Launching & Building a Brand For Dummies. Amy Will
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Use the following fill-in-the-blanks template to create your own brand positioning statement:
[Your brand’s tentative name] is the [first, best, only] [brand class] to offer [unique features and benefits] to [customer profile] making them feel [emotion about the brand].
Defining Your Brand Identity
Brand identity is the personality and physical manifestation of a brand that makes it recognizable in people’s minds. Think of it as your own identity — everything that defines you, such as your physical appearance; how you move, dress, and speak; your values, interests, knowledge, and skills; your personality; your purpose in life; and so on.
Note that many people equate brand identity with the brand’s visual design elements, such as its logo, colors, and font. Not everyone experiences a brand visually, however. Some people experience it through the brand’s audio assets (such as a jingle), through its messaging, or through direct engagement. Visuals are just one way of expressing a brand’s identity.
Establishing your brand’s mission and values
When you think about your own identity, you’re usually seeking the answer to the question “Who am I?” You’re trying to discover your essence — what makes you you,— and that’s tough. You need to evaluate your belief system, your core values, and your life’s purpose.
The same is true for a brand. Engage in some deep soul-searching to figure out what your brand is all about. Explore its mission, vision, and values … or define what you want them to be.
Describing your brand’s mission
Every business and brand should have a mission statement describing its purpose — why it exists and its big goal or purpose. I strongly encourage you to write a mission statement for your brand. Here are a few examples:
Google: To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
Starbucks: To inspire and nurture the human spirit — one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.
Sony: To be a company that inspires and fulfills your curiosity. Using our unlimited passion for technology, content, services to deliver ground-breaking new excitement and entertainment in ways that only Sony can.
Water.org: To bring safe water and sanitation to the world.
What’s your brand’s mission?
To ________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MISSION OR VISION?
Some brands use either a mission or vision statement and consider the two to be interchangeable. Other brands distinguish between mission and vision statements; for them, a mission statement describes the brand’s current goals and its approach to achieving those goals in the near term, whereas a vision statement expresses the brand’s future aspirations. The purpose of a mission statement is to keep everyone in the organization on the same page regarding the brand’s purpose, whereas the purpose of a vision statement is to inspire.
LinkedIn is a brand that has both a mission and vision statement:
Mission: To connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful
Vision: To create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce
Whether you write a mission or vision statement or both doesn’t matter much, but you should write at least one to clarify your brand’s purpose — its reason for being.
Defining your brand’s values
Values are principles or standards that govern thinking and behaviors. A brand’s values govern the organization’s decisions; policies; daily operations; and engagement with customers, vendors, and partners. Whereas mission and vision describe what the brand is and why it exists, values influence how the brand operates.
Create a list of what your brand values most; then rearrange the items on your list from most to least important. Your list may include the following:
Customer satisfaction
Innovation
Continuous improvement
Profitability
Transparency
Flexibility
Personalization
Teamwork
Integrity
Diversity, equity, and inclusion
Relationships
Another approach is to write value statements, which are more like principles or policies, such as the following:
Do the right thing.
Have fun.
Deliver the highest-quality products and customer service possible.
Treat customers as they would like to be treated.
Protect and preserve the environment.
Exploring your brand’s personality
If your brand were a person, what kind of person would it be? Sexy and sophisticated? Young, hip, and sassy? Rugged and outdoorsy? Successful and charming? Bold and creative? Brand personality is the set of human traits attributed to a brand. You want your brand to have a readily identifiable personality that appeals to your target market. Here are a few brands that have strong personalities:
| Brand | Personality |
|---|---|
| Amazon | Reliable, trustworthy, responsive |
| Apple | Cool, creative, sleek |
| Coca-Cola | Enthusiastic, fun-loving, social, approachable |
| Harley-Davidson |