Tell Me Who You Are in One Sentence
Today’s strongest brands can be explained in a single sentence. How do you want consumers to remember your brand 10 years from now? It’s time for some brand psychology.
Physical strength comes from muscle fibres working together. The same is true for branding; every part of your company must pull in the same direction to build a strong brand. But how do you achieve harmony and strength? A clear and concise brand essence will help you achieve greatness.
You, Condensed
Your brand essence explains your core DNA. Everything you know about your brand boiled down into one sentence. It reflects your brand drivers, purpose, personality, and consumers’ reason to believe. It’s why you’re the only brand that can take a specific position in the market.
Do not mistake it for your tagline, though. Your brand essence is your internal guideline used for your external communication. It’s the one sentence that defines all initiatives moving forward, whether marketing, product development, direct sales, or branding.
Clarifying Your Brand
Just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. This is especially true for your brand essence. However, once you’ve distilled your brand down to one sentence, it’s the most powerful tool in every aspect of your day-to-day business.
But, to uncover your brand essence, you need to do some digging, desk research and additional surveying. Study your context to find your ideal position in the market. To do so, you need the four Cs; Company, Category, Culture and Consumer.
Once your context is accounted for, you need to understand every nuance of your brand. What are your brand drivers, both emotional and on a product level? What is your core narrative? Your reason and right to exist? Slowly, you’ll work out a brand platform, which you’ll then need to boil down into one sentence; your brand essence.
At EVERLAND, our Brand Essence is “Spark Happiness”. Like any good brand essence, it permeates everything we do. That is true for our design, culture, and way of seeing the world.
Amplifying Your Essence
Your brand essence guides your design, communication, marketing, product innovation, partnerships, events, etc. If you go against your brand essence, you are not on-brand. It clutters your communication and creates unnecessary confusion. It makes noise, damaging your brand.
The idea of a clear brand essence is to make every single part of your company sing in unison and tell the same story. If everyone internally doesn’t have the same understanding of the brand, how does the consumer stand a chance?
Appeal to a Broad Audience
To know where you are in 10 years, you need to know where you are today. Once you know your true starting point, you can set the course to the promised land. The trick is to get everyone on board and make sure they pull the oars in the same direction. Otherwise, you will find yourself going nowhere.
So, the formula to success is pretty straightforward; Clarify your brand, amplify your essence, and appeal to a broader audience. Those who find your values appealing will stay loyal to your brand and, in time, maybe even use it as part of their own identity.
A quick word of warning; just because it seems simple doesn’t mean it’s easy.