Strategy & Brand

As a general rule, BlackDog doesn’t brand upstarts. Here are some resources to help get your brand new brand off the ground though…

If you can’t find the answer to the brand query you’re muddling over, puzzling out, and Googling till the cows come home, send it our way. BlackDog’s 365 blog is an ongoing, evolving, question and answer guide developed to help business owners and entrepreneurs understand and hone their brands. Submit your questions on brand, branding, or branders to BlackDog and we’ll send you a personal response with the answer. An anonymous and confidential version of your question and our response will then be posted on BlackDog’s 365 blog to help out your fellow ponderers.

What’s a Brand?

• The Big Idea
• Logo vs Brand
• Who Defines a Brand?
• Brand Success – Just a Marketing Plan?
• Brand vs Advertising

Do You Need a Brand?

• Why Do I Need a Brand?

Naming Your Brand:

• How to Name a Startup
• 10 Ways to Name Your Company or Product
• Types of company and product names — A field guide

Slinging a Slogan:

• What’s The Difference: Good Tagline vs Bad Tagline

Picking a great URL:

• How to Find a Good URL without Having a Brain Hemorrhage

Finding Your Big Idea:

• The Big Idea

Differentiating Your brand:

• Differentiators…Let me count the ways
• Crazy. Inspired. Bold. Successful.
• How Do We Crate an Iconic Brand?
• Strip Away All the Filler…

Missions and Visions:

• Is Our Mission Our Brand Promise?

Components of a Brand Strategy:

• 19 Components of a Brand Strategy

Identifying Your Customer:

• Who Is Our Customer?

Identifying Your Brand Touch Points:

• What’s a brand touch point?

The Best Brand Book for Startups:

• Is There a Brand Book For Startups?

The Best Brand Books Period:

• Do You Have a Favorite Brand Book?

How to Write a Business Plan:

• Writing a Business Plan

Identifying Core Values:

• How Important are “Core Values”?
• Changing the World… One Brand at a Time

Developing Brand Standards:

• Hey, I Have Standards

Sponsorship  & Strategic Partnership Standards:

• Banners, logos, & Neon Lights, oh my!

Diversifying into New Markets:

• How Does A Brand Diversify Into New Markets?

The Truth About Brand Loyalty:

• Do You Believe in Brand Loyalty?

Synching Your Brand with Your Brand Experience:

• How do you sync brand and brand experience?

On Relevance, Transparency, & Avoiding Bullshit

• Do you ever get over whelmed by finding ways or trying to be inventive and original?
• The Better You Are, The Better You Look

Do Charitable Actions & Social Giving Build Brand Equity?

• Do Charitable Actions Build Brand Equity?
• Redux – Do Charitable Actions Build Brand Equity?

Bringing Your Humanity to Work:

• Brand Is An Inside Job

Communicating your Differentiated Brand:

• We Don’t Brand Bullshit: How BlackDog Does Communications
• Narrativity: You’re Too Good For Boring
• How Buff is Your Brand Narrative?
• Crafting Content out of Fingerprints
• Top Shelf: Communications Reads We Recommend
• Top Shelf Part II: More Communications Reads We Recommend

Brand & Social Media:

• Social Media – The Prize Inside
• The Rolling Stones Didn’t Have to Bribe THEIR Groupies
• Twitter, the Medium is the Message
• Social Media Masterminds: Facebook Pages that Are Getting it Right!

Approximately sixty percent of Americans believe in love at first sight.[1]

Fifty percent report that they have actually experienced the powerful phenomenon.[2] But, drill the statistic down to those in long-term relationships and you find that only 11% report that their lasting relationships started in an all-knowing instant.[3] Proving that for most of us love and loyalty are earned one interaction after another. Over time the enchantment or familiarity is enhanced or the spell is broken!

Who do you love, really?  Take the loyalty survey:

For more on brand loyalty…read “Do You Believe in Brand Loyalty”

[2] John R. Buri, Ph.D.

[3] Ayala Malach-Pines, Ph.D

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world… it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

It took me 30 minutes this morning to buy wheat pita bread at the grocery store. Not because the lines were long or the aisles congested, but because every brand of bread I selected from my grocer’s shelf contained High Fructose Corn Syrup. I scoured the bread section looking for any loaf sans this pesky addition. Oatmeal, Wheat, Whole Grain, Rye, White…There wasn’t a single bread brand or style that didn’t contain High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). There was, however, HFCS-free wheat pita- so I bought it instead…

I’ll survive just fine on organic oatmeal instead of toast, but the question remains: why does the food industry still insist on using an ingredient that customers are consciously, actively trying to avoid for sound, healthy reasons?

It’s obvious the food industry has caught on to our growing concern for dietary health and nutritional value. Take a stroll down your local grocery’s cereal aisle and you’ll see an interesting new phenomena- nutrition labeling on the front of cereal packaging. This ‘front of packaging labeling’ isn’t regulated by the FDA, and it’s being used to make unhealthy cereals appear healthier than they really are- by showcasing only selective nutrition information on the front of the package (you’ll find more info on front of package labeling here, and here). This unregulated nutrition info has been shown to decrease the likelihood that people will read the actual ingredients list or peruse the FDA regulated nutrition facts panel.  Instead of making cereal healthier, they’re making cereal look healthier.  Instead of removing corn syrup from our food, the Corn Refiners Association began  working to make corn syrup look healthier by lobbying to changing the name of High Fructose Corn Syrup to the more natural sounding name: Corn Sugar. The Corn Refiners Association has spent more than 30 million dollars to air a series of new commercials attempting to convince the general public that our bodies can’t tell the difference between real cane sugar and corn syrup- as long as it’s eaten in moderation. Experts, including “Sugar Shock” author Connie Bennett have argued that eating corn syrup in moderation is nearly impossible since it’s the cheapest and therefore most heavily and widely used sweetener on the market (it’s found in 2 out of every 3 items available in your local grocery store). It’s in our cereal, our pasta sauce, our baby formula… Instead of helping us eat healthier, live healthier, the Corn Refiners Association dropped 30million dollars to make corn syrup look healthier than it is. (You’ll find an interview with Connie Bennett discussing the disturbing truth about these 30 million dollar corn syrup ads via AdAge’s youtube)

At BlackDog, we know: The better you are, the better you look. Brands don’t live in vacuums, they impact, influence, and shape the world around us.  Imagine what 30million dollars could do if it wasn’t being wasted on deception and manipulative spin?

We don’t brand bullshit, and we don’t buy bullshit brands (on or off the clock).  We know, whenever we buy anything, we’re buying more than just the tangible items we’re walking out of a store with. Our dollars, whether they’re spend on branded sneakers, a pint of beer, or a donation to a local not-for-profit, are actively contributing to that organization’s continued existence- for better or worse. It’s time for us to switch our brand loyalty to the brands that are positively contributing to the world we want to live in 10, 20, 50 years down the line.

Progressive hospitals keep it real. Investing in meaningful strategies that tap the passions of working cultures is the only way to deliver persuasive differentiators and drive preference in any industry. Especially hospitals, where the lifting is heavy, the work is long, and the high call is “personal”.  Effective brand and patient experience programs must first find consensus within the organization.

BlackDog recognizes the work of Leebov Golde & Associates as a critical alignment tool linking strategy and expression. We fell in love with Wendy Leebov’s plain talk approach and her practical insights- both of which you’ll find below, in our 45 minute interview with the queen of patient care herself…

What does ‘patient-centered care’ mean to you?

Simply:  I am here FOR YOU.  YOUR best interest is my first priority.  I WANT to partner with you to ensure that your best interest and voice are at the center of everything I do.

If you could teach every hospital one lesson, what would it be?

Caring and COMMUNICATING caring are two different things.  We need to help the caring people on our teams EXPRESS their caring in every interaction.

What about your work do you find most rewarding?

Seeing the wonderful people who enter healthcare professions revive their passion for the work by communicating with caring and CONNECTING with the people they serve.  So beneficial for patients and families and so gratifying for the service provider/caregiver!

What are the most common mindsets and protocols you have to help hospitals overcome in order to help achieve patient-centered care?

The most difficult mindset is task-orientation.  People have racing minds.  Their to-do lists are flooding their consciousness.  This makes it impossible for them to connect to the PERSON behind the patient.

What do you say to skeptics who think focusing on patient experience distracts from hospital efficiency?

What good is an efficient hospital without satisfied patients, patient loyalty, a good reputation and referrals from satisfied consumers?  Also, happily, now hospital reimbursement depends in part on patient experience scores… so leaders are shooting themselves in the foot by NOT focusing on patient experience.  They will lose money.

Do you have a favorite example of a before and after patient experience scenario that helps articulate why patient-experience matters?

A patient cries out in pain, and a nurse says, “How would you rate the pain from 1 to 10?”  The Nurse WANTS to come up with the FIX for the pain, but does not communicate with empathy.  The patient experiences the nurse as hardened and unfeeling even though the nurse proceeds to remedy the pain.  If the nurse had said, “I’m sooo sorry you’re in pain and I want to help!  So, tell me, how would rate the pain, etc.”, then the patient would feel cared about and would perceive the nurse as caring and supportive.

How do you foster an internal hospital culture that shifts the collective focus from task-oriented to patient-centered at every nook and cranny touch point?

It takes a combination of work with leadership as standard setters and role models, revised job descriptions, performance review forms, etc., aligning recognition and reward, TRAINING because the skills for making your caring felt are not obvious even if you are TRYING to communicate your caring, reinforcement, practice, and a long-term attention to hardwiring caring communication into everyday routines. 

What are some of the oddball touch points that hospitals and caregivers frequently overlook?

Touchpoints where patient and family ANXIETY is significant.  Anxiety reduction is the most powerful driver of improvements in patient satisfaction.  Patients and families are fraught with anxiety and few organizations have pointedly developed communication protocols designed to prevent anxiety or ease it if it can’t be prevented.  Most communication protocols are fact and content-oriented….. and miss the boat on providing emotional support.

One example is handoff communication.  Usually there isn’t much of this, for instance, when a nurse is leaving and another coming on for their shift.  Patients become anxious.  “Who will be taking care of me now?  When will they show up?  Will they know what’s happening with me today?”  There needs to be (and increasingly there are) protocols for the handoff between shifts:  “Mrs. Harper, I’ll be leaving in a half hour.  Nancy Ford will be taking over for me and she is TERRIFIC!  Also, rest assured that I will talk with her before I leave so she knows what’s been going on for you today.  You’ll be in good hands with Nancy!”

What advice do you have for hospital employees who are advocating for changes in patient care and experience within the organization?

It’s usually either nurses or executive leaders who begin pushing for changes in patient care and experience.  Nurses and other patient-care advocates within the hospital are burdened with the task of making the case for how the organization will benefit from the changes, how the patients and families benefit, AND how the employees will benefit.

Patient-care advocates need to make the case that improving patient experience is a sustainable win-win for the people they serve and well as the organization.

Communicating caring and great patient care experiences promote healing are shown to produce clinical results. Care and communicating helps patients and their families feel more confident with the quality of care they’re receiving, feel better informed about the care and treatment they’re receiving, feel better prepared to speak up, and feel more able to participate in treatment and recovery planning and decision-making.

GREAT patient experiences also maximize value-based purchasing for the organization, builds a great reputation within the community which helps retain and attract patients and helps the hospital become provider of choice. For employees, Great patient care experiences and communicating caring helps make their work more gratifying, makes them more likely to devote energy and enthusiasm to their duties, and considerably improves job satisfaction and retention.

Tell me a bit about the role anxiety plays in determining patient experience.

In the past, too many improvement strategies were designed to make people happier, but when you’re sick you can only be so happy. At Disney, it matters that customers feel happy; in healthcare, what matters is that patients and families feel cared for.

Research conducted by the Jefferson University Hospital has shown the importance of anxiety reduction to patient experience. When patients’ anxiety levels are reduced they can concentrate on the information they’re being given, they’re able to ask better questions, they’re better able to retain information, they feel more confidence in their caregivers, and they’re more likely to partner with caregivers. Additionally, anxiety has been shown to interfere with healing and recovery- it matters for patient experience and HCAP scores, but it also matters for clinical outcomes.

Are there tools other than communicating caring that you frequently recommend to help reduce patient and family anxiety?

The specific skills that show caring help reduce anxiety. When the patient feels that you’re genuinely paying attention to their needs, they feel respected and they feel confident in their caregivers- they don’t feel judged, they feel safer.

Non-verbal communication is also very important. Sometimes people say things they think are caring but their non-verbal communication is conveying something else entirely- which creates anxiety. This is an especially common problem because medical professionals tend to be very task and outcome oriented- which can make them seem cold and hurried. Patients are getting a double message. Aligning non-verbal behavior with caring and communicating helps create trust, reduce anxiety, and improve patient experience.

Explaining Positive Intent is also important. Positive Intent means explaining how the activity a caregiver is about to perform is in the patient’s best interest. Saying you’re here to take vitals doesn’t say anything about how that activity is in the patient’s best interest- then the patient has to worry if something is wrong, or if they’re just being inconvenienced by a standard policy. If the caregiver instead explains that they’re here to check on you and make sure you’re well throughout the evening, the patient doesn’t have to experience anxiety- someone is paying attention to their specific needs, they aren’t lost in a big cold busy hospital system, and so on. Expressing emotional intent creates trust and reduces anxiety- it communicative that caring activities aren’t just policy- they’re caring activities in the patient’s best interests.

One of your specialties is “Horizontal hostility; coworker relationships”. Tell us a bit about horizontal hostility and how it affects GREAT patient care.

Staff members are relating to each other all day long, and the quality of those actions affect how staff members feel about their jobs all day long, which affects how they feel about patients.

Hostility and relational aggression among staff members has a disproportionate affect on the working culture- what helps is labeling it with the team. Managers need to explicitly address the issue and teams need to create signals so they can address horizontal hostility when it occurs. Team building strategies and communication routines within work teams help reduce horizontal hostility by addressing accountability with managers, creating a working culture that addresses issues proactively and is unintimidated to address the issue, and by creating a zero tolerance mentality.

We have one associate on our team who is a specialist in horizontal hostility specifically to work within hospital teams to help create a culture that’s supportive, that positively contributes to each others’ working experience, and works with a constructive team mentality.

What admirable staff characteristics help facilitate GREAT patient experiences?

I always assume people are caring people, and people just need to express their caring and make it felt. Emotional intelligence is an extremely valuable characteristic in great patient care, as is the ability to be emotionally generous (which requires that they be able to get outside themselves and listen to the needs of other people and act genuinely on behalf  of other people). Also: the ability to connect in a non-judgmental manner, the ability to listen, mindfulness, the ability to communicate effectively and providing effective explanations, responsiveness, the ability to take initiative and be proactive, the ability to anticipate people’s needs-  because patients shouldn’t HAVE to asked for everything they need, and the ability to connect with other people and help patients feel less alone.

Your website explains that “Nurse Communication” is the factor with greatest impact on patients’ overall hospital experience ratings. What are other common factors that have major influences on patient experience?

Great patient care is much more than confidently performing the tasks, and handling the information and treatment and plans in an effective way, it’s also the emotional aspects- the emotional aspects are vital to great patient care. People are relying on us for more than effective care, they’re relying on us for effective caring- because it makes them feel safe and confident. There are lots of things that we can’t fix, and people in healthcare are fixers by nature, but some medical conditions can’t be fixed. What we can always do is help people feel cared about, cared for, and less alone- it’s a vital part of providing great care.

That’s why, when you address caring and communication you DO see patient experience scores improve.

What questions are you asked most frequently by new and prospective clients?

1. “How do you hold people accountable?”

The answer is that managers on the front lines need to be engaged and be prepared to raise the bar with their staff. Managers need to be clear that they’re expecting more than clinic excellence- managers need to expect that clinical excellence be combined with caring and communicating caring. Managers also need to be responsible for coaching and feedback. Accountability is in the hands of frontline managers. So we do considerable coaching for mangers who are having trouble getting the results that the organization is looking for.

2. “How do you know you’re having an impact?”

Mostly our patients prove impact with their experience scores, and you can supplement that feedback with patient stories and a real-time feedback system so interventions can be made immediately when problems do arise to help make things right. It’s important to decide the methods you’re going to use to monitor impact and to set up the systems in advance so they work.

3. “Are these results sustainable?”

Everyone cares about sustainability.  Communicating caring usually sustains itself because IT WORKS.

To achieve sustainable results hospitals need to incorporate caring and communicating into job descriptions, they need to evaluate for it when they’re hiring, managers need to hold employees accountable, and ongoing training and focus on caring is essential. Managers absolutely need to refocus on caring and communicating, because the more you communicate with caring the better you get at it and the more satisfying your job becomes.

For more insights from Wendy, and more info on patient-centered care, we recommend signing up for Wendy’s monthly newsletter: HeartBeat on the Quality Patient Experience

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Links in this post

http://www.quality-patient-experience.com/wendy-leebov-e-zine.html

The hardest thing about Brand Development isn’t the time intensive research….

It isn’t being consistent yet flexible… innovative yet timeless.

The hardest thing about Brand Development isn’t creativity, charisma, social media, new marketing, old ideologies, fierce competition, or even too many cooks in the kitchen (although that is a much too oft encountered obstacle)… nope.

It isn’t over coming brain washing…. all those years of being told a brand is a logo, no… wait, a tag line… no…  an elevator pitch, an advertisement, a website, a banner, a name, a look, a campaign, a (___fill-in-the-blank___)… not those things either.

Nope… the hardest part is being explicit…

It’s precisely zeroing in on what really matters to your customers and  finding the guts to sing the glory of the story, explicitly, once you know it.

Successful brand development demands that an organization take the blinders off, put down the kool-aid, and walk tall and bold in the other guy’s shoes. Once you accurately identify the “pinch” your brand resolves…you’ve got to own it. Successful brands own their purpose, niche, cause, and message, explicitly.

Be precise about what you stand for and what you believe, where you’ve been and where you are going, what issues and values drive decisions, what you will and what you will not do. Be unequivocal about your purpose and absolute in your expectations.

A successful brand engagement should purpose to excavate an organization’s explicit brand:

• The kind of brand that transcends the conventional and continues to represent the foundation of the organization… it’s Big !dea.
• The kind of brand that connects employees, clients, customers and the public to the company’s mission, core competencies, differentiators, and powerful benefits through a carefully considered governing purpose, a meticulously crafted positioning statement, and a real “story” that means something to those you want to engage with your brand.
• The kind of brand that is unequivocally specific about what an organization does, how it’s done differently, why anyone should care, and what the company team and identity stand for.

You know…the kind of brand that literally double-dog dares customers, employees and partners not to choose it.

“Conscientious Objectives: Designing for an Ethical Message” by John Cranmer & Yolanda Zappaterra… An inspired look at the correlation between messaging, design, and social ergonomics. Cranmer and Zappaterra brilliantly tackle the design world’s accidental mantra: “if it looks good, it is good.” Written to fill a glaring gap, this book addresses the impact of design on ethical, sustainability-oriented, purpose-driven messaging.

“Guerrilla Advertising: Unconventional Brand Communication” by Gavin Lucas and Michael Dorrian… This book explores a varied array of noteworthy experimental campaigns that chose brand experience and guerrilla engagement over the same-old same-old way advertising had always been done. While a few of the examples depicted are likely to cause a well-deserved cringe, this read is guaranteed to get your creative cogs wheeling.

“Marketing Lessons From The Grateful Dead” By David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan… An easy reading case study on how the Grateful Dead broke the rules on purpose, for a purpose.

“This One Time At Brand Camp” by Tom Fishburne… The collected and cartooned satirical “What Not To Do” wit of Tom Fishburne, inspired by brand builders gone enthusiastically awry.

“The Elements of Content Strategy” by Erin Kissane… The charming, pink-haired, content-loving strategist we’ve come to know as @kissane has captured the nitty gritty how-to’s of content strategy and compiled them into a concise little manual that would make Strunk &White darn-right proud. A brilliant guide for accidental and aspiring content strategists alike.

“100 Best Annual Reports 2010” edited by B. Martin Pedersen… A collection of 100 annual reports that convey the brand, utilize design principles, and create distinction. If boring isn’t for you, this book might be.

For more reads we recommend, check out the Top Shelf  Part I.

“In ordinary times, most men and women do not have radical questions about their identity.” Sam Keen

“In every society, however, there are extraordinary men and women who, for a variety of reasons, stand outside the social consensus, shatter the norms, and challenge the status quo.” Sam Keen

BlackDog was founded for such a time as this. As we celebrate our 5th anniversary we recognize that the heroes’ path is far less lonely then it used to be. Reformers and pathfinders are challenging debunked definitions of success. Renegades and visionaries are juggling, rather than ignoring, the paradoxes, tensions, and contradictions that confound the sustainable way forward. Humanists and rebels are throwing off shallow pursuits and questioning the failed ideologies, values, and purposes that guided the past to where we are today. Revolutionaries are decoding the cost, merit, and value of business as a good citizen.

In the new world order –we are all paying attention to the very real fact that when business supports people* it profits. And when it doesn’t, sooner or later, it won’t.

BlackDog was launched with one purpose- to align organizations around identities and purposes that matter. In 5 extraordinary years that ideology has only deepened.  We are on the side of those fearlessly navigating the naysayers course; doing what can’t be done in the “real world” of the ordinary or the timid.

*employees, customers, investors and community

Narrativity: [nar-uh-tiv-uh-tee]: 1.) the degree to which your brand spunk, funk, credibility, attitude, and vibe shines through your messaging. 2.) Your voice, your verbiage, your tone.

While preparing for a wine-touring camping trip to Watkins Glen, I began perusing the websites of the nearby Seneca Lake wineries and plotting my prioritized must-see, must-visit list for the alcohol-inspired excursion. I was frustrated to find that, with a mere handful of exceptions, every winery’s website looked and sounded the same, and they all lacked personality, pizzazz, and panache. Armed with an adventurous spirit, I finally gave up pre-planning my wine trail route, and decided to wing the whole experience. I visited several wineries I liked, several I very much didn’t, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d accidentally by chance driven right past my dream winery and missed my one chance at true varietal bliss.

If every brand looks and sounds the same, has same perspective, purpose, product, it doesn’t matter which winery you visit or which brand you choose. The one is as good as the other, and if you’ve had one you’ve had them all. If you’re distinct, worthy of note, and you hide behind  the same humdrum look, feel, sound, and practice as everyone else, no one will ever know you’re worthy of their time or attention. When everyone is just a different shade of beige, popped from the same drone mold, we’re all being robbed of an opportunity for preference and our worlds all have a little less color in them. Boring is thievery by complacency.

Narrativity is one of the ways bold brands with a story to tell differentiate their experience, brighten their color spectrum, and tell their too-good-for-boring tale. Your brand’s story is made up of your brand’s real-life, day to day, actions, decisions, products, events, partnerships, sponsors. It’s who you are, how you work, what you do, and why you do it.  Narrativity is the voice, tone, and verbiage you use to tell that vivid, appealing, authentic story. Narrativity is like a person’s distinct vocabulary and speech pattern. It’s the words and phrases you own, and it’s what makes you sound like you, instead of just like everybody else.

Here are a few examples of vibrant, saucy brands that have high degree of Narrativity:

Urban Daddy: A racy, random, irreverent city guide for liquor drinking, women loving, wannabe jet owning, good humored James Bond types the world over. After reading an article or three from Urban Daddy, you and your grandmother could both pick their work out of a line up blind-folded (if it was being read aloud).

Harley-Davidson: Harley doesn’t sell motorcycles, they sell freedom, self-expression, great escapes, and the open road. Harley’s “grab life by the bars”, “leave well enough behind”, “out to free the world” attitude is captured in and on everything from their advertisements to their annual reports.

Kraken Rum: This edge-of-the-world nautical brand is steeped in legend and only distilled for the fearless, seafaring, adventuring, unshaven at spirit. Once you’ve heard a Kraken ad, you can’t help but read the Kraken bottle and the Kraken story using their narrator’s speech pattern- it’s that alluring and distinctive. Kraken’s tone is so consistently conveyed with such a distinctive verve that their narrator’s voice and their content’s verbiage isn’t ever separate from the story, it’s part of their story.

For a sneak peek at Kraken’s vivid storytelling in action, check out their tale of the man-eating, ship-wreaking, sea-monster The Kraken, via their website.

Coffee Fool: Coffee Fool comes with a warning: their coffee is so fresh and delicious, everything else will taste bland and stale in comparison. What the warning doesn’t mention is that everything’ll look and sound bland in comparison as well. While other coffee roasters talk in coffee-speak about notes and tones and soils and geographies, these guys have a style all their own…. An example: the description for their only-brewed-on-Fridays flavor, Vanillamykahlua, proclaims it: “Tastes just like it sounds, with a little Hawaiian rumble in the jungle.” And the description for their knock-your-socks off bacon-flavored brew: “If everything tastes better with bacon, then why not coffee too? Our bacon flavor is not just roasted – it’s spit roasted. It’s so aromatic, you’ll be instant friends with your work colleagues and … any neighborhood dogs.”

How will I know when it’s time to brand or re-brand? What are the signs?

If we agree that a brand is simply the central organizing principle that engages teams internally and customers externally then it makes sense to “evolve” your brand when your business is ready to evolve. When a significant change in course is required to remain competitive or kick up the game.

• You’ve evolved to the point of mission creep. No one knows what we really do around her. An evolved brand strategy clarifies the meaningful strategic course and the purpose.

• When you need to close the gap between what you do and what customers think that you do.

• When you decide to differentiate by more than price and function (the easiest differentiators to copy).

• When you have a story worth talking about, worth listening to, and worth supporting.

• To develop the company culture and attract likeminded, zealous, inspired talent that shares your values and purpose.

• To increase the value and effectiveness of your marketing strategies.

• To build trust with your customers.

• When a new competitor with a value-loaded proposition is storming your market, reducing your once “owned” differentiation to a cost-of-entry benefit, usurping your brand position, and muting your relevance.

• Your organization is ready to enter new markets with a disruptive and powerful proprietary advantage that changes the strategic game.

• Your products perform better in independent testing against your two biggest competitors. Yet, they smoke you in sales. How can you have lagging sells with a winning product?

• You have acquired competitors. The infighting is impeding the market penetration.

• You are hoping to secure venture capital for your big ambitions. But the feedback indicated that you had a confusing message and a vague image.

• Once upon a time brands weren’t necessary in your industry. Your reputation was your strategic advantage for years. Things have changed. New players pushing a sharp brand are gobbling up the best and brightest and nabbing the deals to be had.

• Your industry has changed, the people involved have evolved, and the business has morphed. You need a cohesive brand to align the new direction, the evolution, reflect the relevance and introduce your Big !dea.

• Your brand has been gauging your carbon footprint up and down the value chain: adopting minimal packaging standards, innovating efficient delivery, and advertising models. You are now recognized as a forerunner in the sustainability economy. This opens whole new worlds to you…if you let people know what you stand for.

• Your brand is recognized as a great employer; your superior work culture has been honored with national awards. You want to build your employee engagement, programs, and success into your brand story in the hopes of recognizing your working community of contributors and attracting top talent.

• When it’s time to quit spinning a tagline and your wheels.When you are ready to strut your thought leading, game changing, taking care of people and business, big-bold, strategic innovations.

It’s time to evolve your brand when you are ready to turn it up and on.