Between the Brand Pillars: Filling Out the Brand Picture
The saying goes that if you don’t define your brand, the market will do it for you. And that’s seldom a good thing. You want to craft and shape your brand as your company grows. Sometimes thoughtful brand strategy and management isn’t done at the very start. I get it! There is so much to tackle in those early stages of a startup. However, it doesn’t mean that you can’t course-correct and develop the brand that conveys your company’s vision and value proposition.
REFINE
It’s not so uncommon to have a startup see strong growth early on and have the task of managing a brand that may not have developed much since the beginning. Some may say that’s a nice problem to have, because you have achieved early success and only need to sculpt the brand to keep the momentum.
As I mentioned in another post, primary research such as focus groups can be instrumental in a brand strategy project like this. They were pivotal in my work with YouTube.
YouTube experienced meteoric growth right from the very beginning. With so many users and uploaded user-generated content, it was the community that defined the brand. In fact, the community was the brand. You might recall Time magazine’s 2006 “Person of the Year” that featured “You.” on the cover and dove into the early YouTube stars, such as Lonely Girl, in the article.
Time cover, December 17, 2006.
As the company grew, it was time to take reins and build a brand strategy for YouTube. But while we would make the decisions, we still needed to hear what our audiences needed and wanted – not directionally, but exactly.
If you asked any number of people in YouTube’s early years, they might have described the site as fun, entertaining, democratic, comprehensive, global, social, and surprising. All positive associations, right? Well, we needed to understand the range of these attributes and how exactly users thought of the brand with regard to the attributes.
When did “fun” and “entertaining” fail in conveying that there was serious content, such as news or educational videos, on the site as well.
When did “social” and “democratic” compete with premium content from partners like Warner Brothers, Disney, and major TV and cable networks?
At what point did “global” and “comprehensive” lean toward complete overwhelm of where to start viewing.
Did “surprising” mean delight, shocking, voyeuristic?
We needed to go beneath the surface to discover where exactly YouTube landed on these attributes, among other questions. By the end of the research, we had a strong idea of where we were succeeding and where we had to work harder.
From that point, we were able to define YouTube’s brand pillars that would guide our decision making, from marketing events and content partnerships, to TV and movie brand approvals. We were able to refine our brand voice and values. We were now able to be that much more specific with our work, so that we could be sure we’d bring to life the positive aspects of the brand attributes.
DEFINE
If you're in the early stages of your company and developing brand strategy simultaneously, then brand values can become an extension of your company’s mission.
I cofounded a couple a startups, NousDecor and DesignerInc. NousDecor, was an online interior design service with an internal design team that knocked out incredible designs using proprietary technology. We eventually pivoted the business to B2B trade-only design marketplace and named it DesignerInc.
NousDecor’s brand values became the company values that we believed deeply and used as a filter for all of our brand actions and communications:
Beauty. Everything we did had to be beautiful in execution. It not only held us to a high standard, but also conveyed to our customers that everything we did (including their designs) would be stunning.
Be clever. Internally, we strived to tackle work and issues in a clever way. There was always a solution if you could only be clever enough. If you used our services, you were clever too, as you were paying for a high quality, time-efficient, cost-effective design.
Entre Nous. It means “between us” in French, and brought our customers in close. It also guided us internally to the level of support we’d give one another. Having anyone fail meant we all failed. We left no one behind, and “entre nous” became the mantra of our culture.
THE ART OF BRANDING
When Michelangelo approached a block of marble, he was known to say “I am going to remove the irrelevant.” I would say the same philosophy applies to branding. Know what your brand is and what it is not. Then, start shaping it until it meets your vision. There is so much to gain from a thoughtful approach…from articulating brand and company values to creating a timeless world-class brand.
If you need help with your branding, consider First Leaf to develop a meaningful brand strategy that can grow along with your company.