The Two Things That Should Define Your Brand

A strong brand identity is the cornerstone of a successful business. It’s what sets you apart from the rest of the competition and should create a strong first impression that lasts on your customers. However, building a brand from scratch can be overwhelming, especially for those who created the product first before everything else–akin to providing a solution to a problem that either exists or not in the first place.

To have a strong brand identity, here are two essential components you could start with.

Brand Essence

Your brand essence is the core of your business. It should be the soul and personality that distinguishes you from others. To define your brand essence, ask yourself fundamental questions about your business: What problem do you solve? Who are you solving it for? What values do you stand for? Answer these and you’ll be provided answers to a multitude of other questions as well.

Your brand essence should be concise, memorable, and authentically reflect your business. For example, a sustainable fashion brand’s essence might be “ethical style for a conscious consumer.”

Nike’s brand essence is “Authentic Athletic Performance.” Pretty self-explanatory, right? For Airbnb, it’s “Belong Anywhere.” It ties up very well with everything that has got to do with their brand. Try to think of these examples when drafting yours.

A Compelling Brand Story

A brand story is the narrative that brings your brand to life. It’s how you connect with your audience on an emotional level. Your brand story should be authentic, relatable, and inspiring.

Consider your business’s origin story, the challenges you’ve overcome, or the impact you want to make. By weaving these elements into a compelling narrative, you can create a deeper connection with your customers.

Make your brand story true, one that appeals to emotion, and it should connect with the audience.

Here is Google’s brand story. “The Google story begins in 1995 at Stanford University. Larry Page was considering Stanford for grad school and Sergey Brin, a student there, was assigned to show him around.

By some accounts, they disagreed about nearly everything during that first meeting, but by the following year they struck a partnership. Working from their dorm rooms, they built a search engine that used links to determine the importance of individual pages on the World Wide Web.” They called this search engine Backrub.

Soon after, Backrub was renamed Google. The name was a play on the mathematical expression for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros and aptly reflected Larry and Sergey’s mission ‘to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. That’s just a small part of it.

Building a strong brand identity is an ongoing process that requires careful planning and execution. By defining your brand essence and crafting a compelling brand story, you lay the foundation for a successful business. Your brand is more than just a logo or tagline as it is a promise you make to your customers. Stay true to your brand identity, and you’ll build a loyal customer base that will stick with your business for years to come. (GFB)