Brand strategy: 6 ingredients for a better brand platform
The brand platform serves as the heart of your brand strategy. It defines your brand's DNA, personality and how it naturally expresses itself. This article explores the six key components of a strong brand platform. We hope it will help you build a solid and authentic brand.
1. Purpose: The Heart of Your Brand
Purpose is the core element of your brand platform. It's the fundamental reason your company exists beyond making money. What are you working towards, and what is driving your efforts?
The purpose is where you will find real emotion. People could probably buy what you sell from several others, but they choose to buy from you because they believe in what you're trying to achieve. Whether that's creating sustainability like Patagonia, or giving people wings like Red Bull, having a purpose gives your brand a heart and will keep it alive.
Fun fact: Research actually shows that consumers are four to six times more likely to buy from, trust and support purpose-driven companies (Source: Zenogoup)
2. Vision, Mission and Values: Creating the whole
A clear purpose is supported by vision, mission and values. Having a beautifully written purpose statement is not enough, you need to know how to use it to guide your decisions and behaviour.
Vision
Every company with a reasonably professional management team has a vision. This is a description of their envisaged future for the business. Of course, no one can predict the future, but having a guiding star to navigate day-to-day decisions can be very useful.
The vision must be realistic, yet challenging enough to give us something to strive for. Whether the company consists of 10 or 10,000, people feel safe when they sense there is a direction.
Unfortunately, many leaders get swamped with tasks and forget that the company has a vision. They fail to communicate it throughout the organisation. If you find yourself in such a situation, contact us. There's a reason we've chosen the name that we have.
Mission
If the vision describes "where" you want to be, the mission is "how" to get there. There's no need to delve into specific factors or secret plans. Instead, think of it as a way to explain the business plan, but done in such a way that the average employee will understand it.
A good mission should be as simple as possible - but no simpler than that.
Values
The company's values are the shared principles that the business stands for. Values help adjust behaviour in a way that supports the purpose and drives us to achieve the vision. For instance, if strong customer relationships are important, "customer-centric" might be a value that could positively impact both employees and the brand.
The values are a guideline to stimulate desired behaviour. They should make it easier for employees to make decisions without asking others. Easier to get the job done and bring the business closer to its vision. Good values attract people who want to contribute.
But be careful! Poorly formulated and rigidly enforced values can feel like a straitjacket, so engaging employees in developing and defining them is important. If employees don't recognise the values, they will never be able to truly represent the brand.
3. Stakeholders: Look Beyond Your Customers
Brand building considers all stakeholders, not just customers. Customers are always important, but for some brands, the path to success involves others, such as employees, investors, influencers, or authorities. An engaging brand caters to all these stakeholders.
Employer branding is increasingly crucial for attracting and retaining talent. Take care of your employees, and they will take care of your customers.
In startups and during periods of change, it's often the investors you need to help understand the purpose and vision of your brand. This requires an entirely different set of tools.
Some businesses benefit more from working with the regulatory framework; in this case, the brand may need to focus on resonating with authorities.
The influencer profession and industry are underestimated, and most brands wanting to succeed need to take them seriously.
You can most likely find several other types of stakeholders as well. The key is to be open to the fact that your brand must influence those who can best help move it forward.
4. Instigators of Change
Regardless of which target audience you are focused on, it is crucial to create a brand that resonates with your audience. This also means understanding their needs, habits, and pain thresholds. What do they want and demand, and what does that mean for your brand?
Understanding the needs and desires of your stakeholders is the key to satisfying them. Several people should be involved in this insight work. Time and again, we observe that the dynamics between businesses and customers prevent them from fully extracting the information that can take the brand that extra step.
5. Positioning
Brand positioning is defined as "designing the company's offering and expression in a way that makes you stand out in the minds of your primary target audience." To find a position that is both attractive and defensible, it is important to have a holistic view of the market and the competitive landscape.
It's fair to say that, at one time, Levi’s was the undisputed king of denim. They leveraged their status as the "original" to become a global brand. However, Levi’s failed to uncover the company's inner essence. As people became less concerned with dressing formally, denim in all shapes and sizes gained popularity. Levi’s tried to capitalise on being the original product, but in the end, it wasn't a defensible position.
Nowadays, every fashion brand has its own denim line. Some offer good prices, some focus on luxury, some are innovative, and some are rebels. Unfortunately, Levi’s has faded (!) and is not as relevant anymore. Flagship stores have disappeared, and the product range has shrunk.
No brand can be everything to everyone. It's wise to be conscious of what your brand means in relation to others, so you can demonstrate that difference and fiercely guard your position.
Read more about positioning here
6. Customer Value Proposition: Expressing Value
Brand promise, slogan, tagline – different names, same essence. We prefer Customer Value Proposition (CVP) for its focus on value. It complements the company's purpose, emphasising the goal: to clearly express the value your brand brings to the market.
Knowing the value your brand offers would seem obvious. Still, many leaders become so familiar with their day-to-day operations that they forget to ask themselves, “what unique value do we provide?” The beauty of the CVP is that it distils everything you do into its simple essence, providing focus and preventing deviation.
Conclusion
A strong brand platform is essential for any brand. Use these six ingredients to help you strengthen your brand platform and build an authentic and compelling brand. At Mission, we have extensive experience in this work and are happy to discuss how we can help you.
Call us on 24 10 35 00 or send an email to hello@mission.no