A Quick Word About Brand

Understanding what Brand is will help you be able to apply it.

I’ll keep this short. Brand is the sum total of everything your company does, how it interacts with the world, and how the world reacts to it. There are many ways to establish a brand position (e.g.Toms — cause-driven, Virgin — founder personality focused, T-Mobile — the scrappy underdog).

I’m a fan of talking to your current and prospective customers to find out what role you need to play in their lives (note: this is not asking the consumers what they want, it is finding out what they need). It’s what we did at Netflix when just had aggregated content (before Netflix Originals) and it works quite well.

A brand position is comprised of, at a minimum, a brand promise, brand attributes, and a brand story. Those elements help you shape the brand (though they do not allow you to dictate the brand like in the 50s). Ultimately, brands that know that position and apply it consistently across everything the company does are the ones most successful. And to be sure, if you don’t define your brand others will define it for you.

Lastly, just as you shouldn’t assume competitors are successful just because you see their ads everywhere and you like them, don’t look to other brands and say, “I want that!” Your brand has to serve your customers and your company. Figure out what that means and apply it to everything you do.

See? Nice and short. Thanks for reading.

Oh, one more thing. Your brand promise is intended to be a guiding statement and is not for consumer-facing material nor is it a tagline — even if it sounds like one.