Branding
The Secret Sauce Your Purpose-Driven Brand is (Probably) Missing
Staying on brand doesn’t have to be boring. So how can you keep your brand consistent, while still giving it some room to breathe?
Let’s pretend there’s a woman named Suzie. This should be fairly easy, as it isn’t exactly fiction. Suzie is smart, conscientious, and reliable. She has a good job at the bank and cares about her work. Most of the time, Suzie acts how Suzie usually acts.
Usually.
The thing is, no one acts “on brand” all the time. That would be not only impossible, but incredibly boring.
Brands are the same. Well, good brands I should say.
Of course, consistency is an absolutely necessary part of building a brand. Without consistency in how you show up, your organization would be starting from scratch every time it popped into someone’s mind.
Scratch is for cookies, not brands!
Successful brand building is all about creating a reputation over the course of time. It has a sort of momentum to it. Ideally, a momentum that heads in the direction you’re trying to go. For the purpose-driven organizations we work with, this is key for building a relationship with your audience, and ultimately driving your mission forward, with their help.
The problem is, unlike humans – brands can be completely and utterly predictable.
It’s a trap many marketers fall into. Sure, this keeps you safe from the risk of your hard-earned vibe veering off course. But it puts you at a far greater risk: being forgotten. Once your audience has you in a box, keeping them engaged becomes a harder task. Exciting people with your story, keeping them interested, and leaving them dreaming about what’s next requires a dynamic (and not a flat) presence.
You want your audience to have you figured out, but not totally figured out.
This brings us back to the whole “your brand is like a person” thing. It should talk a certain way, look the way it looks, do certain things, and have a personality that’s (hopefully) describable. But to be dynamic, like a person, it can and should indulge in a little spontaneity.
In other words, build some breathing room into your brand. Give it some intentionally complex characteristics and you’ll find way more room to play. If there’s anything you take away let it be this:
Being pleasantly surprising is not the same thing as being “off brand.”
Just because you’d be surprised to hear Suzie played hooky to go skydiving doesn’t make her any less Suzie.
