Your Brand From Your Perspective

Drew McLellan Written by Drew McLellan
on May 16th, 2007 / 4 Comments / Print this

Last week, I asked if you had a 360-degree view of your brand and we identified that a brand is like a three-legged stool.

To review, the three legs are:

  1. The company’s vision of the brand
  2. The consumers’ vision of the brand
  3. Where your brand sits in the marketplace

As promised, in this post we’re going to explore the first leg of the stool - the company’s vision of the brand.

This is your take. How do you perceive the organization today? What do you want it to become?

If you don’t get this right, you’re sunk. In the simplest form - a brand is your promise to the world. To your employees, your vendors and your customers. It is you standing up, hand on heart and pledging something.

And then keeping that pledge.

But if you aren’t sure what you should pledge then you probably stumble around like most companies, changing taglines and strategies on a whim (or the cycles of the sales seasons). What’s the end result? Confusion. Mistrust. Skepticism. High turn over (internal and external) and shaky relationships.

On the flip side, when you get this part right, you’ll be amazed at the results. Decisions become easier. Employees know which direction you want them to pull. Your messages and behavior align.

So what do you need to discover your brand? There are three key elements to this. The who, the when and the catalyst.

The who:

First you recognize that there are many different perspectives and you need those voices around the table. This is not something to be decided on a senior management retreat. You have to include the many viewpoints throughout your company. A good way to do that is to assemble a branding team that includes your entire senior management team and representation from each department.

The when:

To understand your brand and to grow into the company you have the potential to be, you need to see yourself as you are today. And you need to have a vision for where you want to take the company in the future.

The catalyst:

You cannot accurately describe the outside of the bottle from the inside. You, your senior management team nor your employees can be objective about your own company. You need an outsider to help you navigate the waters, ask the hard questions, point out the elephants in the middle of the room and challenge your assumptions. Find someone who has a branding pedigree - meaning they’ve successfully done it for others.

Answering questions about what you love to do, what kind of work energizes your team, where you can provide the most value, why you do the work you do, and what values you are not willing to compromise on are all good conversation starters. The answers will begin to build the cornerstone to your brand. At least from your perspective.

Next time…the 2nd leg of the stool. Your consumer’s vision of your brand.

About Drew McLellan

Drew McLellan

Drew McLellan gets branding and marketing and he desperately wants you to get it too.

So he tells stories, asks questions, and milks sacred cows. All to help clients discover their brand so they can create authentic love affairs with their customers.

Drew has not only survived 20 years in the advertising and marketing arena, he’s thrived in it. After working for several other agencies, including Young and Rubicam’s CMF&Z, Drew created McLellan Marketing Group in 1995.

Considered a national branding expert, Drew is a highly sought after speaker and has given about a zillion presentations at national conferences, key note addresses, training for his peers in the profession, college students and even his daughter’s eighth grade class.

Over the years, Drew has lent his expertise to clients like Nabisco, IAMS pet foods, Kraft Foods, Meredith Publishing, John Deere, Iowa Health System, Make-A-Wish, University of Central Florida, SkiDoo and a wide array of others.

When he’s not out preaching the good word of marketing & branding at work and on his blog Drew’s Marketing Minute, Drew spends time with his family and pondering why the Dodgers can’t seem to get back to the World Series.

Drew has a Master’s Degree from the University of Minnesota but alas, he cannot remember their fight song.

Shoot Drew an e-mail.

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4 Comments to “Your Brand From Your Perspective”

  • Steve Woodruff
    May 16th, 2007
    10:51 pm

    Good stuff, Drew - your perspectives are right on target. And objectivity is crucial - I’ve tried to pull together a group of trusted clients and partners and give them a chance to review certain initiatives - their feedback, generally given VERY willingly, has been incredibly helpful and insightful. While I think my marketing instincts are pretty good, they’ll always be sharpest for others, and foggiest for myself!

  • Drew McLellan
    May 20th, 2007
    5:50 am

    Steve,

    It’s almost impossible to be objective or “unknow” something. Which puts us in a less than advantageous position, when it comes to branding ourselves. Besides, making it a group activity allows for a much higher liklihood that you’ll identify something stronger/better than what you’d come up with yourself.

    It’s like a band improvising. You riff off each other and that’s where the magic happens.

    Drew

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