Company Blog
Getting to the Point
by Ryan Joy — April 29, 2010
Each year at DW Green Company, we host a positioning workshop on a topic that we believe will benefit our clients the most. This year, we’ll work together with attendees to bring the power of purpose to their marketing and to their brand.
Demanding the fundamental “why?” behind any business practice can alter the activity, eliminate the extraneous, and emphasize the essential. What is the purpose of your website? What is the purpose of your ad? What is the purpose of your brand?
While imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, neurologist and psychiatrist Victor Frankl contemplated meaning in life. He would go on to write a book on this topic, and concluded that each person has a task. He wrote, “Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.”
Extraordinary things can happen when profound questions of meaning and purpose are asked of a brand.
Two Questions to Ask About Your Brand
- Why does your brand exist?
At its core, working on your brand strategy is about defining your brand’s purpose, its reason for existing in the world. It asks the question, “Why does this brand matter?” If a company’s leaders and employees can’t easily articulate this with clarity and passion, customers won’t be able to either. And if customers can’t think of any reasons to believe, their loyalty will be based on surface benefits like convenience and price. In short, if your offering isn’t sent into the world as a brand whose longevity is important, there’s a good chance it will not be long for this world. The market preserves brands that matter. Employees fight for brands that matter. Customers are begging for brands they can feel good about giving their die-hard loyalty to. By knowing and living your purpose, the brand becomes a rock in the midst of a changing culture and marketplace, remaining truly relevant and consistently authentic.
In his book It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For, Roy Spence, Jr. shares stories of clients discovering their brands’ purposes. Here are a few brand purpose statements that he helped craft:
Wal-mart exists to “save people money so they can live better.”
The Hilton exists to “be hospitable.”
Southwest Airlines exists to “democratize the sky.”
Charles Schwab exists to be a “relentless ally for the individual investor.”
What need are you uniquely positioned to meet? What do your most passionate customers say about the way you make a difference in their lives? At your very best, what does your offering contribute to the world? What would be missing in the world if your brand just went away?
Put another way, what is important about your brand?
- What are the reasons to believe in your brand?
Brand faith happens when real reasons to believe are tied to a service-oriented purpose. There is an important difference between brands you like and brands you believe in. When we go to work, we all want to be someplace we believe in. When we make a patronage decision, we want to find places and products that actually mean something to us.
What gets you excited about your brand? What specific activities support your purpose? These activities are your most powerful competitive advantages, your most important stories to tell, because they create faith in your purpose. These reasons have the power to make all of us believers in your brand.
Everywhere around us, we see needs and problems. Find a need that you can serve; the deeper the need, the more powerful the purpose. Find, as Frankl said, the “concrete assignment that demands fulfilling.” What do you offer that no one else does? What can you fulfill that no one else can? It should be something you wouldn’t mind spending the rest of your working life fulfilling. Keep it simple, articulate it clearly, and align all of your practices to it. If you believe in it enough to live it, and make the hard decisions accordingly, employees and customers will believe as well. Will energized employees, passionately loyal customers and a relevant, authentic brand position affect the bottom line? You bet.
Filed Under: Company Blog
Very interesting post, Ryan (and DW). I recently attended a dinner honoring Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia. He was being inducted into the Mountaineering Hall of Fame. If you knew him and knew the history of Pacific Iron Works and eventually Patagonia, you’d know how perfectly he fits into your questions above. Long story, but his company has been a tool for social change and environmental stewardship, which evolved because of Yvon’s love for the environment. He is what he sells. And it is his dharma, just as Victor Frankl so eloquently expressed.
Melissa
Melissa: “He is what he sells.” Very nicely said. What a great blessing to find an offering worthy of your life, and become that offering.