Hello, My Name Is … on Brand
You can’t make someone live your brand.
In fact, you can rarely make anyone do anything that will grow your brand. Because brand is so intangible, it’s not something that can be legislated or mandated. Embodying the brand — living it — has got to spontaneously arise out of each member of an organization.
This is a lot to ask.
At Go East, we have a clear brand platform. It has evolved over the years, but the foundation has remained the same. Everyone knows it. It’s written on the walls in brushed metal letters. We have brand cards for reference. It’s part of our review process. Yet, how can we know how people interpret the brand platform? Words are one thing; expression is another.
One of my favorite ways to get a sense of brand is to spontaneously, organically create a brand snapshot by asking people to do something unexpected and new that demonstrates what they really think. Recently, I riffed off of Swiss Miss‘ Conversation Starter Tags for Creative Mornings by asking everyone at Go East to wear a tag about our brand. Once the initial hesitancy passed, something interesting happened. The name tags became honest, instant messaging about our brand and how each of us lives it, because a name tag is an introduction to an individual and an individual makes a brand. Inside jokes abounded, for sure, but even more so, I could see the pride and ownership of the brand and each person’s contribution to it. Simple by design and much cheaper than a brand audit or employee survey, this snapshot gave us a clear picture of the life of the brand today.
Hello, my name is Go East and I’m on brand.
December 3rd, 2009 at 3:33 pm
[...] recently created their own statements about how they live the brand. We all wore the statements, like nametags, throughout the day and talked with others about our part in living the [...]