Brand is a result of your everyday actions

I’m supposed to be writing about a brand I like this week; however, it’s going to have to wait because I need to talk to everyone who reads this blog about something else.

I was moderating an event last week for The Churchill Club about forming a disruptive hypothesis. And after the discussion was finished and people were mingling and talking it occurred to me that every day with my clients, and every week with you, I talk about my version of a disruptive brand hypothesis.

Your brand is the result.

It might not sound very disruptive but think about it for a few minutes. Think about the brands that you love (or even just like a bit). Why do you like them? What grabbed you?

If you take a look across the series of “Brands that I like” blogs so far this year a very different picture emerges than the one that is usually presented about brand – which is brand as an intent, as something you create. Like magic, a few spells, a snazzy this and cool that and poof! – your brand. But it’s just not how it works.

Everyday organisations big and small like yours show up. You open the doors and get to work. You make hundreds of decisions. You help customers, serve stakeholders, buy things, sell things, expand, shrink, hire and fire, design products, deliver services, ask questions, give answers, laugh, cry, give thanks and just give.

And every time you do one of those things you are building your brand.

Hopefully you are doing it with an eye firmly on what you care about, what your values are, being conscious and deliberate about the promises you are making.

Hopefully you are thinking about the result of it on others around you, the ripples of your individual actions on the whole.

Hopefully you aren’t being distracted by the bright shiny things that so often masquerade as brand that are fun to play with and think about, but that ultimately play a fairly small role.

Hopefully you are looking at some of the great brands out there and looking for some broad principles that you can apply in your organisation, but not trying to copy what they do (because that’s their brand and so it probably won’t work for you anyway).

Hopefully you are thinking about what today looks like and not just thinking about what the next year or three will look like.

Hopefully you are looking at your brand as the result of all of these things and the result is something aligned, strong and resilient that people care about. Because when that is true it’s pretty disruptive.

Your brand is the result.

See you next week.

Michel is an independent brand analyst dedicated to helping organisations make promises they can keep and keep the promises they make – with a strong, resilient organisation as the result. She also publishes a blog at michelhogan.com.