The hardest thing about Brand Development isn’t the time intensive research….

It isn’t being consistent yet flexible… innovative yet timeless.

The hardest thing about Brand Development isn’t creativity, charisma, social media, new marketing, old ideologies, fierce competition, or even too many cooks in the kitchen (although that is a much too oft encountered obstacle)… nope.

It isn’t over coming brain washing…. all those years of being told a brand is a logo, no… wait, a tag line… no…  an elevator pitch, an advertisement, a website, a banner, a name, a look, a campaign, a (___fill-in-the-blank___)… not those things either.

Nope… the hardest part is being explicit…

It’s precisely zeroing in on what really matters to your customers and  finding the guts to sing the glory of the story, explicitly, once you know it.

Successful brand development demands that an organization take the blinders off, put down the kool-aid, and walk tall and bold in the other guy’s shoes. Once you accurately identify the “pinch” your brand resolves…you’ve got to own it. Successful brands own their purpose, niche, cause, and message, explicitly.

Be precise about what you stand for and what you believe, where you’ve been and where you are going, what issues and values drive decisions, what you will and what you will not do. Be unequivocal about your purpose and absolute in your expectations.

A successful brand engagement should purpose to excavate an organization’s explicit brand:

• The kind of brand that transcends the conventional and continues to represent the foundation of the organization… it’s Big !dea.
• The kind of brand that connects employees, clients, customers and the public to the company’s mission, core competencies, differentiators, and powerful benefits through a carefully considered governing purpose, a meticulously crafted positioning statement, and a real “story” that means something to those you want to engage with your brand.
• The kind of brand that is unequivocally specific about what an organization does, how it’s done differently, why anyone should care, and what the company team and identity stand for.

You know…the kind of brand that literally double-dog dares customers, employees and partners not to choose it.