You are your product…
A brand manager’s guide to making the brand story more relatable.
I have always been fascinated by the way brand managers portray the role of playing brand guardians. This stems through across brand manager roles. Whether if it’s a brand manager, a campaign manager, head of e-commerce or anyone else. It’s vital for brand representatives to communicate the brand message and story across to the consumers.
People Buy from People and not from Jargons.
And this message should resonate across brand activities and implementations, where it’s print, TV, digital, eCommerce or AR/VR. The first task for brand managers/ marketing managers is to get the message right. And once they have the message concreted in their head, to get that message rightfully passed to the agency/agencies on board.
You need to love your brand, and all the people you deal with should too.
This message can get lost every now and then. Letting this message not translate across all the brand touch points (Agencies, vendors) is the first mistake you will commit as a brand manager. If you are not committed enough to the story, your agencies/consultants won’t be either. The best work comes from the managers who are committed enough to their brands, its storytelling and its message.
The best work will come out of agencies when the marketing managers are passionate and understand the brand well, and are not just doing their ‘job’.
I personally am a big fan of brand stories, and I’m sure most of my fellow agency consultants are too. Most of the time making the logo bigger is not the answer, but making the agency/agencies understand what your brand stands for is.
Compelling ideas come out of people who are committed. And commitment leads to success.
What does it take to communicate the brand message across?
1. Agency scouting
Honestly speaking, an agency is a brand guardian in a way. Even if there is a single iota of doubt about the agency not getting the brand message, you should not go ahead with them. If for some reason you already are working with them, it then becomes your job as a brand manager to go scouting in the agency to look for people who you resonate with and demand they work on your account.
You want to be surrounded by people that love your brand.
2. Brand Story | Funnel Approach
The funnel approach to brand story telling should be translated across all the agencies, consultants, SAAS, adtech tools you are working with. Although conversions is the main goal, conversions when driven making the consumers relate to the brand story will lead to long term relationship.
3. Making consumers a part of the story
A very primary way of doing this would be to use consumer reviews, consumer feedback and by acting on the complaints. A more extended way would be to make campaigns, around it.
Consumers relate to consumers, and stories of others.
Listening, Incorporating and amplifying the happy/sad story you as a brand manager have been able to create in consumer’s life, would just make you able to understand the consumer and your brand ever more. Scale those stories to number of people, so that who see it, are impacted by it and take action because of it.
