15 Ways You’re Failing Your Brand

If you’ve been following along with me on this blog, you probably already know how important I think it is to build a distinct and recognizable brand that consumers trust and want to be associated with. In today’s noisy, commercial environment, it’s key to the long-term success of your company.

Unfortunately, if you’re in the process of trying to build a brand for yourself, you probably also know that this is far easier said than done.

If you’re trying – but failing – to build brand equity, stay with me. I’m going to talk you through 15 common ways companies get brand-building wrong, as well as look at what you can do to prevent your company falling afoul of the same mistakes.

You don’t understand what your brand is

One common misconception that I see companies have about branding is that they think they’re responsible for designing and building their brand – or better yet, that they’re in control.

To an extent this is true. You design (or at least oversee the design) of your logo. You decide on the fonts and colors you want to use on your website and in your marketing materials. You write a tagline. Choose a tone of voice. These are all important elements of branding. But they’re not your brand.

I’m going to tell you the (slightly) scary truth – ultimately, your brand is outside of your control.

Your brand is how your consumers view you. According to Jerry McLaughlin, writing for Forbes:

“Put simply, your ‘brand’ is what your prospect thinks of when he or she hears your brand name.”

You can influence this through your design, language, and behavior, but at the end of the day, you can’t control the underlying essence of your brand.

Your brand is everything people consider when choosing whether to use your products or hire the services of your company.

In fact, when you see consumers taking control of your brand – when your name starts to fade in favor of a moniker, for instance – that’s when you know you’ve got a strong brand and a bright future (assuming, of course, that the adopted moniker is a positive one!)

Understanding that your brand is beyond your control, and that your only power is in guiding consumers towards how you want to be perceived, is the first step towards building a brand that succeeds.

Your brand’s message isn’t clear

To successfully influence how people perceive your brand, you need to articulate a crystal-clear message that summarizes your brand and what it stands for.

This message is the value you promise to deliver to your consumers – the first thought you want your customers to have when your brand is mentioned or seen.

The message should be clear, concise, and something you can easily communicate without having to spell it out.

For example:

• Disney’s message is that they can make dreams come true.
• Apple’s message is that they break boundaries of technology, creating cutting-edge designs and products that ‘just work’.
• Nike’s message is about pushing yourself to perform, and being the best you can be.

Problems arise when that message isn’t clear.

It might seem logical to change your message to match the situation – and there are plenty of activities during daily life in which you’d be right to do this.

Building a brand isn’t one of them.

Change your message and you dilute its value. More worryingly, you lose people’s trust and make it more difficult for people to believe in your brand and have confidence in what you stand for.

If you haven’t already, determine a clear brand message as soon as possible, and reflect it in everything that you do.

You don’t have clear brand guidelines

In order to maintain your brand’s identity and ensure it’s carried consistently across all channels, you need to create a set of strict brand guidelines. Or, as many people prefer to call them, a “brand bible.”

Your brand bible should be used as a point of reference for all interactions within and around your company. I’m not just talking about the usual suspects – this is about more than design, marketing, and advertising.

Your brand guidelines should dictate your company culture, and should even guide employees on how to communicate internally and externally.

Here’s a quick checklist of what the perfect brand bible should include:

Brand Overview

Tell your company story. Explain its vision. Show your brand’s personality. This is your chance to get people who are new to working with your brand excited about it.

Logo Usage

Designing the perfect logo is only the beginning. Once this important step is complete, you need to ensure the logo is reproduced correctly across all platforms.

You should clearly lay out all acceptable variations of your logo, like so:

You also need to include rules for sizing and placement. I’m a big fan of how Adobe has done this:

Fonts and Typography

Include clear instructions for acceptable typography: which typeface (or typefaces) you use and in which context (for example, you might want to use a different font in headline text than page copy.) You should also dictate rules for sizing, colors, and any additional styling.

Quick tip: when choosing fonts for your brand, less is more. The more fonts you allow to be associated with your brand, the trickier it becomes to achieve instantaneous brand recognition. As illustrated by Hubspot, “for many design scenarios, the most you’ll need two fonts.”

Colors

Detail your brand colors, as well as where and how they should be used.

Most of the world’s biggest brands use just one or two key colors. You’ll probably want to follow this trend; however, don’t neglect to include directions for the use of accompanying colors as well.

Take a look at how, on its UK site, Coca-Cola incorporates a rainbow of colors around their archetypal red and white:

This isn’t by accident. It’s likely this was designed with careful consideration given to Coca-Cola’s color guidelines.

Use of Images

Define what types of images are acceptable for use by your brand, as well as how and when they should be used. This may include:

• Whether you use photography, illustrations or both
• Style examples
• Details of trusted designers or illustrators
• Color guidelines, as well as whether black and white is acceptable
• Approved tools for sourcing photography

Tone of Voice

Identify the feelings and emotions you want to be associated with your brand, and use this information to establish a tone of voice that reflects your brand and its values.

Ensure that this voice is used consistently – not just in marketing materials, but in all internal and external communications too.

Company Culture

A brand starts from within, which is why I believe it’s important that any brand bible worth its weight includes a framework for company culture. Stay with me though – that’s the easy bit.

The tricky part is ensuring these guidelines are upheld. If necessary, appoint a “company culture” manager who is responsible for maintaining internal brand values.

Remember, if your company is a positive, supportive, and fun place to work, your staff will be happier, work harder and stay with you for longer. Everyone wins!

You blur the lines between personal and company social media

I’m a huge fan of social media. It’s an incredibly powerful tool which, when used correctly, can reap huge rewards for minimal investment.

Unfortunately, stories of social media gone wrong are all too common. However, I’m not talking about out-and-out social suicide. You don’t need me to tell you that it’s bad PR to post offensive jokes or attempt to cash in on a national disaster.

No, I’m talking about a type of social media failure that often slips under the radar – failing to maintain consistency in your brand’s voice across your social channels.

Without clear guidelines, and a willingness to follow them, it’s all too easy for employees – or even owners themselves – to slip into “personal mode” when using social media on behalf of the company.

At best, brand growth is impeded by an inconsistent voice that isn’t in tune with the tone and personality you want to convey.

At worst, you risk your employees posting messages that have a high risk of causing permanent damage to your brand.

If you want to minimize the risk of both the above, I suggest making the creation and implementation of a social media policy the next thing you do.

You’re failing to maintain a company culture that’s in line with your brand

I touched on this in section two when I spoke about brand guidelines, but I think it’s an issue that’s worth diving into further.

If you want to maintain company culture and ensure the outside world sees your brand as you want them to see it, you need to make sure your brand’s values are reflected internally too.

Let’s say you want your brand to be perceived as fun, ethical and innovative. Is it really fair to expect this to be portrayed if your staff members are bored, unmotivated and unhappy? Or not encouraged to continually develop themselves and further their knowledge?

Google understands this and has created an internal culture where employees are encouraged to learn, within a workspace that they love being in. As a result, a large majority of Google employees would happily call themselves Google advocates.

Building a brand that people respect starts from within. Turn your staff into brand advocates and you’ll have a key ingredient in the recipe for branding success.

“By turning employees into trusted brand ambassadors, companies bring their strongest asset and their most vocal internal advocates in direct contact with their customer base.” Ekaterina Walter, Forbes

You’re failing to be your own brand advocate

This is a quick one, but it’s still critically important. As the leader of your brand, you need to:

• Believe in your own brand
• Know your brand and what it represents, inside-out
• Live your own life by your brand values

If you don’t believe in your brand, can you really expect anyone else to?

Back when I was growing Single Grain, I wore a company shirt to work every morning. Sure, it was great from a marketing standpoint, but I also wore the shirt because I was proud to be representing the company – and I wanted everyone to see that belief in (and on) me.

Non-brand advocates are running the company

If you’re taking a backseat and letting someone else handle the big stuff, you’d better ensure it’s someone that cares about your company as much as you do. Yes, you need a brand advocate in the driving seat.

An established and respected brand may succeed in weathering the actions of poor management. It’s far more difficult for brands without such a solid history to bounce back with that kind of resolve.

Minimize your risk of a management-induced PR disaster by hiring not just for experience and ability, but for belief in the brand and its values, too.

You handle criticism poorly

Nobody’s perfect. We all make mistakes, both personally and professionally. But it’s how we handle those mistakes that defines us.

Unfortunately, in this digital age, we’re all more vulnerable to the impact of consumer criticism and complaints. Pre-internet, complaints were generally made directly (and privately) to the company concerned. People may have whined to their friends, but in most cases, minimal damage would be done to the brand.

Today, many consumers are skipping the option to complain by phone (and I don’t blame them – call centers have never had a great reputation) and heading straight online. In fact, according to Econsultancy, “49.5% of 18-24 year-olds have dealt with a brand through social media. In addition, 27.4% of 55+ age group have also dealt with a brand through social media.”

Between blogs, review sites, forums, and – of course – social media, a customer is spoiled for choice when it comes to places to air their grievances. And unfortunately, these are all places where news travels fast.

Your job is to act quickly (82% of consumers say the number one factor that leads to a great customer service experience is having their issues resolved quickly) and deal with complaints before they escalate.

To do this, you need to be alerted to brand mentions as they occur. For this reason, it’s a good idea to sign up with a social tracking tool such as Mention, Sprout Social, or Talkwalker.

Your next step is to handle the complaint in a friendly and professional manner. You should:

• Listen and acknowledge. Even if you’re not admitting guilt, ensure the customer knows you empathize with their situation and are taking their comments seriously. Avoid arguing your point (remember that “the customer is always right”). You risk coming off as immature and petty, and will potentially exacerbate any damage done to your brand.

This doesn’t look good:

And whatever you do, don’t get angry.

• Provide a solution. This may be as simple as asking the customer to contact you privately to discuss the issue and get it resolved. The important thing is to demonstrate that you act on complaints and care that your customers are happy.

Here’s an example of an excellent response to a customer complaint. This is the type of thing you should try to emulate:

Of course, if a comment is actually defamatory and has the potential to cause serious harm to your brand’s reputation, then you may want to seek legal assistance. That said, most customer complaints are valid (however petty they may sometimes seem) and you simply need to take them in stride and handle them head-on.

You’re not letting your brand evolve

People change. Technology advances. Brands evolve. Don’t be the brand that stands still (and eventually, falls behind). Encourage your brand to grow with the times.

Over the lifetime of your brand this will probably entail:

• Redesigning your logo
• Building a new website
• Creating a new slogan
• Reassessing how you market your brand and the channels you utilize

As far as possible, your brand’s core message and beliefs should stay the same. It’s your brand identities that need to grow with and reflect the changing needs of your customers and the world around them.

If you’re not encouraging this…. Actually, scrap that. If you’re not driving these changes to happen, you risk being a brand that dies with the times.

You’re trying to fix what isn’t broken

In the mid 1980s, Coca-Cola was fast losing market share to arch-rival Pepsi.

Since 1975, Pepsi had been pushing its product as the “better-tasting coke” through its now iconic Pepsi Challenge ads – and it was working.

Coca-Cola responded by developing a new, “tastier” product. Unfortunately the general public didn’t agree. The new Cola went to market, and flopped. Consumers missed the familiar taste they had always known and loved.

The move was quickly reversed.

In hindsight, what Coca-Cola needed was a marketing plan to match PepsiCo’s efforts – not a new product.

Don’t make the same mistake Coca-Cola made! Before you go changing a winning formula, be absolutely certain that the product is the problem. Coca-Cola had the history and klout to recover from this sort of blunder. Can you say the same?

You don’t have a USP

It’s not easy to stand out in an increasingly-crowded market, but it’s certainly not impossible. A common misconception is that to succeed, you have to be completely original. I don’t believe this is true.

To succeed in a crowded market, you simply have to have a desirable unique selling point. It’s when there’s nothing discernibly special about your product that you’re in trouble.

Harvard Business School professor and author Theodore Levitt put it succinctly when he said:

“Differentiation is one of the most important strategic and tactical activities in which companies must constantly engage.”

Observe your competitors and identify what you can do differently to set your brand apart. Depending on your industry this might be:

• The quality of the materials you use
• The level of support you offer
• Your publicly-known brand values

Establish what your USP is, and ensure that communicating this is a key part of your marketing and branding strategy.

You’re not asking for, or listening to, customer feedback

Even if everything seems ok, you’ve still got to be pushing to improve. One of my favorite ways to establish what and where changes need to happen is to ask my customers. They’re the ones that use my services – they know better than anyone what’s just right and what could be better.

Sometimes, you’ll receive feedback without asking. Accept it graciously and, when possible, act on the comments.

That said, don’t rely on unsolicited feedback – it’s a good idea to make a point of regularly seeking it out too.

The easiest way to do this is to distribute a customer survey – this could be to recent customers, or more crucially, to ex-customers (you want to know what stopped them returning, don’t you?)

Here’s some pretty handy advice from Survey Monkey on creating an effective customer survey that’ll help you figure out what your customers are thinking.

You take loyal customers for granted

Your best and most loyal customers are your brand advocates. These are the people who don’t just use your product – they’re the ones who love it so much they shout about it to all their friends.

They’re invaluable to you, but remember this: when it comes to brand loyalty, consumers are fickle. Just because they’re loyal to you now, doesn’t mean they’ll be loyal forever.

Don’t take them for granted or you risk their loyalties shifting elsewhere. Keep listening, keep responding, and keep giving back to keep those that are on board with your brand and what you’re trying to achieve.

Your product doesn’t live up to the brand

This can be a tough one to swallow, but I’m not one to sugarcoat the truth – and I’m not about to start now. If the product you’re offering doesn’t live up to how it’s portrayed, you’re in trouble.

If your brand insinuates that the product is top-quality, then the product needs to be top quality. I’m not saying that no brand has ever succeeded in marketing a substandard product that fails to live up to the claims. Many have. Just look at the diet pills industry.

But it’s not easy, and it’s not the way to build a business and brand that will stand the test of time.

If you’ve got your branding bang-on, but something’s still not clicking, take a look at the end product. If you’re letting your customers down at the point of sale, don’t expect to see them return.

You assume branding is a one-off exercise

Before we wrap things up, here’s one final take-away: understand that branding is not a one-time exercise that happens when you launch a new business. It’s a continuous effort that penetrates everything you do at and for your company.

The most successful brands continuously strive for growth. They listen to their audience, evolve with new technology, and never stop spreading their message.

Follow in the footsteps of Coca-Cola, Apple, and the rest of the world’s super-brands.

They never stop developing themselves, and neither should you.

Is there anything I’m missing here? Have you ever identified and overcome failures in your own branding? Let me know by leaving me a comment below!