TexasDesign.com

Contributed by Chuck Lustig, of ExcitingWriting Communications

This month, I shift gears and express a few words about branding, a subject close to my heart. Many years ago, I remember reading a story of a meeting between one of the earliest practitioners of public relations and his client, the president of a large steel manufacturing company. As I remember it, the story takes place in the board room with the entire board present. A terrible accident had just happened at one of the plants. The president questioned whether, in the wake of this accident, a public relations campaign was appropriate. The public relations person said, “You’re going to have public relations whether you hire me or not. The only question is whether you’ll have any control over the message.” I think it’s the same with branding.
Every moment of every day, your company is communicating its brand to its various publics or stakeholders. Everything your company does and doesn’t do communicates what it stands for.

Yes, the impression your website home page makes to a first-time visitor is part of your company’s brand. I’m sure everyone would agree.

Here are some other impressions that are just as much a part of your company brand:

• The way your receptionist greets the FedEx delivery person
• The way an executive behaves when negotiating an agreement with a potential alliance partner
• The way employees treat the cashier in the cafeteria when paying for their lunch, and the way the cashier treats the employees
• The way your Accounts Payable Department processes invoices, whether accurately or inaccurately, whether on time or late
• The extent your employees volunteer for non-profit causes such as Habitat for Humanity
• Every transaction at every level with every audience makes an impression, and that impression contributes to your brand identity.

If someone interacts with your company in various ways, let’s say, on various levels, those generated impressions may be both positive and negative. If they are both, your brand identity in that person’s mind will not be clear; the brand identity will be diffuse. If however, those impressions all align, or agree, a very strong impression can be generated in the mind of that audience member. It may be strongly positive or strongly negative.

By the way, when I say “audience member” I mean company employee, customer, potential customer or partner, general public, journalist, community leader, vendor, investor, competitor, analyst, consultant, industry observer. The list goes on and on.

So far, I don’t think what I’ve written about branding will raise too many eyebrows. However, here is where my argument veers off the beaten path:

Your company’s branding is not about words. Yes, it has something to do with the words on your company website or the words in your company’s contracts or the words in your company’s technical documents, or the words your sales people say to prospective customers. For the most part, however, your brand impression is not about words; it’s about the overall visual impression the company makes and the tone of voice your company adopts in its communications with its various audiences.

This comes to you from a writer, and this writer is telling you it’s not about words. It’s not about finding the exact combination of words. I don’t think it’s even about ideas, certainly not about complicated ideas.

It’s about simple ideas like service to others. It’s about the impression one gets when one visits a corporate website. Does it give the impression of a company that is engaged? That it expects the best? (The best from its people? The best from its customers?) That it intends to give the best? Does it give the impression of being aware? Open? Dedicated? Positive? Vital? Is the website easy to use? Does it help the visitor get the information the visitor is looking for quickly and easily? Then the company is communicating a positive brand.

Remember, the overall impression you make is more important than the words. The tone of voice is more important than the words.

Only after the general impression and tone of voice are right do actual words come into play.

Remember, your company is communicating its core values every minute of every day. The only question is whether you’ll have control over the message they send.