Ambulances and Brands

I love talking to graphic designers. They're creative, intelligent people and they're usually interesting. But sometimes they start talking about "creating a brand" and the conversation gets really interesting - because graphic designers don't create brands.

A brand starts with the story you tell about yourself. If the story you tell is the story your clients and prospects tell about you, congratulations - you have a strong brand. You're delivering on the promise of your story.

If the story you tell differs from the story your clients tell about you, then your brand is weak and possibly doomed to failure.

That's in spite of all the fancy logos and matching letterhead your graphic designer creates for you.

Ambulances have a story. When their sirens are wailing and lights are flashing, it means they're on their way to help someone who is critically hurt or they are transporting someone to hospital who needs to get there NOW. That's the story of the ambulance, and it's why we slow down and get out of their way.

But what would happen if you saw an ambulance with lights flashing and sirens wailing pull into the local coffee shop drive-through? Would you still believe the story? Probably. You'd think of it as an anomaly. But what if you saw this happen every day? The story would begin losing its strength and over time, people would begin to ignore ambulances - even when they're nowhere near a coffee shop.

The story you tell is your brand. The experience your clients have with you determines the strength and legitimacy of your brand. Graphics may help communicate and reinforce your story, but the best logo in the world will make no difference if your brand is failing.

How do you communicate passion?

Superlatives, lots of exclamation marks, big promises in huge text, all-caps and the like might have worked at one time but today's prospective clients will see through that in a jiffy.

Your marketing message is just that - a message - a story you tell the people who don't know you yet. You're communicating your potential to help them. Does it matter how you do this? Of course.

More important though is the story you "tell" your clients through your actions. It's all fine and good to say you're the best, but if you can't back up your claims, you'll be found out and dumped in due course.

The better way to communicate passion is to have your clients do that for you. They'll only do it when you've delighted them. Make them WANT to tell others how great you really are and let their passion speak for you.

This is why I'm so keen on testimonials. We just launched a major website revision for Island 10 Fishing Lodge and an important part of the site were the video and written testimonials. All I did was ask clients to tell me about their experience at Island 10 and they said such nice things about the place the owner blushed when he saw the footage.

If you're looking for an edge in your marketing, look to your customers first. If you're delighting them, they'll be happy to evangelize about you. If they're not, perhaps you'll want to consider fixing what's broken.

Better Isn't Better When . . .

• nobody knows about it;
• the "betterness" isn't obvious;
• the "betterness" isn't communicated.

A story from a client about two organizations in his industry.

Organization #1 is a non-profit, has high standards and to achieve certification, you need to demonstrate extensive knowledge and put in a couple of years of study.

Organization #2 is a for-profit company that will certify anyone who can pass the organization's online certification test. It was demonstrated on television that a 12-year old with no industry knowledge could pass the test. The certification therefore requires next-to-no industry knowledge and virtually no time investment.

#1 has a small marketing budget due to its small membership. #2 has a large marketing budget because of its large membership.

To make things more interesting, because of government regulations, #1 can not say anything overtly bad about #2.

Despite the fact that individuals certified by #1 are arguably "better" than those certified by #2, the general public doesn't know that. The marketing of #2 is far superior to #1's efforts, so #1 is generally ignored.

Imagine having a root canal performed by person with no training. Ouch - with LOTS more ouches to come.

Imagine the same root canal performed by a professional dental surgeon. Ouch - but a much better probable outcome.

If masses of under-qualified individuals marketed dental surgery better than professional dental surgeons, which would you choose? Would you still choose the professional? Not doing so would be ridiculous. But what if you couldn't tell which was which? That would be scary.

Yet every day, consumers choose companies that have an industry certification that is essentially meaningless, largely because #2's better marketing drowns out the efforts of #1, which has a better "product".

Organization #1 has a serious problem - and it's primarily a marketing issue. More awareness. More focus on creating a compelling story on WHY their certification is better and why, by extension, their certified members are the best in the industry.

The good news: things can change - if organization #1 and its members get passionate about what they do.

They need to tell a better story, tell it to more people, and tell it because they really CARE. Who cares more - the person with several years training and the certification that demonstrates their capability to do the best possible job or a person who took an online course that virtually anyone could pass?

The sad thing is, the story I've told could describe ANY organization in any unregulated industry. Ignorant buyers - beware.