Branding is about people and people are all about purpose.
The good news is branding is your greatest asset in being intentional about purpose. Branding has always been about authenticity, even before we knew it. Remember the Colin Kaepernick Nike campaign! Gold right? Yea, there were probably a lot of people in the league, mostly old school white men who weren’t too happy about the whole ordeal, but NIKE uplifted the voice of BIPOC worldwide through that campaign. It’s embracing the purpose and the “why” behind what Colin did rather than the what. Too many people were focused on “what” he did, oh that’s a disrespect, a shame, unpatriotic.
The Purpose Behind It All Drives the Brand.
But why he did it is the more important question we should be asking. I’m sure he felt that people needed to know that freedom doesn’t only point up towards the flag, it also points down through the pages of our prejudice and divided history as a country. This sentiment is indicative by what he went on to produce as an original Netflix docuseries. Owning that conviction and that point-of-view in that moment is what differentiated him as bold, courageous, convicted and unafraid. In that moment, it was Colin’s way of encompassing Nike’s renown ‘Just Do it’ mantra.
Fear Creates Failure.
Fear is the number one barrier to standing for something, rising up for a cause. After conducting hundreds of rebrands over the past twenty-five years, I’ve seen it all too often. After executives pay hundreds-of-thousands of dollars for a rebrand, they decide to take the conservative route and not really announce it with a bold campaign. Believe it or not, many have not even launched at all. Fear of it not being accepted, fear of political backlash, fear of failure, fear of not succeeding or of just plain old criticism. But the failure is really not seeing it through to the end with conviction. All branding really is is taking a stick and planting it firmly on a hill to stand for a purpose. When you stand for one thing, you automaticly DO NOT stand for other things. This makes you even more differentiated from the competition. Less vanilla and spicy as hell. Saying, “you with us or not!?” And I can tell you that on that day although there were many who were not with Colin, there were millions who were!
Why we do what we do is more important than the what we do and who we sell it to. But the opportunity is yours for the taking. If you define the Why? First, and put yourself last, and your people at the center, you just might be able to build the next great iconic brand of the century!
Purpose Creates Opportunities for Unity.
The unity of your familia is all about effectively disseminating that purpose throughout every fiber of your entity. Tribe. But purpose can also result in disunity and brand is all about unity of purpose, mind and heart.
At La Visual we always reference the ancient Hebrew language where “leva” was one and the same word for mind and heart. The scholars didn’t distinguish between the two. Essentially they looked at them the same. So where your mind is your heart will follow. Where your heart is your mind will be right there.
Designing purpose properly.
In defining your brand’s purpose you can discover the rational needs of your people, and the emotional needs of your people. This can be further strengthened through internal branding where many culture building practices are created to support the purpose with actionable principles to be lived-out and followed through with by your people. When it comes to purpose, it’s critical to understand what people want and need. An easy way to do that is talk to all your leadership team and then talk to a diverse cross-section of people throughout your organization. Setup a “safe session” and allow them to share freely without their supervisors present without any notes or record keeping.
A brief 15-minute meeting should suffice. Ask them the following questions:
How are you feeling in your current position?
Are there any inconsistencies or false expectations on our part
Can you share your concerns about our brand/business with you?
How can I be more consistent in my approach?
Is there anything the leadership team is missing?
How can we connect our vision more with where you want to go in your career?
Do you identify with our brand?
How can we make it more personal to you?
Too many people in leadership have made too many mistakes just casting the vision themselves without talking to their people. This is especially hard to do if you have more than 99 employees. If you have hundreds or thousands of employees, there's a great exercise called meeting without walls that you can conduct to get really good data about how your people feel about the mission, vision, values and core purpose of the brand. I have found it’s a very effective way of getting the data you need to make an appropriate call on what your purpose is and move forward in a way that your entire workforce can support and get behind. Because without your people’s heart and mind, they won’t identify with the brand much less the purpose and you will not build a powerful culture of brand evangelism, instead you’ll continue to just follow the status quo and copy the competition.
Once you have identified a strong direction with your core purpose and your mission, vision, and values, it’s really important to then give them wings by circulating them internally and seeing how they stick. The good news is that if you did your work, most people will accept them with delight, for those individuals who are still detractors or indifferent, they are the people who you will have to have a conversation with about the brand. And living on brand. Ultimately you want every person in every chair in every department drinking the same kool-aid. Hardcore believers in your brand. It’s a way of not just thinking, it’s a way of life. In the office and at home in their personal lives. Companies who have done this exceptionally well. Brands that thrive on this like Patagonia, Southwest Airlines, NFL.
Each one of these organizations hires on brand from the first interview with HR to the onboarding and orientation to the promotion succession management plan. But more on that later.
In closing we can see that purpose is now the Big P on the court. It drives everything a brand does.
The purpose of it’s vision, the purpose of it’s revenue, the purpose for it’s product, the purpose for its placement and the content we promote it with on both paid and unpaid media. Social, search, OOH, broadcast, digital and print. Why we do what we do is more important than the what we do and who we sell it to. But the opportunity is yours for the taking. If you define the Why? First, and put yourself last, and your people at the center, you just might be able to build the next great iconic brand of the century!