Brand evolution

I am constantly perplexed by peoples assertion that you have to change or die. They make this statement like change is a choice we make or don’t. Nothing could be further from the truth. Change is constant, it is all around us. We all change all the time. Sometimes the changes are big huge leaps, other times they are small almost invisible incremental shifts.

Brands are no different. They are constantly in flux. Just their very interaction with an environment (a marketplace, an industry, a customer) creates change. The challenge and the paradox becomes – how do you maintain a sense of foundation, of core, when you are constantly being pulled by these other forces?

I work with this question every day and my framework to help you through it is pretty simple. Your brand is the result of what you believe and what your actions show. The foundation of that brand can be summarised by three elements.

1. What is your promise – the enduring why your organisation exists, has always existed (and will always exist (please let’s take making a profit as a given and look beyond it).
2. What are you core values – those tenants that guide your decisions and actions and that you would still hold true even if they were a competitive Disadvantage (more here and here).
3. What is your positioning – the what you do, why you do it and how you do it of your organisation today?

The promise and core values are enduring and more inward facing. They give the brand stability, a foundation to rest on, they act as the roots of the brand if you will.

The positioning is the piece that interacts with the external environment and marketplace. It connects the brand to the people it is trying to reach and it EVOLVES in response to that environment.

The combination of the stabilising forces of promise and core values and the evolving influence of positioning allows the brand to change, grow and move and stay relevant without losing touch with who it is.

It is a great pity that many opt for the revolution approach. Uproot those enduring elements and rely solely on the positioning within the whim of the marketplace. Unfortunately when this happens, the brand has nothing to anchor to and the result is the constant boom and bust cycle that too many in organisations are familiar with.

The incremental evolution of the brand in step with the core of the organisation AND the marketplace is a far smarter way to go and the only way to build a sustainable enduring brand. Seems like Darwin was on to something…

See you next week.

Michel Hogan is a Brand Advocate. Through her work with Brandology here in Australia and in the United States, she helps organisations recognise who they are and align that with what they do and say, to build more authentic and sustainable brands. She also publishes the Brand thought leadership blog – Brand Alignment.