When leaders start an important new job, the media and pundits typically give them a 90 day grace period to learn about the organization. You’ll see listening tours and factory visits, quiet lunches, and deep-dive briefings as they try to grasp the organizational politics before laying out their future vision.
If you are the manager or marketer of a brand, especially of an organization-level brand, you need to know how to speak the language of organization’s leadership team. Here are some thoughts on how to do that.
The language of a brand is really decided by two things: where you are looking to position your brand in the marketplace; and the personality that you choose to adopt.
Emotional connection is one of the five drivers of customer brand insistence as outlined in our BrandInsistence brand equity system. (The other four drivers are awareness, relevant differentiation, value and accessibility.) The consumer must first know your brand, then like your brand, and finally trust your brand and feel an emotional connection to it.
Marketers talk a lot about the increasing personalization that consumers are looking for in their interactions with brands. At the same time though, we know consumers seek endorsement from others on the good brands to be associated with and those that should be avoided. Interesting dichotomy. If you’re a brand manager, where do you invest your energies – features, experience or reputation?
