A company’s brand is the backbone of its operations: strategies, communications, developments and marketing all starts with the brand. A brands anatomy is a layering approach to building up your brand, much like with humans, brand must build dup their characteristics- how are you going to expresses their vision visually and verbally. A company’s brand anatomy focuses on brand core, essence, vision, mission, values and promises.
Your brand core is about defining the driving force of the brand; the core of your brand helps you build up your other components. Creating your core should include finding a shared sense of purpose, and setting some company criteria that will help any future decision making. The core can also be used as a catalyst in the future to promote strong brand expressions- shaping the content for communications, presentations and pitches (internal and external to the brand.)
Next in the brand anatomy is ‘Brand Essence.’ This is simply the brands reason for being; the company must create the most compelling statement. Having a strong essence becomes the departure point for everything the brand does, the hook on which you hang every idea, the catalyst for new products and services, communication strategies etc.
The brand vision describes the change you want to see in the world. Essentially, why do you do what you do and to what end? What purpose? For example, AirBnB’s vision is ‘Tapping into the universal human yearning to belong- the desire to feel welcomed, respected, and appreciated for who you are, no matter where you might be.’ When writing your vision, it has to be crafted through multiple lenses: focusing on the impact of people, one the planet or impact on the industry.
Your brand mission must be short and concise, expelling what you do to work towards you vision- your idea to for change. Your mission statements can be framed from different perspectives too: to change the industry, transform the lives of your consumer or wider society, change the world or to achieve a specific ambition. An example is Gap mission, ‘To create emotional connections with customers around the world through inspiring product design, unique store experiences, and competitive marketing.’
The second to last concept within brand anatomy is values. Organisations with strong values predominantly perform better due to their values providing clear guidance for the future of the company in making choices. This is what creates a brand distinct personality and culture. These values can be based around society, morality, ethics, attitudes, identity, ideology, quality, or the business/industry.
Finally, your brand promises are about what you deliver to your audience. What kind of value do you add for them? How do you make it easier, better, richer, more useful, satisfying or beautiful? Starbuck’s purpose is ‘To inspire and future the human spirit one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time.’
And that’s the beginning of your brand anatomy. Focusing on starting to build up your brand core, to emerge stronger and helps companies look towards to future. What brands look towards doing, to better communities, sustainability, consumers is what society is starting to focus on more, and so making sure your brand core is airtight and exactly how you want your brand to look is where every organisation should start.
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