What? Create a prototype of my brand? What does that mean? Does it mean create a prototype of our product? Or a prototype of our logo?
No, your brand is not your product or your logo.
Your brand is the definition consumers hold in their minds of your company and its products. And that definition is built in two ways: by what you tell people and by what they experience when they try your product.
Therefore, it makes sense to imagine what that definition would sound like and write it down—a prototype of your brand. The name I use for this prototype is a Brand Statement.
Think of a Brand Statement as the bulls-eye toward which all marketing communications are aimed.
In my book The CEO’s Guide to Marketing, I instruct readers to write their Brand Statement in the voice of a customer by imagining they are sitting in a coffee shop and overhear the two people at the next table talking. One person is explaining your product to the other and gets it exactly right. Their words come out just how you would like to hear them and you are thrilled with their explanation.
This Brand Statement is a tremendous help to the creative people designing your promotions. It tells writers and graphic designers: This is what I want the promotion to cause our market to think and tell their friends.
If you like this branding tip, you’ll like The CEO’s Guide to Marketing. It’s filled with useful tips and tricks such as this one. And it goes into much greater detail. For instance, it discusses the role Primary Value Points and Positioning play in writing a Brand Statement, and how the Brand Statement is part of a larger document called a Brand Playbook.
I tell people that The CEO’s Guide to Marketing will make them the smartest marketers in the room. And I’m not kidding.
