Brand Attributes: Your Words Are Meaningless
In most pursuits, the fastest way between two points is a direct path. However, when dealing with people, this isn’t the case. For example, saying “Those glasses look really good on you” might be the fastest way to get out of the DMV. It will definitely work better than walking up to the counter and saying “I want to get out of here as fast as possible. Please advise.” Most brands, however, insist on this exact type of brute-force frontal approach.
Have a green office cleaning business? Great, call it GreenCleen, make the logo green, can you fit a leaf in there? Perfect! Hero image on the homepage? Leaves shooting out of a spray bottle! Hammer that message home. Right?
Just because you have communication objectives or brand adjectives or a brand manifesto, doesn’t mean your audience is going to respond to the words themselves. You need to create the feeling for your audience – not show them the word. There is nothing fun about the word “fun.” It’s a three letter word that appears on everything from plastic cups to dog treats. People don’t respond to the word when it’s spoken either. What’s your reaction when you’re at a party and someone says “C’mon, let’s have fun!”? My reaction is to fake a smile and then politely excuse myself. Fun happens. Conditions for fun can be created. It’s even an easy thing to test for: Are people smiling and/or laughing? Great! They’re probably having fun.
Other often-abused brand attributes are trustworthy and secure. There is nothing trustworthy about saying “trust us.” It doesn’t matter how many pictures of locks you put on your homepage, people won’t feel more secure. Trust is earned, and talking about trust makes earning it less likely. Be confident. Make sure you’re actually trustworthy (harder for everyone after Heartbleed). Create the conditions for trust – don’t talk about it.
Now that we’re having fun and people trust us, we can move on to the worst brand attribute of all: “Innovative.” We all know innovation when we see it – so saying you’re innovative is the biggest clue that you’re not. Dyson vacuums are innovative. Tesla cars are innovative. Those piano stairs are innovative. That crazy Finnish axe is innovative. Your mid-market food services company is not innovative and everyone knows it. So stop saying it. If you want to be innovative, look for ways to cut bureaucracy, promote new ideas, differentiate your offering in a serious way that people can experience. Let other people call you innovative.
Brand attributes are about creating feelings and experiences for your audience. So if you’re going to go through the trouble of creating the attributes, create an actionable plan for making people feel them.
A Hundred Monkeys builds brands that speak the human language. Get in touch.
