In this guest post, B&T regular and MD at Sydney-based digital marketing firm Octos, Nital Shah, says if your brand’s brand has gone missing, the old tree analogy is worth remembering…
Branding is one of the most important part of the business to get noticed in your audience’ eyes. The word “Brand” is an intangible asset and often the most valuable asset on the balance sheet.
Brands do branding but what does branding mean? People have different opinions and definitions based on their experience and understanding. People understand branding based on their own understanding like a logo, a tagline, marketing practices, symbol, design and some more philosophical sentences.
Sometimes these answers help us to understand branding from different perspective. However, we cannot have the eternal definition of branding. So let me share what branding means to me– For me branding is “Making people think the same like you think for your brand”.
In this digital era, where marketers use so many tactics rather than strategies it is important to understand the basics or foundation of branding and a tree is a great example to learn from.
1. Remember Your Roots
As a tree is recognised by its fruit, a brand is recognised by its values. Those values for which it came into existence in the world. It’s always the core values of the brand which takes care of the brand in all the situations. The big brand “Adidas” is known for its products and quality. But, why Adidas is so consistent in branding? It’s because is is rooted deep in their values, which are Authentic, Passionate, Innovative, Inspirational, Committed, Honest. Adidas is so rooted in its values that they always try to match their standards which gives them strength to compete against some of the biggest brands because they have those values, for which they stood up.
2. Be Content with Your Natural Beauty
When it comes to natural beauty brands do have their natural beauty – itself. It’s been around 12 years since Dove launched their campaign – ‘real beauty’ with a video which got viral and helped to established Dove in the market. A video that showcased how beauty is digitally manipulated and presented to get the most from it, like wearing a mask. In this digitally manipulated world “Dove” stands firm on its values – “In a world of stereotypes, Dove Skin, Hair and Deodorant products, recognise that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes.”
3. Go Out on a Limb
For a tree, continuous water is necessary. Likewise for a brand, its reputation is must to survive in the market. Out of the many, some brands take most of their interest in the brand reputation and take the risk for the betterment of the society or their limbs. Recently when government demanded Apple to take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of their customers, the CEO wrote an open letter to their customers and explained the matter to make customers understand how much risk a brand is taking for the security of their users’ data.
4. Stand Tall
When a brand wins a competition or have a big turn over, their social media goes on promoting the content vigorously but what if something goes wrong, something that harms the brand’s reputation? Seaworld Orlando– a sea park, is an example of a brand which stood tall at the time of crisis when one of their most experienced animal trainers drowned in an incident with one of their killer whales. In a very short time company’s social media experts were on the case with twitter, blog and press conference. They took the stand and stood tall by providing all the correct information to their audience.
5. Shade For All
The world is going specific and brands are behind their specific target audience. Meanwhile, some brands thought out of the box and became shade for some refugees like Brands for Canada, which helped a Syrian refugee family of seven by providing basic help to get settle in Canada, providing personal care and some household items. Since brands can make a difference, they should try to utilise their brand influence for social good.
These are just a few learning points for a business from a tree; so many things are still left to learn. There is always something to learn from anything. So let’s gear up with these thoughts and implement these points in your brand awareness strategy.
