An epiphany is a sudden insight into reality—something you might have known all along, but simply didn’t see. It’s the big “aha!” moment clients have as a result of our work. One of our recent clients described it as, “Wow. It’s the first time I’m hearing it, but it’s like I’ve lived this all my life.”

How does the branding process uncover epiphanies?

Companies get entrenched in their thinking. They lose outsider perspective as cultural norms and groupthink take hold.

Branding, when you start with external research, brings in a new perspective about your organization’s value. There are all sorts of barriers keeping your brand from being its best: an organization’s bureaucracy, negative cultural norms, lack of focus. There’s something very elegant in how we help organizations make simple shifts to set them free.

That’s my favorite part about this job. Lifting the veil and delivering the epiphany to help organizations say, “Wow! That makes sense. A lot of sense.”

- Bianca Abate

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The brand that’s made me the happiest this year is Wolfgang’s Vault. I go there on a regular basis, often on Friday afternoons when I’m finishing up administrative tasks and need some ear candy. The more I listen, the more often I return. I’ve heard concerts by artists I wish I’d gone to and concerts from the same tours I saw “back in the day” by artists that hadn’t made it big yet. I started going to the site a couple of years ago to relive some great musical moments in my life—but now I’m getting much more.

I love that the Vault has branched out to newer artists and more recent concerts. Their A to Z list of performers is huge and inclusive, so I can experiment. There are artist interviews as well as concerts. There are lots of free downloads as well as ones you have to pay for. Plus concert listings in my area.

The website has improved steadily. It’s become increasingly easy to use and what Wolfgang’s Vault is adding, I’m enjoying. I must be in their target demographic—they’re hitting me in my soft spot and I love it!

What’s the brand lesson? Do one thing really well and build from there. Innovate around what you know and give your customers and fans an easy path to follow as you lead the way. If the substance is there and you demonstrate that you’re listening, you’ll keep your die-hards and win new ones.

Have a great 2010!

Beth Woolley

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A recent client of ours has almost twenty loosely related sub-brands, making their website difficult to navigate and leading to confusion in the marketplace.  The company was pushing the master brand, but consumers were left clueless as to what the master brand actually did and how it all fit together.

Purchasing decisions are complicated enough without making it hard for people to understand who you are and why you do it. If you can zero in on the specific role you play, you make the decision making process one step easier.  A defined brand strategy and brand architecture can enhance focus and clarity. As an added bonus, you can internally focus your budgets and energy more strategically.

So, how to get focused?

1. Ask yourself the fundamental questions of brand architecture:  is the right strategy to create a strong corporate brand or is it to create a portfolio of strong sub-brands—or a combo of both?  Always look at your brand architecture from the point of view of the customer, not how you are internally organized.
2. Clarify (for both employees and consumers) the roles that the various brands play and how they interplay.
3. Lastly, use your website’s navigation as a visual guide to communicate this road map.

-Bianca Abate

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Here are a couple of questions posed by takers of the online brand survey:

Would having an online forum at this stage of our development (early-stage startup) provide any value add for users visiting our website?

We are just starting to push our new solution. What should we be talking about to start building a community?

The sooner you engage customers, the better. If you can engage prospects—even more better. Value add will occur if you referee an honest dialog about your product/solution—which includes incorporating feedback into product development and customer service, and calling that out via online communications. When customers experience that their opinions and needs result in actions, they experience you as a full participant in their community. This tends to make them stick with you—and tell others about you in their online and offline travels.

That said, how do you start building that community? Community-building online is as much about where as it is about what. Here’s a good, high-level article on the subject: http://mashable.com/2009/08/25/whole-foods/. It doesn’t matter how big or small your organization is, the key is to focus in on where your audience hangs out and add value to those conversations (whether it’s commenting on someone else’s blog or starting a Facebook page for your business). You can’t control a brand community but you can help shape it by delivering something of value to its members.

Anyone out there have some additional suggestions? Please comment.

And, we’re closing the survey at noon Wednesday, 9/2—so if you want to get your two cents in and have a chance to win that Flip video camera, take a few minutes to complete the quiz (scroll down a couple of entries and you’ll see the whole thing).

Beth Woolley

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