Try this simple exercise

Do you have a Brand Identity, or Brand Identity Crisis?

Try this simple exercise among your brand team to see how you are doing.

What is Brand Grammar?

Get the grammar right, the language falls into place and you are understood by everyone.
Get it wrong, and you’re speaking Greek.

Think of a car called Mercedes. Now describe it in one word. Just about everyone says ‘luxury’ in one form or another. Now think of Volvo. Same process. ‘Safety’?

First and foremost, the noun.

Let’s start with the noun. The noun is the core of the brand definition.

But, to be a brand your noun must be different. For every car, the noun could be car. BMW have chosen (and own) machine. Coke defines its noun not as ‘drink’, but as ‘refresher’.

Your noun is the bedrock on which your brand grammar sits, and you need to be sure it’s made from high grade concrete.

Secondly, a bold, expressive adjective.

Successful consumer brands tie an adjective to their brand and they own the adjective in their category. So Rolls Royce owns ‘classy’ in cars, while Rolex owns it in ‘watches, and Armani owns it in suits.

Once declared to the world, and lived up to by the brand, the adjective is theirs to keep. It grows to become as much a reflection of the buyer or user as it is the aspiration of the corporation. For successful brands across the globe, the combination of noun and adjective is ubiquitous. Think ‘ultimate’ and ‘machine’ and you’re hard pressed to think of anything but BMW.

The adjective adds the colour. No, it adds the adjectival rainbow. Without your adjective, you don’t have a brand, you have a generic commodity. Get it right and qualify it with sound support, and you have the makings (or remakings) of a brand.

Finally, add a verb that counts.

Nike uses it all the time. Even so, the verb is the toughest of the lot. But it’s your brand’s ‘doing’ word. Get it right, and you might unlock your entire communications strategy, because your brand verb will define how your brand ‘does’ things. It becomes a driver for strategic decision-making, and provides a sharper focus for your entire communications platform.
For the record, the verb for Doghouse is ‘bite’. It defines to all of us (at Doghouse) what we expect our work to do. It expresses our attitude, and our approach to our client’s needs and opportunities. We want your communications to bite.

Here’s the ‘Exercise’.

Ask each of your Brand Owners on any or all of your brands to conduct this simple exercise: to provide a noun, adjective and verb that express and define their brand. No conferring, no discussions, just a simple exercise, using the above examples to encourage some creativity.

So ‘treatment’ is not a noun you really want to see, as it applies to pretty much every drug out there, and demonstrates a deliberate lack of involvement.

If you have a strong brand, you should see consistency – particularly for the adjective & verb. If you get a confusing range of responses, you need some help.

The exercise demonstrates how and why branding is a collaborative process.

Like most of our processes, we will not deliver anything without involving the top level Brand Owners.

Many creative service providers display a visible drive to fulfil an agenda that is convenient and self-serving for them and not necessarily in the best interests of clients or customers. The only valid approach to resolving a client’s problems is solution neutrality; absolutely no agenda is allowed, other than properly understanding the whole business. The journey to brand is not some kind of creative whim, but a deep and involved interaction with your own IP, back office, HR structure and brand-designated corporate capabilities and capacity.