Stephen Houraghan here of BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video I'm
talking brand promise and what are the five key principals you need to know
before you go into the market and start making promises on behalf of your brand.
now before we jump into the nuts and bolts on this one I just want to clear up
some of the fog that you probably have around this term now you probably
know this already and I speak quite a lot about it but there are a lot of
branding terms out there that get completely misrepresented online and
brand promise is probably the one that gets dragged through the dirt the most
it's probably the most misrepresented term that I've seen online and just in
the research that I've done for the content that I'm producing at the moment
I've read an article that displayed eight or ten cases of the best examples
they'd seen of brand promise which included Nike Just Do It and McDonald's
I'm Lovin It now I don't know about you but a promise to me is something a
little bit different than that if I was to say to you I want to make you a
promise and you said okay what's your promise and I said to you just do it
you'd say to me Stephen that's not a promise and you'd be right because it's
not a promise and there are a lot of articles there are a lot of stories and
terms out there that get completely misrepresented so I just want to clear
that up so I want to lay down five key principals of brand promise so you know
for yourself what a brand promise is going forward when you see it in other
brands and how to develop your own brand promise for your own brand or for your
clients brands key principal number one your promise is an extension of your
position now I've got a few videos on brand positioning and brand positioning
strategy so if you haven't seen them go check them out but your position in
effect is the idea that you have that you want to plant in the mind of your
audience and through the positioning strategy you define the difference that
you're gonna make to your audience to their lives when compared to the
competitors in the marketplace what are the competitors doing and what are you
doing differently what's your differentiator and what's the idea
around that your brand promise then is an extension
of that position it's an extension of that difference that you're
gonna make in their lives but it represents the experience that your
audience can expect through obtaining that difference and it also includes the
rest of your overall brand and the rest of your brand interaction your brand
strategy including your internal brand such as your purpose your mission your
vision and your values all of these elements are represented within the
brand promise in the overall experience that your audience can expect from your
brand key principal number two your brand promise is not your positioning
statement now the big difference between your positioning statement and your
brand promise is in who this is meant for your positioning statement is
internal first it's meant to be a guide for the internal brand to guide the
leadership team and guide the brand builders in developing the rest of the
brand and developing the overall strategy of the brand and the
communication strategy whereas your brand promise is customer-facing so your
brand promise is meant to deliver a promise it's meant to communicate to
your audience what it is that they're gonna get through your brand the
overall experience that they're gonna get so that's the main difference
between the two I know that a lot of people go out into the marketplace and
communicate their brand positioning statement and that's not what the
positioning statement is for it's not developed as a customer-facing document
and it's it's really not shaped for that it's it's not refined for a customer-
facing piece of material it is broken up into a number of different elements and
they're meant to guide the overall brand in terms of its direction in terms of
how they want to communicate the difference that they offer whereas the
promise then communicates the customer-facing side the overall experience so
they're the main difference there between the two your brand promise is
not your brand positioning statement your brand positioning statement is
internal first your brand promise is customer-facing key principal number
three your brand promise is not a tagline now this one is rife out there
online and I've seen so many articles that give examples of the best brand
promises and they just have a list of taglines your brand promise is not a
tagline and the main difference between the two of them is that your tagline is
developed for one goal and for one goal only and that's to plant a seed in the
mind of your audience as to why your brand should be remembered and the
reason that they should remember your brand is based on the difference that
you offer in the marketplace and the tagline should be as concise as possible
between four to five words if it's catchy it's gonna be more memorable and
it just makes it easier for your audience to recall your brand and that's
its job to plant the seed in your audience's mind so
they can easily recall your brand your brand promise on the other hand is a
promise of that overall experience and it's not designed for your audience to
just recall it instantly theoretically or preferably you will have both a
tagline and a promise and you will plant that seed in the mind of your audience
with the tagline so they can easily recall your brand when they do they'll
remember your promise and they'll remember that overall experience that
they can expect from your brand so that's the difference between your
tagline and your promise key principal number four your promise can be literal
or implied so that means you actually don't have to make a literal promise you
don't have to go out into the marketplace and say we promise that
we're gonna do this you can have a promise or you will have a promise
through your brand through an implied message so the message that you deliver
to the market the communication strategy that you have will go about
communicating the difference that you offer in the marketplace will go about
communicating the position that you offer and it might even communicate the
internal brand as well and all of these elements all of these pieces of
communication are statements that you make to the market and to your audience
and in making those statements you are making promises the fact is that 90% of
brands don't actually go out and articulate a promise they don't
communicate to the market what their promise is but through their communication
through their social posts their blog posts their advertisements whatever form
of communication their audience receives they do make an implied promise in the
features or the benefits or the experience that their audience is going
to receive that is an implied promise if your audience believes that you are
committing to something through your communication you are making a promise
to them unlike any other promise you must actually keep that promise so
that's the difference there not all brands communicate or articulate a
promise in fact 90% of brands don't but all brands must keep the promises that
they make through their implied communication key principal number five
bold promises solidify positions now when you go through your positioning
strategy and you define the difference that you're gonna make in the market to
your audience then that difference will eventually become a promise whether it's
implied or literal but brands that go out into the marketplace and make bold
promises and they state the difference that they're gonna make in the market as
a promise they earn more trust from their audience and the reason for that
is that there is an air of confidence around a bold promise if you make a bold
promise in the market then your audience sees that they know that your reputation
is on the line in making that promise and because you're prepared to put your
reputation on the line there's a lot more trust lent to your brand because of
that promise a good example of this is the Dollar Shave Club their
promise and their tagline is shave time shave money and they go out into
the marketplace and they boldly state what their promise is that their
audience is gonna save time and they're gonna save money and that confidence
that air of confidence in that bold statement lends more trust from the
consumer so if you are going to define a differentiation strategy which you
should do through your position then it's going to be an applied promise
whether you go out and communicate it into the marketplace or not you should
have confidence around the difference that you're going to offer within the
market and if you're able to back that up with a bold statement or a bold
promise then that can really solidify your position in the market for your
audience so in summary your brand promise is not
a brand positioning statement and it's not a tagline it is a commitment to your
customer whether literal or implied about the overall experience that they
are gonna receive from your brand so what do you go out into the marketplace
and make an actual promise or not your audience will believe that you have made
a commitment to them and you should keep that again and again and again if you
are really confident about the difference that you want to offer in the
marketplace well then think about making or developing a literal promise that can
help you solidify that position in the mind of your audience if you like this
video then give it a thumbs up and hit subscribe if you've got any questions
around brand promise stick them in the comments and I'll be happy to answer
them and I will see you in the next video!