Want to build a better brand? Don’t jump straight to the ‘doing’

Four brands who got their story straight and stuck to it

There are two levels to brands. It’s easy to rush to the practical elements - visual identity, tone of voice, day-to-day user experience, assets etc. Ultimately though, before you get into any of the practical stuff, you need to be very clear about who you are and why. Because your brand is what you stand for in people’s minds - and you need to know what impression you’re aiming to create before you can do the creating.

The best brands have this clear sense of who they are and it helps them massively. They can build consistent brands, every time you see them, wherever you see them. Before I share four examples of what I think are great brands, here’s a bit about how to get there…

Getting your story straight

When I define a brand strategy, I always start by getting the story straight. It calls for an outside perspective - and a lot of clarity and focus - before you get to the ‘fun’ bits. At Simple Revolution, we do this by asking three simple questions:

1. Who are you talking to?

Start by making sure you really know your audiences. It’s important to understand what motivates them and what they want to achieve. We have plenty of clients who come to us with a list of stuff they want to say and shout about. But is it what the audience wants to hear? Our advice: never skip this question. Always start with ‘who’ and dig deep. Because ultimately, it’s not about you…it’s about them.

2. What do you want to stand for in their minds?

Now think about what you can offer them, from the perspective of what you’ve learnt. Be clear about where you stand and what you stand for in the market, relative to what else is out there (‘brand positioning’). Get the story straight that you're going to tell them (‘brand narrative’). And define the kind of personality that you need to have to appeal to them (‘brand attributes’). All these things will help make the next step a lot easier (and a whole lot less subjective).

3. How are you going to get there?

Now - and only now - do you get to the practical bits. Using your narrative, attributes and positioning to guide you, think about all the stuff you need to build the brand. That includes:

- Visual identity

- Tone of voice

- Customer journey / experience and user experience

- Messaging 

- Marketing plan

It can be tempting to skip over questions one and two and get straight into the practical details. It might even seem like you “don’t have time to waste on noodling and thinking”. But skipping ahead is a false economy. Sooner or later, it’ll come back to bite you in the arse.

So who does it well?

It’s easy for us all to point the finger at brands who get things wrong. But here are four very different companies who get things right. They’ve clearly decided who they are and what they stand for - and used that understanding to build consistent and compelling brands.

1. The ones who are clear about who they are - and aren’t afraid to show it

The Adventurists have a total, unshakeable belief in who they are. They’re never ashamed to be themselves and this comes through in everything they present – their story, their tone of voice, their ts&cs, their video content. They’re always relevant to their audience; differentiated from anybody else; and consistent to a fault. I love the commitment to their story and personality – total integrity.

2. The ones who went deep and really focussed 

Secondmind is a brand we helped create during COVID and I really admire how they’ve focussed. Originally, we helped them define their story about their machine learning being a ‘second mind’ to help enhance your smarts – to use probabilistic modelling to make better decisions when you have scarce data available. It applied to any business, sector, or industry… But that was, perhaps, a problem. It was very broad. Where they’ve sharpened up is in picking a lane – they’re now laser-focussed on helping the automotive industry use machine learning to design better cars, faster. They have a clearer, crisper narrative and a real clarity of focus on how they help. It creates a sense of a much more focussed brand.

3. The ones who went for complete clarity - and lived up to it

Lemonade is a challenger in the insurance industry. They’ve real clarity on their story and narrative (see ‘How Lemonade works’ on their landing page). They’re here to disrupt and that comes through in their tone and identity – “Forget everything you know about insurance”. They claim to make it easy – and they do – with an AI bot who guides you through the process of getting cover to suit you, not seven pages of annoying UI and endless forms to fill in. The experience matches the story they tell about themselves – simple, clear, affordable, designed around you etc. I love the consistency between their promise and action. 

4. The ones who weren’t afraid to stand out

Unchained Labs are a scientific instruments company. They have a super-clear sense of who they are and what they do. And they do serious stuff but explain it in a way that everyone can understand. They have personality in the right way – clear, direct, human, but not grating or irritating. They stand out, in part, for their products which have really unusual names (Nunchuck, Honeybun, Uncle etc). They’re brave. It takes guts to do what they’ve done, in the industry they’ve done it in, but they’ve picked a path and walked it consistently.

So, what do you think?

Hopefully you’ll agree that these brands are all doing good jobs in their different ways. If you want to define your brand, we can help you do it too. Just speak to me or Bert.