What is a Branding Promise?
“Until you understand who you are, success will be difficult.”
—Og Mandino
Millionaire and Author of
“The Greatest Salesman in the World”
If you go beyond classroom marketing (i.e. research, mission statements, business plans) and you begin to study the best branding and marketers in the world, you will discover the essence of successful branding: a branding promise. The beauty of the branding promise is its simplicity. It must be expressed in less than seven words so that everyone in the organization — from shipping room to boardroom — can clearly understand it and memorize it. The branding promise must contain the essential benefit that your company passionately and unvaryingly provides to your customer. It is the heart of your branding and the soul of your marketing. It resembles the “single takeaway” that is so well-known in advertising but it runs deeper and spreads company wide.
The branding promise is at the epicenter of Orbit Design’s Genius Simple Branding Map™ Process. The most successful brands in the world, like Coca-Cola and Dell Computers, were built around very simple…genius simple…branding promises. Orbit Design’s customers, who have gone through our Branding Map™ Process and discovered their branding promise, frequently tell us that for the first time they know what their business really does. And for the first time, they are able to clearly, simply, and memorably explain their business to their prospects and clients. If you believe in word of mouth at all (we believe all marketing is word of mouth that ranges from self-talk to buzz) then a branding promise is essential.
Why do I need a Branding Map and Branding Promise?
The same rules apply whether you are the owner of a small company or corporate powerhouse. In any marketing environment, you have 23 seconds or less to make a connection with your client. Your prospects are inundated with paper and electronic marketing messages that seep into every corner of their attention spans. We have all become vigilante consumers fending off unwanted offers. You have a very small window to squeeze your branding message into. The branding promise helps you to consistently break through the apathy, and fly through those small windows to make that essential connection with your customer.
Whatever you do, your company soon earns a brand in your client’s head. You can be the stumbling, bumbling company that never-delivers-on-time. And you don’t care one feather about branding. This is obviously the fast lane to business oblivion. But let’s take this stumbling, bumbling company that never-delivers-on-time and add a branding promise: “Crafting the world’s finest acoustic, steel guitars”. Suddenly you have used a branding promise to radically adjust your customer’s expectations. Now we forgive you for slow delivery, faulty paperwork and even your arrogant attitude.
It’s important that once you have a branding promise, you exercise brand discipline. This means that you don’t confuse your customers with the branding promise of the month. Consider what your company wants to be for your customers and what it actually is. Work hard to fill the promise of your brand to provide branding promise that matches the customer’s experience. No one wants a Big Mac to be a work of a gourmet chef, but they do expect it to be prepared in the time it takes to go through a drive-through. In 1955, McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald’s based on Dick and Mac McDonald’s concept of a “Speedee Service System”. McDonald’s has changed over the years. Campaigns and slogans have come and gone. But the worldwide food giant has been obsessive in its allegiance to this branding promise of a speedee food service system, the true north not only of their marketing but also of their full range of operations.
Without a branding promise, you wearily try to meet a vast array of customer expectations and inevitably come up short. With a branding promise, you become intense, focused and suddenly…you are a business genius.
Brand well and prosper!
Andy Cleary