Brand is a widely misunderstood marketing concept, and the confusion surrounding it causes businesses and nonprofits to miss out on powerful opportunities for growth.
It’s so misunderstood that many of the people who think they get it are still missing something essential.
Let me explain - and use some nerdy superhero stuff to prove it.
At one level, you have business leaders who think branding is for figuring out your logos, fonts, and colors.
Those matter greatly, but brand is so much more.
Branding is also about defining a story that connects with your ideal clients, customers, or donors. It’s a story that convinces them you are telling their story, and that you are the answer to a problem they’ve been trying to solve.
Until you define this very strategic, targeted message for your marketing, it will just be noise, and you’ll continue to be frustrated with the results of your campaigns.
When that message combines with your visual branding, all in alignment with your target audience, they get a powerful, visceral message that they are in the right place - and in trustworthy hands.
Now, you might think this is the win, and it is. It is a really big, wonderful win that drives business growth.
But this is not the only win. This is not the endgame, and we still haven’t touched the full power of what your brand can accomplish.
It’s kind of like this. If you’re a superhero fan, there was a fantastic cartoon series about the superheroes of DC Comics, Justice League Unlimited. In the big series finale, there’s a showdown between Superman and an ultra-powerful alien named Darkseid. You don’t really need to know who that is. Just know this is like Luke Skywalker fighting Darth Vader. This is the baddest of the bad in all of DC Comics, their version of Thanos in the Marvel movies. You get it. Darkseid is a big deal, and Superman says to him . . .
I feel like I live in a world made of cardboard, always taking constant
care not to break something, to break someone.
Never allowing myself to lose control even for a moment.
But you can take it, can't you, big man?
What we have here is a rare opportunity for me to cut loose
and show you just how powerful I really am.
This speech gets talked about a lot by comic book fans, because it was a big insight into the life of Superman. Everyone knew Superman was powerful. Not many of us realized he’d been holding back.
And that’s what’s happening with the power of brand strategy. It’s underutilized, and even without knowing it, many marketing pros are still holding back. Brand has the power to transform marketing and drive growth.
But it has so much power left to give.
When used to its full potential, brand is a holistic growth engine for your entire business. If you’ve been trying to find the missing ingredient that aligns your teams in the same direction, this is it. If you’ve been trying to find the power to win the day, this is where you find it.
And this is what people still don’t understand. Brand is just waiting to show you how powerful it really is.
This is our quest at Brand3, to help businesses and nonprofits live in this reality, where brand powers so much more than marketing. Schedule a conversation with us to learn more.
Matt Wolfe is a Partner and Director of Brand Strategy at Brand3, a full-service marketing agency based in Havre de Grace, Maryland and his home base near Seattle, Washington. He brings storytelling expertise gained from decades of experience in professional theatre to his work as a brand strategist. He is also an expert in narrative marketing and one of the most experienced, certified consultants in the StoryBrand marketing framework.
Matt is also an unapologetic sci-fi, comic book, and 80’s pop culture fan and is likely to drop nerdy references into his marketing posts . . . Muppets are also likely to appear.
As part of the Brand3 Marketing consulting team, he helps B2B businesses, B2C services, and nonprofits to repair underperforming marketing campaigns using a Brand-First approach. This addresses the most common cause of wasted time and money in marketing: the need for a strong, strategic brand message that speaks loud and clear to an organization’s target audience. Using this message, Matt’s team helps them generate qualified leads and unlock the growth they’ve worked hard to earn.
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