The Heavy Chef’s Guide to Branding: Point 5
by Fred on 02/10/09 at 11:10 am
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Point 5: Keep your promises!
This is a follow on from Heavy Chef Guide to Branding Point 1 (Understanding branding), Point 2 (Define your message), Point 3 (Brand consistency and pervasiveness), and Point 4 (Execution is everything) in a series on branding that stemmed from the Heavy Chef Digital Marketing Course. The points are not directed at online branding, but at brand building as a whole.
A few years ago, my business partner (Mike Perk) and I were running around to find a picture framer. Mike was due to return to England that afternoon, and we were desperate. We found a small framing shop in Lansdowne in Cape Town, and upon entering, our anxiety was instantly replaced by sweet serenity – as if we’d entered a Gregorian monastery. The guy who met us in the shop was a tall Swedish looking bloke. He helped us immediately, whistling while he worked. We got chatting and asked him how business was. He replied “Never better! I’ve got as many customers as I need, and I’ve got people driving from neighbouring towns to get their frames from me.”
I asked him what his secret was, and he said: “There are 2 rules to business. Number 1, have a good product. Number 2, keep your promises.”
We felt like we’d just had a message from the angel Gabriel. Here was a guy who pretty much dumbed down all the complexity of business into two brief tenets.
The second rule “keep your promises” is a crucial rule in branding. Cast your mind back to Point 1 where we defined a brand as “the message you wish to convey”. It’s important to understand that your message must contain a promise – this is your ‘brand promise’.
History is littered with broken promises in brand building campaigns. This is the single biggest mistake a marketer can make, but somehow it seems to perpetuate in communication time and time again.
And that’s the end of our 5 point series on branding. We hope that it’s helped, and given you a better understanding on the finer nuances of brand building in the digital economy (and any economy for that matter).
NOTE: We’re going to expand this series into a free e-book, so please give us some feedback, and if there’s any thing you’d like to add, or examples you’d like to share, please send ‘em to info at ideate.co.za or drop it in the comments below.
Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. He runs a web marketing company called World Wide Creative and loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. View more articles by Fred.
Tags: Brand, Business/Finance, Graphic design, Marketing
