Brands are People Too

Brands are the personification of organizations and their products and services. In this way, those organizations and their products and services can take on human qualities. They can stand for something. They can make promises. They can have personalities. They can share values with their customers. They can be funny. They can be friendly. They can be dependable. They can be trustworthy. And, in this way, people can relate to them, like them and even feel emotionally connected to them. 

Think of the qualities that you most admire in a person. For me, it is compassion, intelligence, playfulness and quick wittedness.  For you, it may be something else. 

Now consider the personalities that have been given to specific brands, sometimes by brand spokespeople or characters, at other times just by sensory design and brand messaging. Consider GEICO's gecko. He is cute and likable and funny with a pleasant accent. And Dos Equis' The Most Interesting Man in the World is debonair and successful with a plethora of rich experiences and stories. It implies that life will be more interesting with Dos Equis.  And Farmer's Insurance University of Farmers advertising campaign presents Farmer's Insurance as a calm knowledgable, seasoned brand that can handle anything because it has seen everything. And remember Tom Bodett's folksy voice that says, "I'm Tom Bodett for Motel 6, and we'll leave the light on for you."? This is folksy, friendly and reassuring. And remember Alistair Cooke, host of PBS Masterpiece Theatre? He epitomized civility, informed nonchalance and authority, just the right mix for Masterpiece Theatre. 

I must admit, that on the other hand, I do not understand the appeal of Progressive Insurance's Flo, the fictional salesperson character appearing in more than 100 of their commercials. To me she is unattractive, awkward, plain and geeky without much going for her, not a spokesperson I would want for a brand. Having said that, I am clearly missing something as there are multiple Flo ProgressiveGirl fan pages with tens of millions of likes on Facebook. 

I think you get my point though - brands are intended to add human qualities to organizations and their products and services so that they can better connect with people in an emotional and loyalty-building way. Have you thought through what type of person you want your brand to be? 

What is Your Brand Delivering?

Storytelling

Brands tell stories. They create myths. They engage people. They entertain people.  What story does your brand tell? Is it engaging? Does it create an emotional connection to the brand?

Experience

What experience does your brand deliver? Does in connect with people through one or more of the five senses – touch, smell, sight, sound and taste? What feelings does it evoke? Does it calm people? Does it exhilarate them? Does it make them laugh?

Values

Brands often stand for something. They embrace a set of values.  What does your brand stand for? What values does it embrace? Does your brand express the values of its intended customers? Can they wear the brand as a badge of their values? Can they use the brand as a self-expression vehicle?

Personality

Brands have specific personalities. What personality does you brand have? Is it trustworthy? Is it reliable? Is it friendly? Is it smart? Is it innovative? Is it entertaining? Is it compassionate? Is it rugged? Is it stylish? Is it quirky? What personality should your brand have?

Service

How does your brand serve its customers? Does it have a service ethic? Does it strive to anticipate customer needs and exceed customer expectations?  Does it try to surprise and delight its customers?

Archetype

What is your brand’s archetype? What drives it to behave as it does? What is its primary motivation? Does it like to guide others? Is it trying to save the world? Does it like to achieve? Is it a nurturer? Is its motivation to create the next big thing? What drives it to be the brand what it is?

Personification

In what ways does your brand take on human qualities? As listed above, does it have a specific personality and does it hold certain values? Is it trustworthy? Does it make promises to its customers? Does it connect emotionally with its customers?

Promise

Finally, what is your brand’s promise? What does it promise to its customers? Does it promise unique and compelling benefits or shared values? Does it consistently deliver on those promises? If it fails to deliver on one of its promises, does it recover from that failure and even turn the failure into a victory?

Summary

This then is what a brand does.  It tells stories. It creates experiences. It holds a specific set of values and it shares those values with its customers. It makes promises. It delivers on those promises.  It provides services to its customers. It has an archetype and a personality.  And it can do all of this because it is the personification of an organization and its products and services.

Brands and Humanity

"A brand is the personification of an organization and its products and services."

This is my favorite definition of a brand. Given that, you must keep your brand human. In particular, you must make sure your brand expresses the optimal persona and a carefully crafted set of values, attitudes and behaviors. Further, it should believe in something and it should stand for something. It should be authentic and trustworthy.  It should express empathy and be engaging. It should initiate dialogs and create and deepen relationships. Further it would do well to be intuitive, creative, passionate, a good listener, responsive and kind. In a phrase, it should act like an admirable human being. This, not your organization or its products or services, is what will bring humanity to your interactions with customers and clients. The brand is the human overlay. It vivifies organizations and their products and services. Never forget this.

A Brand is a Friend

The following story best illustrates what brand equity is.

Imagine you are having lunch with a longtime and very good friend. Several times throughout the lunch, she makes disparaging and sarcastic remarks that make you feel bad. You think to yourself, “This just isn’t like her. She must be having a bad day.” You meet with her again a week or two later, and again she acts ornery and negative. You think to yourself, “Something must be going on in her life that she’s really struggling with. Maybe she is having difficulties with her job or her health or her marriage or her children.” You may even ask her if everything is all right. She snaps back, “Of course it is.”

Your interaction with her continues in this vein over the next couple of months. You continue to try to be supportive, but she’s definitely getting on your nerves. After many meetings and much interaction, you finally decide that she’s a changed person and someone with whom you prefer to spend less and less time. You may get to this point after a few months, or perhaps even after a year or more. She doesn’t change, and eventually the relationship peters out.

Now consider for a moment that the person you first had lunch with is the same person as before, with one exception: She is a total stranger to you. You haven’t met her previously and she is not your dear friend. I would guess that after enduring many caustic comments and being insulted a few times at that lunch, your first impression wouldn’t be very positive. In fact, you’d probably be inclined not to get together with that person again. You’d probably walk away from that lunch thinking, “What a miserable person. I hope I don’t run into her again.”

In both of these scenarios it is the same person behaving the same way in the same situation. Yet in the first scenario, you are very quick to forgive the behavior. In fact, you feel a lot of concern toward her. In the second scenario, you can’t wait for the lunch to be over and you hope never to see the person again.

In the first scenario, the person was a longtime good friend. She had a lot of equity with you. In the second scenario, she had no equity at all. You see, if people or brands have a lot of equity—that is, if you know, like, and trust them—you will “cut them a lot of slack” even if they repeatedly fail to meet your expectations. If a person, product, service, or organization has no equity with you, no emotional connection, and no trust, then you are much less inclined to forgive unmet expectations.

© 2015 Brad VanAuken
Excerpted from Brand Aid, second edition