments of intense feeling?  When did you feel like you were at your lowest?  And when did you feel like you were at your highest?  How did you behave in a moment of thrilling success?  And how did you handle a crisis?   Often, strong feelings and impressions are tied to major events that impacted the organization, or everyone involved in it.  Think of the big milestones in your company history.  What was a time that you decided to change?  And what was a mistake that you resolved never to make again?  What was an opportunity that you’re glad, in retrospect, that you did, or didn’t pass up? 

Feelings and memories of someone’s history can be incredibly strong. And of course, an individual should not be a prisoner of their own history.  But only by becoming aware of the past narrative of our lives can we recognize ways in which the old narrative no longer fits, and generate the awareness needed to start moving past it.   Similarly, an organization should not be defined by or held captive by its own history.  The history of a brand is not the same thing as the story of the brand. One reason to be aware of your organization’s history is to understand, in greater detail, how that narrative has constrained or restricted its ability to flourish in new circumstances.  An organization that survived a crisis by becoming highly secretive, for instance, may be better off becoming more open now that the crisis is over. A company that was once the top in its industry and has since fallen, may thrive best by moving past the narrative of trying to return to a lost golden age. Your history doesn’t determine your future. Nintendo, after all, started as a playing card company. That doesn’t mean it should now dump consumer electronics and go back to their roots. History shouldn’t stop you from making the choice to pivot and do something new. You can dislike parts of your own history, or be embarrassed or ashamed by them, but you need to own your history, and incorporate the truth of the good, the bad and the ugly into a story that leads to the future you envision.  If the vision of your history isn’t true, the vision of your future will be a lie.

Without history, all you have is the chaos of the present moment and the demands of right now. An awareness of your own history keeps your story anchored for long enough to see how your underlying purposes and goals are playing themselves out. And it’s also a potent reminder of a highly historical fact—your brand itself, what it does, and the impact it has, is remarkable.  Like values, purpose, location, and even archetype, history is a vital tool in understanding and unlocking your brand’s potential. And if using history to unlock a remarkable brand identity, a winsome and true brand expression, and a growing impact among customers and the wider world sounds good to you… then you should probably drop us a line.  We’re all about a brand’s history, and as B2B experts who have worked with regional and national brands for over a decade, we’re always game to get to know the remarkable story of a brand that wants to share itself.  Give us a call, or check out our detailed, step-by-step brand-building book ‘You Are Remarkable’ out now on amazon.com. Happy branding, history buffs!  

Here’s our elevator pitch—Star Trek on a pirate ship. 

Same cast. Same plotlines… but instead of the outer reaches of Deep Space Nine, everyone’s cruisin’ around the Caribbean. 

Or suppose Star Wars took place on an elementary school playground. Or Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice in the middle of a zombie apocalypse? 

Apparently, some have tried it. But setting informs a story as much as the characters do, and changing a setting obviously changes the entire story. 

The where of a story gives off a certain personality, just as much as the who and the what. The elements of a location, an environment, or a unique time and place shape how characters relate to each other, navigate the world, and compose the stories we watch, read, and listen to. 

The same is true of your brand’s story, culture, and overall identity.

Trust us… locations shape a brand’s story in ways you wouldn’t expect. That includes our own story as a Tempe, Arizona-based branding agency—and that’s something you can read more about in our new book ‘You are Remarkable’ authored by our founders.

Back to you and the simple, overarching question: ‘where are you from?’

https://youtu.be/xr0KW1Fe30c

While everyone’s got a distinct nature, nurture (i.e. setting) still makes its mark. 

Of course, it helps to know your core purpose, what you value, and your organization’s vision for making a small corner of the world a little better. And while you’re at it, you need to know your character archetype. 

But knowing, and owning your setting is non-negotiable. The environment all around you, not to mention the values, history, and customs of the place where you set up shop matters more to your brand’s identity than you might think. 

Forget setting, and you ignore a huge chunk of what makes your organization remarkable. 

So what’s the setting for your brand’s story? 

Is your location local? Regional? Global? 

Where, and just as importantly, when does it begin?

One thing you often find out when you’re getting to know someone is where they’re from. Sometimes, it’s straightforward, but other times, not so much. In fact, if you think about it, many people are from at least two places. 

First, the place where they grew up—the locale or community where their formative years were spent. The place that, to a large degree, probably influenced what they see as “normal” in the world. Somebody who grew up in the Midwest has a different “normal” than someone who grew up in Los Angeles.  

Second, the place where they currently live, which influences and constrains their current choices. Somebody living in rural Kansas has to adapt to a different physical, cultural, and economic environment than somebody living under the clear, hot skies of suburban Phoenix. 

The same is true for a brand or an organization. 

When your customers are getting to know your brand story, part of learning that story is knowing where you and your brand come from. 

Directly or indirectly, people will get a feel for the values, culture and customs of the place where your business started. They’ll also get a feel for where it is currently located or headquartered. 

This may be overt, in the way that Portillo’s Hot Dogs are explicitly from Chicago (even when they’re in Arizona), and Alaska Airlines explicitly serves Alaska (even if their hub is in Seattle). It can also be unconscious or implicit, such as when people get an intuitive feeling that a brand is southern, western, urban, rural, European, or even Canadian. 

Speaking with a customer service agent on the phone, it’s not too difficult to detect the politeness of Missouri, the gruffness of Philadelphia, or even the clipped, British pronunciation of someone in Mumbai or Bangalore.  

You probably know a ton about where you come from. But if it’s not that clear how setting influences the day-to-day life of your organization, culture, and overall brand story, ask yourself:  

How do your employees spend their Saturdays? 

That makes a difference in how employees think. 

What does your local business culture celebrate? 

That makes a difference in how leadership thinks.

What festivals, holidays, or times of the year does your team look forward to?

These aren’t small details; rather, they’re probably clues to help you understand the tastes, habits, and motivations of clients, team members, and all those you interact with on a day-to-day basis. 

If you think about it, they’re also the raw ingredients of a brand’s story, culture, and core identity. 

Your setting can become a limiting factor if it causes you to conform so closely to those around you that you don’t have your own story. 

If they’re not careful, every tech startup from Silicon Valley can start to look and feel like every other tech startup from Silicon Valley, because a sense of that place is so strongly baked into their identity and their staff. It can become a challenge to make sure one’s values are authentic and not merely a reflection of the prevailing ethics in one’s local business culture. 

Branding should be intentional, and not merely borrowed unconsciously from the surrounding environment. This can get to the point that you blend in and become easier to dismiss. Your values, culture, and brand story should win out over your setting, or the business norms of those in your immediate proximity.

But while your setting shouldn’t change your character, it’s worth acknowledging that, right beside your brand’s story, setting will impact your customer’s experiences. 

Applying setting to your brand story, brand culture, and brand expression in a winsome way means owning it. 

Especially when all those little details give you away anyway. 

Setting will show up in behavioral traits you don’t even realize you have. Examples of this might be how polite or direct you are, whether you’re always a little early or a little late, whether you use first names or last names, or whether you think winter or summer is the best time to be outdoors… just to name a few. 

Becoming more conscious of your setting doesn’t require making a big deal of it, unless it really is a big deal. We’re not suggesting that every company in Texas should have cowboy boots in its logo. 

But it does mean recognizing the way that a setting like Arizona shapes the culture, history, and underlying story of a boutique Phoenix branding agency, such as ours. 

Finally, when a company has multiple settings, it can incorporate elements of both its origin or headquarters and also its current location. 

For instance, consider the ways that Whole Foods or Bass Pro Shops go through the effort to make their individual stores reflect some of the vibe, local flavor, and personality of the area they’re located. At the same time, the identity and expression of their underlying brands stay consistent—whether you’re in Phoenix, Dallas, or Boston, a Whole Foods looks like a Whole Foods. 

So, it’s important to be aware of your setting and let that shape your brand’s culture, story, and remarkable expression. 

In our series on brand identity, brand story, and brand expression, setting’s no small piece of the pie. 

But keep in mind—and if this part piques your interest, be sure to join us next month as we explore it in more detail—that your ‘setting’ isn’t just a geographical location. Setting also means your place and time in history, characteristics that can be just as important in shaping your brand’s story and identity. 

And if you fancy the thought of talking with some thoughtful, curious, B2B experts who know your setting is remarkable… give us a call, or check our play-by-play take on brand building in our new book ‘You Are Remarkable’ out now on Amazon.com.

Wherever you hail from, we’re eager to hear all about it. 

And we’re always excited to build setting and place into remarkable brand identities. 

If you watch a popular movie or read a best-selling book with your brain turned off, you’ll probably get some déjà vu.

Whether it’s following the hero’s journey, or some eerily familiar character—an unlikely wonder woman finding her stride, a wise-cracking sidekick, or even a calm, motivated villain out to wreak some serious havoc—it’s not necessarily a bad thing if you recognize a pattern from somewhere else.

What we’re saying is that life, like books and movies, scatters unique characters everywhere… and that there are types of characters that we instantly recognize.

In fact, any historian or mythology professor will tell you that certain types of stories and characters appear over and over again in stories told across time and culture, from ancient myths to modern comic franchises.

The highbrow term is archetype, a type of character that appears, behaves, and functions in a certain way… from epic myths to heroes in a graphic novel to stock characters in a blockbuster franchise.

It’s no accident that Captain Jack Sparrow has a lot in common with Han Solo, from his blatant self-preservation to his foolish, underdog bravado to the charm and swagger that fans can’t resist. They’re both light versions of the anti-hero, a bad boy archetype that stretches out to darker examples like Dexter, Tony Soprano, Breaking Bad’s Walter White, and even Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

All good fun—and yes, we know what you’re thinking… what do character archetypes have to do with branding, brand development, or sharpening a brand’s personality?

Much more than you might think.

https://youtu.be/XJaXqXFX920

If you’re just joining us, this is part two of a seven-part series on practical tools for developing an authentic brand and sharing it with the world. Checkout out part one!

Once you've got your organization’s values and vision squared away, the next step is clarifying and expanding on that personality with a brand archetype.

There’s a whole list of archetypes that many branding agencies borrow from. These personas act as models, and sometimes, they lend themselves perfectly to the finer details of a brand's personality.

If you ask us, brand archetypes are perhaps the most helpful tool in our belt for putting handles on how a brand acts, thinks, behaves, functions… and how they can share those remarkable characteristics with everyone.

To dig a little deeper, let’s explore some common examples we find particularly helpful.

Before they applied to movie characters, the theory of archetypes was developed by the psychologist Carl Jung, who held that archetypes were innate categories of thought.

He argued that certain archetypal figures formed part of our innate way of categorizing the world.

When we tell stories with one another, the “roles” in our stories are often filled by these archetypal characters—the hero, the anti-hero, the antagonist, the wise guide, or the damsel in distress, respectively. They come with patterns we all instantly recognize.

But this isn’t screenwriting class, and we certainly won’t claim to be accurately representing Jungian theory here (although we do find it interesting). For the purpose of categorizing brands in a helpful way, and drawing on brands we’ve worked with, developed, and sent off into the world, we’ve found these twelve archetypes to be the most helpful.

An ‘Executive’ brand leads with confidence and conviction. It values a clear sense of process and order prioritizing tasks. An Executive brand can express a regal or traditional personality, making sure that the ‘rule of law’ is upheld, and the organization’s processes and values are maintained as an enduring legacy.

On that note, Executive brands love a sense of accomplishment, getting things done, and moving forward. They’re natural leaders in their industry because of their record of action, and they inspire their customers to lead, remain diligent and steadfast, and move forward step by step.

A few examples of Executive brands might be Mercedes Benz, Rolex, Luis Vitton, and Microsoft.

A ‘Hero’ brand always comes to the rescue! 

It saves the day and delivers what its customers need at just the right time. Hero brands are like firefighters, police officers, and emergency room doctors. They use their expertise to rescue those in distress rather than to educate or train. 

Customers look to Hero brands in a crisis, to pull them out of the mud when they’ve fallen into trouble or are feeling helpless. When you need help and have nowhere to turn, you call a Hero.

Brands that make us think of the Hero would be (of course), Nike, Adidas, FedEx, Duracell, and the U.S. Army.  

An ‘Expert’ brand offers customers guidance and advice. 

The Expert archetype is also sometimes called the ‘consultant’, ‘professor’, ‘philosopher’, or ‘sage’: someone who helps answer difficult questions that customers don’t feel comfortable solving themselves. 

Expert brands bring their vast and often highly-specialized expertise to solve problems and navigate the intricacies of life. They are teachers, providing customers with training and direction to make them smarter or savvier about their industry.

Expert brands look like Google, the BBC, BMW, The Economist… and individuals like the late Alex Trebek or Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Deep down, a ‘Creator’ brand is an artist.

Creator brands live to create, to design, to imagine something new for customers, or even create a whole world for them to experience. They prize knowing how to do something rather than theoretical knowledge.

Creator brands are always pushing the envelope, taking risks to help envision new ways for their customers to engage with the world. They help spark creativity in others around them.

Clear models of Creator brands would be Lego, Adobe, or Home Depot. 

The ‘Caregiver’ archetype fits brands that are nurturing, motherly, caring, and service-oriented. 

Rather than saving the day like Hero archetype and then moving on to the next crisis, Caregiver brands tend toward longer-term relationships that require hand-holding and ongoing support. Caregiver brands are not always fun or exciting, but customers return to them again and again for their loving support. 

Examples would be Tom’s, Johnson and Johnson, Unicef, and Campbell’s

‘Explorer’ brands are freedom-lovers. They love adventure and they do not fear the unknown. 

Explorers help their customers become better explorers themselves, whether of nature, ideas, relationships, or their own thoughts and feelings. Explorer brands are rarely inhibited, expressing a wanderlust and the thrill of entering uncharted territory. 

Explorer brands look like Jeep, REI, Starbucks, Patagonia, and NASA.

The ‘Visionary’ archetype is also sometimes called the ‘magician’, ‘shaman’, or ‘inventor’. 

Brands with this archetype use their exceptional foresight and innovation to become leaders in their industry. They push the envelope of technology and convention, anticipating not just what is around the corner, but what is still beyond the horizon. 

Visionaries want their customers to catch their vision and join them in being at the head of disruptive changes. Customers who are bleeding-edge, first-adopters love visionary brands and enthusiastically celebrate the release of every new product as a sign of the future to come.

Visionary brands tend to look like Disney, Apple, Dyson, Intel, and Coca-Cola.

A ‘Partner’ brand wants to be your best friend. A partner brand is going to walk alongside you, through thick and thin. 

Customers love and remain faithful to the partner brands that have accompanied them through life. Reliable and trusted instead of flashy or crazy, partner brands offer services that customers keep coming back to and calling upon repeatedly over the years. 

They seek a solid foundation, providing the support customers need to build a better life.

Partner brands look like Chanel, Victoria’s Secret, Alfa Romeo, and Lyft

The ‘Everyman’ brand is a good neighbor, the down-to-earth person who’s ready to lend a helping hand with a friendly face whenever you need them.

Everyman brands feel familiar, safe, ‘just like me’, and reliable. Brands that live out this archetype are trusted by their customers because they are unpretentious, simple, and always there for them. Their customers might not need them every day but when they need a quick favor, the Everyman brand is right next door, ready with a smile.

You probably use Everyman brands more than you realize. Think Ebay, Target, McDonald’s, Walmart, IKEA, and Southwest Airlines.

‘Entertainer’ brands are performing artists, musicians, actors, storytellers—rock stars who want to dazzle their customers with fantastic experiences that they fall in love with. 

Entertainer brands might be accused of ‘style over substance’, but they express their substance through their unique and memorable style. Aesthetics, feelings, and a sense of fun are key to these brands. Their customers love them and revel in their performance, their playfulness, and (often) their humor.

To see how they operate, look to Skittles, M&M’s, Burger King, or Dollar Shave Club.

‘Idealist’ brands are there to help you sleep peacefully at night. 

Through their idyllic vision of the world they seek to spread a spirit of elegance, honesty, and transparency. Idealists are seen as wholesome and healthy, the best choice in their category. They produce a feeling of warmth, comfort, and simple joy. 

Customers look to Idealist brands like Dove, Whole Foods, Aveeno, or Pampers in order to rest and to feel “okay” after a hard day.

A ‘Rebel’ brand is a rule-breaker, an outlaw, a brand that revels in disrupting peace and shocking people awake. 

Rebels can be loveable scoundrels like Han Solo type, or they can simply be combating the boredom of normalcy. Rebels encourage their customers to express themselves freely, to break expectations and live counter to the norm. 

Customers love rebel brands as a chance to express their inner rebel and “fight against the system”. Rebel brands are usually quite niche since they ring inauthentic once they become normalized. Within their niche, they are highly loved, and they build tightly-knit communities of like-minded rebels around them.

Think Harley Davidson, Diesel, Virgin, and MTV. 

Once you find the archetype or two that best matches your brand, you can use it as a tool to guide the expression of your brand’s personality. 

Of course, your brand’s personality is going to be more specific and unique than simply an archetype, but we’ve found that this tool is the best guide for helping everyone understand and communicate this personality. 

Without some tool to clearly define your personality, your brand will end up shifting to match the personality and temperament of whoever might be writing copy that day. Your newsletters might reflect the mood you’re in, rather than the outlook of your brand’s archetypal character. 

With that in mind, a good archetype ensures that when your brand behaves, designs, acts, or creates something, it’s expressing its true identity… and showing a consistent face to everyone who sees it. 

Suppose that your brand is a pool cleaning company. 

There is a big difference between how an entertainer pool company would express itself and how a wise old man pool company would express itself. An “entertainer” pool company would be open to always going a little over the top, and making its customers feel either amazed or amused and not taking itself (or its social media feed) too seriously. 

A wise old man, or better yet, an ‘Expert’ pool cleaning company would approach everything quite differently. aAs would a pool cleaning company with a hero archetype that makes a big deal about repairing pools, rebuilding them after storms, or saving the day by cleaning them before a big family reunion. 

You can mix and match archetypes. A personality can have elements of two of them. 

While our list might not be all-encompassing, the goal is to get a tool that provides consistency and clarity. Archetypes provide a way of saying, “This is our personality,” so that you know what kind of language and images are appropriate for your brand, and what messages you should try to communicate. 

Then do some digging and find your own! Our recently released book can be a great way to dive right in!

And check us out next month as we talk about setting, the next tool in fine-tuning your brand’s expression, personality, and appearance to the world. 

If our discussion of archetypes has your thoughts spinning, or if you’ve got a brand or organization that could use a clear-cut model like the ones we listed, give us a call or check out more of our articles, videos, and resources. 

But even more so than archetypes, or stock characters, we find that people are remarkable. 

If you’re ready to show the world how remarkable you are, then the Resound team would love to talk with you. 

Happy branding!

Not all brands have a personality, but the ones you remember do.

Walking into a Mcdonald’s is different from walking into a Chipotle. Sprouts feels different from Trader Joe’s. You get a different vibe from IKEA than you do from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. These large corporations have put attention into their brand personality—everything from their name, colors, and logo to their use of space in a retail store. Everything is designed, all the way that people communicate with one another (we’re looking at you, Chick-fil-a).

In most cases, the personality sticks in our minds because it’s consistent… and if it’s consistent for an entire population, a brand’s valuation can soar into the hundreds of millions.

Or much higher than that.

But when it comes to fine-tuning a brand that people can appreciate, trust, and resonate with, you don’t have to be some high-flying, list-climbing conglomerate.

With some sleeves rolled up, and the hard work of figuring out a core purpose that rises above everything else, companies large and small can take seven practical steps to build a brand expression worth remembering, and a brand personality that delivers on its promises.

https://youtu.be/YkvbEo2KxmE

Our last series focused on some of the ‘don’ts’ of branding.

If you’ve been reading along, then you know all about the precarious terrain of easy-looking solutions—superficial branding, copycat branding, or inventing a brand from scratch.

Like those houses built right on the edge of a cliff, quick fixes start to crumble over time, or whenever the pressure’s on.

Let’s assume you’ve already identified your deep why and sense of purpose as a company, use that to determine your values and vision, which should then go on to shape your goals. With these in mind, how do you nail down the identity of your brand in a way that you can easily communicate to customers, employees, or even the marketing team?

How do people identify your company in a way that matches what you’re really about?

While every organization is unique, we find that seven tools tend to help with brand definition:

These may not cover every situation, but as far as building a winsome, thoughtful, consistent brand expression goes, they’re toolbox essentials.

Let’s start with our favorite, which is a brand’s personality.

Brands have a personality, just like people do.

And by “personality,” we don’t necessarily mean a persona.

The word persona is a term for the mask worn by a character in a play, or for the character themselves. An actor can slip on a new persona and create a new character at will, if they’re talented enough. If you think about it, many people do just that every day.

That is, they act like a different character in each different aspect of their lives.

Some brands do that too—they have a public-facing persona, an investor-facing persona, an internal-facing persona, or like Lays Potato Chips, Olay, or even Axe deodorant spray, a different persona for specific markets or regions.

The term personality, on the other hand, has to do with those qualities that make something personal, as opposed to impersonal. Personality is what makes me feel like I am dealing with a real person. The concept of a “person” is derived from a persona, but instead of referring to the outward mask, it came to mean the face under it.

The person.

The individual’s fundamental self.

Personality denotes an individual’s nature; the distinct characteristics that make me, me, and you, you. Somebody’s personality is what allows you to recognize them as the distinct person they are, to feel familiar with them, and to have that sense that you really know them.

And if on that level, everyone’s unique and remarkable, the same goes for every organization, company or business.

Like the personality of a complex individual, every brand’s personality starts in the DNA.

One of the first things to look for in defining a brand is its personality.

Take a close look at your organization, (with everyone involved and all the insight you can gather)… and ask yourself: How does it act? How does it talk?

How does it look and feel and smell?

Is it’s attitude and mindset serious, silly, or sassy? Settled and stable, or manic and on a mission? Fast or slow, smooth or coarse, traditional or modern, natural or technological?

Again, not every brand has a distinct personality, but the most memorable ones do.

People who have unique, distinctive personalities are hard to forget. People who just seem like copies of people you’ve already met are easy to forget, and the same is true of copycat brands.

They’re forgettable.

Unfortunately, smaller companies are less likely to put energy into their brand, which tends to make them more forgettable. But those which do put energy into how they express their brand personality stand out. You can feel the personality of the brand simply walking around the office or restaurant or storefront. It’s consistent with what you see in their advertising, their email content, and the way someone from the company talks with you.

Unlike a mask or persona, companies with a brand personality give you the sense that you’re seeing or interacting with the person inside… even though they’ve put a lot of time and work into polishing that impression.

For small businesses who lack the resources to refurbish their interiors, splurge on commercials, or purchase swanky new uniforms. Brand personality may look like a stacked deck.

But if you look closely that’s not the case.

When a smaller company shows us its personality, making it memorable and unique, people often prefer this feeling to the feeling they get from a large chain.

A pool cleaning company may not have the opportunity to design a physical space to express its brand. Yet there are still points at which their personality can show—their website and social media, their business cards, the trucks they drive, the invoices they send, or the way they answer the phone.

Smaller companies can benefit from brand personality if they apply one factor—consistency.

Over time, interacting with the same, consistent personality builds a sense of trust.

You don’t trust somebody whose personality changes every day. You don’t trust somebody who seems like they’re hiding something. Trust increases the more you feel like you know their motives.

Similarly, trusting a brand requires being able to see its genuine personality expressed, and through that personality getting a sense of its underlying values and purpose.

Then tune in next month as we move on to ‘metaphor,’ the next tool in our brand definition and brand expression toolbelt.

Wherever you are in your branding journey, we hope that our notes on ‘persona’ versus ‘personality’ and the central driver of consistency put some wind in your sails.

If we’ve piqued your interest, you might want to pick up our book for more guiding principles of branding like this one. Or stick around and check out more articles, videos, and resources.

You can also subscribe to a monthly newsletter, and get tips and advice on branding strategy and brand development sent in your inbox.

We’re always excited to meet new people.

Like the brands, and B2B companies we help, consult, and fine-tune through our brand workshop process, we know that distinct personalities are a large part of what makes people remarkable.

And if something’s remarkable, then it’s definitely worth sharing.

Bold vision separates the active from the passive, the fine-tuned brand from the scattered brand.

Had he not imagined sailing into the warm waters of a faraway port on the Indian coastline, Christopher Columbus probably wouldn’t have made the two-month slog across the Atlantic Ocean four times.

But while bold visions can enrapture us and bring some motivation to the inevitable long haul, they don’t account for everything.

Rather, visions sail toward reality (or in Columbus’s class, toward a different continent than the one he had in mind) on the shoulders of clear values, concrete goals, and an overriding purpose that answers the question ‘why.’

In last month’s article, I talked all about how remarkable organizations like yours have a unique identity, a frequency that can be fine-tuned and shared with the world. I also talked about how finding that frequency starts with asking ‘why?’

Why sell cars, insurance, or ice cream?

Why risk everything to open up a direct trade route to India?

Answering the question ‘why’ means following the clues to a clear, motivating vision of how you want the world to be. If you’ve done the hard work of getting that far, you’re getting close to unlocking an authentic brand identity that will resonate with your team, your clients, and those who need you as you really are.

Beat three: Letting your Purpose define your Values

Beat four: Letting your Values create your Vision

And lastly,

Beat five: Letting your Vision set your Goals

Once you’ve identified your purpose and your why, it’s time to move on to your values.

Your values are the things you care about, the things that matter to you, and motivate you.

A value isn’t just something you happen to like or appreciate. You might like egg salad, but unless it’s the last sealed lunch on a stranded spaceship… you surely don’t value egg salad. A value is something that you value for its own sake, and other things have value in light of those higher values.

An authentic value is something you’re willing to make sacrifices for. A parent values their children: that means they’ll sacrifice sleep, money, and free time for their sake. The things you sacrifice other things for are what you value most.

When it comes right down to it, values are what ultimately determine your ethical stance as a company. The principles or rules you lay down, along with the boundaries and lines you’re not willing to cross, are things you establish to help you keep and promote your values. The kind of character traits, qualities, and decision-making you want your team to develop are all things you base on your underlying values.

So what does your company value?

Suppose your company values speed.

If that’s your value, then you’re going to make decisions to try to maximize speed, decisions which another organization might not make. A different company might value, say, being thorough, but if that’s also one of your values, you won’t sacrifice accuracy for speed—but you will make the choice to be more methodical.

Small companies often don’t explicitly state their values, because they’re inferred from the founder or leader: the company values whatever the person in charge values. Over time—and assuming the founder isn’t always around to course-correct—values become a navigational tool for exploring new, uncharted waters, and for bringing new people on board. New employees encounter them in the interview process. Discerning values and making them explicit is part of the natural process of growth.

What we’ve found, however, is that, while most established companies have a set of values, their stated values don’t really express their distinctive purpose.

Instead, laziness leads companies to copy values from other companies, or to pick the most basic value which everybody can agree on, go-to phrases like: “We value integrity and honesty!” or “We value getting the job right the first time!”.

But unless you’re in an industry marked by cheating, deception, or sloppy work, then those aren’t distinctive values. If everybody in your industry follows those values, then claiming them as your values is just telling your team what they should already know.

Instead, ask yourself: what would someone else in your industry not be able to claim as a value?

For instance, many companies say they value “customer service”.

Now, if you work in an industry where most others don’t value customer service (like that glorious branch of state bureaucracy that deals in motor vehicles), then that is a distinctive value.

On the other hand, if you are in the hospitality industry, you better value customer service. At some point, “customer service” isn’t a fundamental value to your identity, it’s simply a fundamental part of doing business in your industry.

When you’re doing a values exercise, and trying to figure out the distinctive values of your company, look closely at your basic beliefs, your why, and your purpose.

What do you value in light of that purpose?

You value customer service, but why? What is it that you value especially, that leads you to value customer service? Can you apply that value to every stakeholder in your organization?

When you say you value “customer service”, realize that it actually only applies to one stakeholder group, and that’s your customers. Is there something more fundamental than customer service that could apply to your customers, your employees, your vendors, and all your shareholders?

What do you believe is valuable about people?

If it helps, consider writing out the “easy” values on the whiteboard first—customer service, honesty, making money, or so on. Acknowledge them and get them out of the way, so you can move beyond that.

An authentic value is something you sincerely believe in. If you can’t say you “believe in” that thing, it isn’t really a core value.

If you get them right, then your values should be what makes people excited enough to get out of bed in the morning and show up to work. They should be what your customers respect and share, what shapes interactions, and permeates the whole of your company, from day to day operations to the overarching vision.

An organization’s leadership is responsible for its vision. By a “vision”, we mean not merely a set of plans or hopes for the next five years, but a picture of the world as it would be if the organization’s purpose were fulfilled and its values upheld.

If your company achieved its purpose, and if your company practiced its values consistently… what would that look like? What would that feel like?

And what difference would it make?

A good vision has to be bigger than your own company; it’s not that your company reaches a certain size, hires a certain number of employees, or wins a certain award. Rather, a good vision comes from imagining your purpose and values finally becoming reality.

If your purpose is to help people chill out by serving them ice cream at a rest stop, then your vision might include growth—there are, after all, many rest stops, and many drivers who need to eat ice cream. But the look and feel of relaxed people who are finally taking a break is your vision, not your growth in ice cream sales.

Presenting a vision is helping people see and feel that scenario, where a segment of the world has been remade or repaired because your purpose was achieved.

The job of leadership is to make that picture of a different world seem appealing and achievable, and not just a fantasy. The vision has to feel inspiring and also humanly possible.

A vision is usually best thought of in terms of decades rather than years. Not what you presently are capable of achieving as a company, but the impact you hope to have as you develop and grow over time. You may not have much control about when, whether, or how your vision is achieved… but it’s what you want your present work to ultimately result in.

A vision is like your purpose and values in that it is part of the “roots” of your brand’s “tree,” something that should endure and last through seasons of heavy rains and droughts.

Translating your vision into something you actually have the power to bring about is the process of setting goals.

Goals are solid steps that we can take in order to achieve our purpose and act on our values within a limited time frame. Goals work towards the ultimate vision, but they also need to operate within the constraints imposed by limited resources, people, and time.

For instance, if your vision is a world in which people enjoy driving, then related goals might be things like improving the handling on next year’s model, or eliminating road noise in the cabin within five years.

How to set realistic goals is another subject.

But what I want to emphasize here is only that your vision, purpose, and values should drive your goals, rather than the other way around.

Goals should be centered and focused in your brand. They should be built up from your authentic identity; you can’t construct an authentic identity around your current goals.

Companies that try to define their brand based on their current goals rather than on their broader vision find themselves with temporary goals.

They achieve them, or not, and either way, they’re done.

If your brand is based on your current goals or tactics, the brand won’t endure.

It is important for your brand to be aware of your current goals, because even while these shouldn’t change your brand identity, they do influence the optics and communication of your current brand expression. A company can have enduring values and vision, but still need to redesign its logo as its concrete goals change.

What shouldn’t change is its core identity.

Whatever process you use for determining your business’s goals, is it filtered through your values and purpose?

Ask yourself, “Why are we making this a goal?”

Can you articulate how your goal is in service to your purpose? Or are your goals coming from short-term distractions? Before you determine your goals and write up your tasks, take a deep breath and reflect on your values and your vision.

You might make a ritual of starting every strategy session by reviewing your values and purpose. You might make sure that your team members give feedback on how well you’re advancing in your own values.

Likewise, when you look back at what goals you accomplished over the year, you can evaluate those twelve months in terms of how well they promoted your values.

The five ‘beats’ make a handy tool for uncovering your organization’s authentic brand identity.

They’re a basic guide to figuring out your organization’s why, purpose, values, vision, and goals. Granted, these can be pretty abstract, and hard to translate into specific actions or choices. After getting this far, most organizations need some tools to define their brand in a creative, expressive, and visually compelling way.

At Resound, we call this “fine-tuning” a brand, and it gets us more excited than stopping for rest stop ice cream.

If you’ve got a decent idea of your core vision and subsequent values, and if you need some help working towards a look, voice, and online presence that reflects how remarkable you are, then we’re delighted to help.

Give us a call, check out our catalog of online resources, or consider subscribing to our monthly newsletter for more branding wisdom right in your inbox.

We love helping B2B’s and organizations like yours fine-tune their remarkable frequency… and share it with the world.