5 tips for powerful brand messaging

Whether you are communicating with internal audiences or external ones, these five rules apply but for slightly different reasons.

Lead with Authenticity

Authenticity has never mattered as much as it does today, so speak from your heart. This is particularly true when communicating your external brand with Gen Z or Millenials. Authentic brands are clear about what they stand for and deliver—at the highest level, they are absolutely transparent about their convictions, and how they impact their long term action.

?I take a company like Patagonia as a gold standard for Authenticity. They are an outdoor products company and everything they make, sell, or say is aligned behind a vision of what is crucial to keeping that economic ecosystem and nature’s greater ecosystem healthy into the future. They have been transparent about their production processes, supply chain, employee management practices, and their contributions to causes that give back to nature and support the use of their products.?

?Pass the sniff test…?

…because everyone sniffs before joining. I prefer talking about joining a brand versus consuming when you are talking about either choosing to work at a brand or to feel a personal connection to the brand that goes deeper than a random convenience purchase of necessary commodities. The test for me is does the consumer feel a real answer when asked are they a brand A person or a brand B person? Think of Adidas vs Nike, Coke vs Pepsi or about leaders who are brands themselves like Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates. Identity is about how deeply consumers connect to brands and what characterizes that relationship as in would you “rather fight than switch”. If you will fight for it, that is a powerful brand identity.? Like individuals, brands have identities that are complex and when companies engage in the deep dive which is brand identity development they do 360 degree analysis, which looks at the comprehensive meaning, impact, opportunities and threats to the brand. When your brand is not aligned with your values your brand’s impact and meaning is stunted because potentially positive acts are viewed cynically as one-offs for PR and often termed by such phrases as green-washing, a one-off or superficially environmentally impactful gesture by a brand, and the brand gets no credit for their effort.? When your consumers think you are fighting for them, they will want to fight for you. It is visceral, honest and difficult to fake focus on aligning what you care about with what you are delivering.

Make it sticky.?

Rule one is knowing what will connect with your audience. As a branding or marketing pro that should be fairly clear to you. Rule 2: Reduce the Friction, is where we more often see problems. In messaging a big source of friction arises when you are out of alignment with your values.? Each time you recalibrate to fit the stand you think the market wants, rather than leading with what your brand offers you confuse fans and create opportunities for others to define or doubt you. When you lead with your values you create the context, minimize inconsistencies and speak in your truest voice.? Don’t think the market can’t see through the gloss, over time it always will.?

?Go deep, not broad.?

There is never enough budget to reach everyone who might like your brand and the reality is you don’t want them all because all fans are not the same. You want raving fans because folks who think you are pretty good don’t seek you out, don’t promote you and rarely write that check. Raving fans do. When do fans rave? When they feel that their identity is aligned with yours, when they believe your voice and when you build up TRUST with them via all of your communications.? This is true when your brand is speaking internally and externally. Take memorable stands and trust they will remember when the time counts.

?Make it easy to know you.?

You need to make it easy for your allies to speak up. Give them a rallying cry - three connected ideas that prove your value to their market and then support them when they do. Avoid uphill conversations, those defensive messaging moments when you get caught defining what you do not stand for, who your brand is not and what you don’t bring to the market. This often happens when you zigged this way and that, trying to find this moment’s popular positioning versus leading with your core values. How did the great aqueducts of antiquity get built? Not by pushing water uphill. Babylonian and Roman aqueducts focused on collecting the water at it’s source in the hills and mountains, our metaphor for your value defined branding and let gravity do the hard work of carrying it to the masses in the city. In practice this is fair trade coffee companies that make the case for their practice, share testimonials from farmers and other shoppers (like you) who feel good about their purchase. Express your values clearly, consistently and authenticity and your partners will show up for you.

Why @Upper Diamond do we care about this? Because transparency and values-first communication is middle-of-the-target of what we believe in. We’ve fought for stands on D&I, the representation of the underrepresented, and slashed our rates to zero for non-profits - that’s who we are. Every step we take has to be in lockstep with our values. That’s how we live, and that’s how we advise our clients.?

We take pride in making work that speaks for itself, and we’re glad ours does—through the awards we’ve won, the partnerships we’ve earned, and the allies who have nominated us—but we’re sure to speak through our work, too. We know that no one would connect with us, believe us, stay with us, and speak up for us if we didn’t. This is our mantra: Know who you are, say who you are and do what you say.? As a partner in the wings, or if you’re holding the microphone, it’s important to seize the right moment to let your values speak. As a marketing agency, with a D&I practice, we live for these mic-drop moments.?