Do you have an extreme brand?

The great ones do it really well. Their brand shows up all over the place, (and I’m not talking ads and billboards here). They can seem down right cultish about it. But, at the end of the day you KNOW what that brand is and you BELIEVE it.

You could almost call it “extreme brand” – the “go 100% or go home” companies. They just seem to have that extra something, a zing, an “it” factor that attracts people like flies.

Customers want to buy what they are selling, employees want to work there, investors want to put their money into it.

So what is the difference between these guys and you? Maybe nothing, maybe you are one of the competitors in the extreme brand games. But, chances are you are one of the “go 50% and that will do” others.

I call it taking your brand to the corners.

The central stuff is easy (and often the fun sexy part). It’s the view of brand that nearly everyone has. The marketing view, the customer facing view, the slap on coat of paint and tidy up the garden view. That’s the 50%.

The extreme brands, the ones we remember and love, have a habit of taking it much further. They stuff their brands into every nook and cranny of their organisation. Infuse it into HR, build it into finance, use it to drive operations. CEO, shipping person, front desk, back office, R&D, manufacturing, sales, customer service, shop floor, warehouse. It’s in the sales pitch and the sales follow up. It’s in product design and the packaging. It’s in the marketing and the delivery.

Walmart is notorious for it – even their employee schedule and pay systems are optimised to keep prices low.

Apple regularly shoots another “too cool for school” product off the racks.

Jurlique is so obsessed about what they put in their skin care products they grow it themselves.

Nordstroms legendary service is not only about having great clothes in their stores, they have free personal shoppers to help you pick them out.

And, not a day goes by when another type of information falls to Google’s relentless thirst to make it accessible to everyone.

However, an extreme brand doesn’t have to be a big name company. It can be a second-hand car dealer like my dad was.

Husbands came to dad to buy a car, then came back for one for their wife, then one for the kids when they turned 18 because they knew they would get a good solid car at a fair price and that dad would stand behind what he sold.

If there was something specific you had in mind, he would go to the auctions to find it for you if he could, and if he couldn’t then you knew it wasn’t to be found. He could gab with the best of them, but when it came to his cars he was a straight-talker. From the no frills look of the car yard, to the loud voice and personal attention to everyone who walked in the door, the town knew the “Hoges” brand – honest cars.

Watching dad day in and out was my original school of brand, and as those things go I can’t think of a better one! I miss him everyday and I think maybe the town does too.

So make your brand an extreme brand and go find that other 50%.

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 recognize 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.