Building a brand is hard. Well, that’s not totally true. Building something that people love and that will endure more than a few years is hard. Building something that you think is a brand but that no one else finds compelling is rather easy actually. But ultimately that isn’t a brand. It’s a product. Products can be great, but products can be copied. It’s nearly impossible to copy a brand, because a brand comes from within the people who created it. Even if another group of people tried to build the same brand the best they could do is be inspired by that brand. Different people can never create the same brand. Therefore brand is a competitive advantage. A really good one at that. That might sound a bit loosey goosey but if that’s the case it’s just because you think building a brand is some sort of magically process or driven by guesswork and luck. It happens all the time. Ralph Lauren, Patagonia, Stance Socks, Warby Parker, Nike, Porsche, Bonobos. They, and many many more, have done it so there is obviously a process behind it. And you can’t say it’s all based on the product. Because, except for Porsche, all the examples I listed started out with relatively basic and simple products. They created brands because they made people feel something.
So how does this work? I don’t have a one-size-fits-all answer but I have picked up some ideas from studying the companies that have done it right. I split up my notes into Brand and Non-Brand not (Good Brand and Bad Brand) because I don’t think there is such think as a bad brand. Either you built a brand or you didn’t. It’s a bit binary. Either people love the company and have an emotional reaction to everything you do or they don’t care and see you as transactional. Why is is a company like Method or Nest so compelling? Because they built brands where there was previously just transactional products.
A brand….
- Launches with one item (not necessarily one product)
- Initially solves one use case (one item) as determined by the customer purchasing pattern - pants, shoes, ties, shaving
- Starts with a singular focus but provide enough variety and options to 1) give something for every customer to feel like they can get something they like, and 2) to create an engaging and interesting experience that isn’t flat, boring, one-dimensional, etc.
- Feels larger than the company actually is at the start in order to inspire purchasing confidence
- Understands the psychology behind the purchasing decisions in their product category, and cater their product, product roadmap and customer experience to that end motivation
- Understands that no one wants to buy from an also-ran. People want to feel unique in the purchases but they want to believe that they are not buying low quality, or amateur stuff
A non-brand…
- Doesn’t just feel niche, or underground, but they feel small and don’t inspire confidence in quality or fulfillment.
- Have a flat experience that isn’t exciting, engaging or dynamic
- Poorly present poor products (expounding on their weakness)
- Allows ambiguity around who they are built for / use case of their products
- Does things at launch that reinforce their smallness, but not in an endearing way that builds underground support
- Doesn’t inspire or push people to believe/dream/want to be more
