Brand makes you blind to what works

Don’t fall into the brand trap, where you decided that everything you do has to happen according to your perception of how a brand should be. It usually comes with a cost.

The brand trap is special. We are getting so hunged up on creating great brands that we forget that we’re not the one who creates the brand. Our consumers do. We spend countless hours making sure everything looks according to your brand guidelines, and change great content because we think that making minor, time-consuming tweaks are what will make or break your brand. Still, a strong brand is, of course, important. But we have a tendency to think that we create the customer’s perception through perfect visuals, brand guidelines and fancy jargon. We sacrifice what works, for what we interpret as ‘on-brand’.

Hours are spent back and forth between four different people, all thinking that “if we did this”, “this is not very on-brand” or “that doesn’t highlight what our brand is about“ - without actually knowing how it is perceived in the mind of the customer. You end up throwing a fancy video with jargon at consumers that are unaware of the problem you’re solving and your solutions. You end up being just as forgettable as all the other slow-growth perfectionist brands that spend 6 months on a campaign that is out of context when the campaign is launched.

Focus on the problem you’re solving, and how your solution is solving that problem. Action speaks louder than visual tweaks. Nice jargon works for Nike now because they have already gone through the process of educating and showing consumers how their solutions are the best at solving their problems. People know Nike’s values because they have proven them. As a smaller company with fewer resources, this ‘want-to-be-like-Nike’ perfectional thinking has a cost. If you’re a start-up and look to Nike’s communication for inspiration, you will end up with communication that is out of context for the people you wish to reach. They are unaware of the problem you’re solving, and why your solution is the best at solving it. Why would they care? How can they understand your languaging?

As a small company, it’s also easy to believe that you only have this one chance to get things right. What you don’t realize is that this perfectionistic way of thinking when communicating actually gives you fewer opportunities to get things right. Perfection reduces the chances that you will find what works. Perfection is the enemy of scale! We make Brands about ‘me, me, me’. You might get that sale in a year if they enter your website and learn what you do while coincidently having that problem. But you’re just as forgettable as everyone else. Make your communication about “customers problem, solution, customer problem, solution”. Or else, the majority of your communication will pass the consumer by. Just like 9998 of the other 10000 Brand-messages the consumer saw this day.