What would you think if you walked into a Starbucks and the barista got your triple tall, half-caf, iced, non-fat latte wrong? You’d probably say to yourself, “First-world problem,” not fret too much and go about your day. What if you went to a different location the next day, and your order was mishandled once again? Part of the brand promise of Starbucks is that you’ll receive a customized beverage that perfectly suits your palate and your diet, no matter how complex the details or your order are. How many times would you be willing to experience inconsistency before you switched to a different caffeine dealer?
These days, competition for customers is fierce within most industries, even in fields like healthcare and utilities, which once seemed off-limits to marketing. Branding is the key to differentiating yourself from the competition, but if you don’t build your brand promise around reality or consistently live up to it, your branding efforts are pointless. Brands are built through the consistent delivery of the brand promise through all stakeholder touchpoints. It is the consistent, desired experience that builds trust and trust is the foundation for loyalty and promotion.
Yet many leaders are strangely resistant to upholding the brand promise in which they invested so much time and treasure. Or, they lose sight of the brand values as they focus on the day-to-day activities of their team. It happens more often than you think, and it happens because of the false belief that branding is simply about creating a slogan and a logo that millions of people will recognize and remember.
Successful brands are based on authenticity, drawn from real achievements, real strengths, and real emotions that are alive and well at all levels in the organization. Too often, leaders hope that branding can cover up or distract from a flawed system – that they can convince the world of something that’s not true if they throw enough money at it. Consumers are smarter than that.
