It’s highly likely you said yes.
Coca Cola aims to “inspire moments of optimism and uplift,” Apple encourages you to “think differently” and BMW offers you “the ultimate driving machine”.
One isn’t just a popular drinks company, it’s a lifestyle brand and one isn’t just a computer company because it designs products that encourage you to see the world differently. BMW doesn’t just make a car that gets you from A to B, they produce the most efficient and elegant vehicles.
And how do you know all of that? They each have effective and well defined brand promises.
So, if you ever feel like you’re just not being heard in the market, it’s possibly because your brand promise isn’t clear enough to your stakeholders, customers and even your employees.
Below are some tips when considering your brand promise.
Why do you need a brand promise?
If you’ve attended a networking event and asked a business owner what they actually do, you may have inadvertently trapped yourself in a 45-minute conversation about nothing in particular, while your feet grow tired and your glass grows empty.
However, if the business owner answered with one succinct sentence explaining what, how and why their business operates, you are more likely to remember them. And they will have piqued your interest.
Defining your brand promise
Your brand promise can usually be found at the heart of the customer experience. So, when trying to nail it, think about what’s important to the customer and then implement this across your organisation. You can’t convince someone that your company’s brand promise is “providing support to customers” if your HR department isn’t particularly supportive.
As regular Ted-talker Simon Sinek says, “people don’t buy what you sell, they buy why you sell it”. This means that you need to stop thinking about all the services or products that you offer and revert back to your brand promise, or as Sinek puts it, your company’s “why”.
Why did you start your company in the first place, what’s your point of difference and why should your customers care?
It can be difficult to take this concept, that makes perfect sense to you, and place it into a succinct singular sentence. So here are a few more examples to inspire you:
Google:
“To organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” or “Don’t be evil.”
IKEA:
“To create a better everyday life for the many people.”
JetBlue:
“To inspire humanity – both in the air and on the ground.”
When it comes to your company, accurately defining your brand can mean the difference between enchanting audiences or boring them to bits, so it’s important to make sure it stands out.
If you have any further questions about how your brand can better define their why, feel free to send us a message, we’d love to have a chat.