If people are to believe in your brand, it must be built from the inside out, says marketing manager and blogger Alex Myers.
For many businesses, building a brand is almost treated like a disguise. Or a costume.
It starts in the marketing department. No one wants a boring brand. ‘Useful is sometimes boring? Get out, Kyle.’
The team concocts what they’d love their business to be seen as… they reach for the stars.
Up it goes to the C-Suite. ‘Not big enough. Not bold enough. Kyle’s fired.’ Some more outrageousness is layered on top – the cherry on the branding cake, and 36 layers of icing.
And finally, it’s packaged up and put to the consumer.
And of course, the consumer believes it. ‘Pepsi is solving social injustice with their canned beverages!’ we all said, as Kendall Jenner distributed pop in a protest scene.
Oh, hang on…
You see, consumers aren’t stupid. Nor were they born yesterday (a small proportion of consumers were, but new-borns have little-to-no purchasing power).
People see through a lack of authenticity – no matter how good the creative is, no matter which celebrity you got to endorse the message, they will see through it if it’s a load of rubbish.
You might want your brand to be seen that way. You may even think it’s actually like that. But they’re not buying it, and that means they’re not buying anything.
Every year we see moments, like the aforementioned Pepsi spot, where this is called out on a major scale and lands the brand in hot water. But on top of that, every single day people see ads that communicate a false brand, and these instances make people dislike advertising more.
Because no one likes to be lied to. And no one likes to be treated like they’re stupid.
Expecting someone to believe that laundry detergent is directly linked to social mobility, does just that.
So why the lack of authenticity? The reason so many brands aren’t authentic is because of the direction they’re built in – like my fairly hyperbolic example, they start from the outside (what the business wants to look like), and then work their way in. Only, it doesn’t work because at the core it just didn’t represent the business.
Branding in that way is like trying to make people trust a shark by putting a party hat on it.
The only way to build an authentic brand is from the inside out – start with who you really are as a business and go from there. Consider your strengths, approaches, who you are and what makes you you. Then develop that into an identity that you can market.
Don’t like what you find? Don’t want to tell anyone about the brand that’s created?
I’m afraid you need to change the business itself. Because no matter how you try to spin it, it won’t work, and you’ll simply build no brand.
And brand building is crucial.
