This is the third and final installment in the series on brand strategy for startups and I’d like to say that it’s good to get all this serious writing out of the way so I can finally have my humour back. In other news, this piece is about the fun part of brand strategy--execution.
Did you know it was just before Napoleon Bonaparte turned 25 that the French people stopped using the guillotine? It was a very peculiar tool. When sharpened to an almost hypodermic state, it could cut the head quicker than your pull out game. (yes that’s shades to you, use protection)
For brands, it is important to apply same principle of the guillotine to how they execute their strategy. Usually startups launch with a logo, a few fonts, a set of colours and an MVP. Over time they will see that they’d have to achieve some sort balance and corporate distinction; this is what you may call a rebrand. The rite of passage where a business becomes a caterpillar and undergoes changes like pubic hair, pimples--oh sorry, that’s for human beings.
Rebranding isn’t any different from branding, as lemons are from oranges.
Executing a brand strategy takes tactfulness, thorough planning and atomic detail. Typically its like those Saturdays your mother decides you will do chores, and the very table you cleaned with detergent and a wet rag is where she will find dust, enough to cover her index finger. The look on your face as you wonder how that came about is a plague that must be avoided at all costs when executing brand strategy because the moment a dent is seen in your execution, you are primed for falling apart much quicker than you started.
The formula
Startups are great at building fast, failing faster and learning the fastest. This isn’t in the case of brand management though. Speed kills. There is a process around how to launch your brand to the world and like all good meals, it comes with a recipe. (let me use this medium to say Amala is overrated. Thank you.)
This recipe comprises of ingredients known as touchpoints: places, situations, and possibilities, where your brand can come in contact with your customers, industry regulators and other relevant stakeholders.
As Sasha Strauss said “it’s all about cohesion, everything must blend together and say the same thing across all touchpoints--it must scream this is who we are”.
Cohesion
This is where the cooking happens: asking and answering these questions will show you a clear picture of what your brand strategy is missing and/or if it is good enough to be released to the public as your identity.
what do your brand colours say about you?
do they match your fonts?
what’s the relationship between your logo and what you stand for?
can someone who sees any of this easily get an idea of your brand purpose?
your products (digital or physical) how do they say “this is who we are”?
what does your packaging say about you?
What do you want to look and sound like in your visuals & comms?
When all of this align that’s when you have cohesion. This is what precedes execution in any shape or form. To do this, I learnt that if you are launching your brand then you have to consider:
How long have you operated before now?
What sort of buzz or traffic do you have?
If the answer to the above is “not much” then doing it all in one day or at one go is not a bad execution strategy because you aren’t overwhelming anyone. In the case where the answers to the questions above say “yes” and “quite a lot”, you may consider breaking down your execution strategy into phases that span across 3-9 months, giving your target audience time to acclimatize to the new look. Depending on how large your business is already.
To prime your audience for the new look, start with messages informing them about the changes at least a month before it begins to happen. Begin with the easiest: your email signature, then move to your social media, then your mobile app or website, then your print material. If you run a brick and mortar arm, its best to begin the new look from your store and employees, this will ease the new change and prevent your customers from experiencing “brand jet lag”.
Lastly...
“All good brand strategies start from outside and go in. However its execution is the reverse; your brand is built on the consumer’s innate desire but you must deploy straight from the heart, beginning with your team. Because if you don’t believe it well enough then neither will the people you built your brand for.”
- Perez Tigidam