Cinderella’s stepsisters always wanted to be royalty… and their mother went to great lengths to make it happen. She dressed them in the finest clothes and jewelry, leaving only tattered clothes for Cinderella. The stepsisters definitely looked the part, but when it came time to charm the prince, Cinderella pulled it off and the stepsisters did not. Why?
In marketing we always preach that the most important thing is to “own” our brand… but what does that really mean? Does owning a website, a logo, some copyrights, and some cool design work cut it? Does wearing a royal dress to the ball cut it? Is that enough?
As the stepsisters found out, it isn’t. It’s the bare minimum. Collateral is a starting place, but owning that collateral doesn’t portray the essence of a brand. The essence of a brand is how we behave. Cinderella’s stepsisters were rude and didn’t care about the way she was being treated. These are all very unroyal behaviors and contradicted the image they were trying to portray.
Your logo, website, and collateral is the ballgown. It’s a great first step, but to truly own your brand, you need to look beyond that. In other words, your company needs to behave like the brand it wants to be. Apple is creative, crisp, cool and clean and so are its stores. Nordstrom is known for its customer service and they literally take back anything you say you got there… sometimes they even take back merchandise without tags or a receipt. If you haven’t heard the legendary Nordstrom tire story, here you go.
It takes resources and a cultural commitment to own your brand in this way, but the payoffs are incredible because brands that do this well create a strong pull marketing effect. For example, I can’t even tell you what the price is of an android phone because I am devoted to my iPhone and I will pay whatever Apple tells me to pay for it. In other words, I am pulled toward Apple… I don’t go seek out other brands and compare them and I certainly don’t shop around when it comes time for a new cell phone.
In short, when brands develop personalities based on behavior, they attract consumers with similar desires. This creates a constant pull marketing effect, which enables the company to back off of push marketing, which is essentially finding customers where they are at during their point of need and hoping your message resonates (a.k.a. push marketing is really hard compared to pull marketing). So… how do you truly own your brand and create the pull marketing effect?
First, ask yourself, “If my brand were a person, who would it be?” Then, ask yourself, “And what would that person like?” Finally ask yourself, “What would that person do?” As you come up with answers, especially to the last question, don’t just build the values into your marketing collateral, build them into your entire company. Cinderella was beautiful in her ballgown and she cared about the people in her kingdom. Her entire essence scored her the prince.
Just as Nordstrom takes back items without tags and Apple has the coolest brick and mortar around, you, too, can build in behavioral proof that your brand is who you say it is. And the benefit to being who we say we are is that we all want to be friends with a person like that. Why? We trust them… and trust is the holy grail of marketing. We have to achieve trust from our customers before we can even think about getting their conversions. Happy branding!
