Watch Your Statements

Make your brand identity and your marketing statements deliver deep meaning to your audience.

It’s tough keep up with all the different types of marketing and brand statements needed by all the PR, marcom, and advertising folks. Here’s a brief summary of the brand identity construct with the value proposition, positioning statement, mission statement, elevator statement (or pitch), and vision statement. I have tried to describe whether internally or externally focused—and how to simply write them.

The way I remember this stuff is that Brand Identity/Business Strategy is the core of your business and is not one statement—but a number of constructs—that taken together give a rich representation of your brand (below is one for Virgin) .

Within the brand identity, we find the brand essence or the soul of an organization; the core identity, those 2-4 critical associations that define the core values, promise, and key differentiation of a company; the extended identity, where we bring in personality, leadership associations and symbols to provide richness and texture to an often terse core identity. We also have the important value proposition, with its functional, emotional, and self-expressive elements and we have the customer-brand relationship construct.

So what is your Brand Identity/Business Strategy, in its simplist form? It’s is a bullet list of associations and dimensions, that when viewed together, builds a differentiated picture reflecting top management’s promise to customers. Dimensions include the long-term, strategic elements that must be generated by the CEO and/or CMO that will build brand equity in contrast to the short-term tactical model of managing brand images—usually left to outside agencies.

Examples of elements included in Brand Identity/Business strategy are strategic vision, corporate culture and differentiation. Companies collect stories, write books and create videos and internal learning training programs (such as Nordstrom) to make their bullet list of brand identity/business strategy associations come alive to teach new hires.

Virgin Brand Identity

Brand Essence

• Iconoclasm

Core Identity

• Service Quality

            Consistent best-of-category quality delivered with fun and flair

• Innovation

            First with truly innovative value-added features and services

• Fun and Entertainment

A fun and entertaining company

• Value for money

Provide value in all its offerings, never just the high-priced option

Extended identity        

• Underdog

Fighting the established bureaucratic firm with new creative offerings

• Personality
  • flaunts the rules
  • Sense of humor, even outrageous
  • Underdog, willing to attack the establishment
  • Competent, always does a good job, high standards
• Virgin Symbols
  • Branson and his perceived lifestyle
  • Virgin blimp
  • Virgin script logo

Value Proposition

• Functional Benefits
  • A value offering with quality, plus innovative extras delivered with flair and humor
• Emotional benefits
  • Pride in linking with the underdog with an attitude
  • Fun, good times
• Self-Expressive benefits
  • Willingness to go against the establishment

Relationship                                     

• Customers are fun companions

Brand Leadership by David A. Aaker and Erich Joachimshtaler

The point is that if your employees get a clear message of organizational priorities, they can make day-to-day decisions reflecting them and present a clear, consistent experience to customers. I recommend that you read Brand Leadership by David A. Aaker and Erich Joachimshtaler to get lots of ideas on how to elaborate on and present your brand identity/business strategy. As I mentioned though, I believe company stories are the single most powerful way to clarify your brand and make it stick in the minds of all your stakeholders.

Positioning statements

A positioning statement is a brief, but very accurate, message that explains what a company is, what it does and most important, how it’s different from competitors. A positioning statement is externally focused.

A positioning statement is a challenging exercise for many reasons, including: (1) the statement must place a company within context of the external “system” it already occupies; (2) the competition must be the reference point, (3) the statement has to be brief (because people have very short attention spans) and (4) every part must be defensible.

The fact that a company has a positioning statement means it’s been able to reach consensus about how it views and talks about itself. If you can’t agree on a simple, defensible way to talk about your company, then how do you ensure a common frame of reference, a common purpose, a common view?

The positioning statement template of choice was authored by Geoffrey Moore. The framework goes like this:
For (target customers)
Who (have the following problem)
Our product is a (describe the product or solution)
That provides (cite the breakthrough capability)
Unlike (reference competition),
Our product/solution (describe the key point of competitive differentiation)

Here’s a filled-in template Moore developed for SGI years ago when they were at their peak:
For movie producers and others
Who depend heavily on post-production special effects,
Silicon Graphics provides computer workstations
That integrate digital fantasies with actual film footage.
Unlike any other vendor of computer workstations,
SGI has made a no-compromise commitment to meeting film-makers’ post-production needs.

Mission statements

Mission statements have been the rage within corporations for years because they unify employees around a common set of goals and objectives. A mission statement is a corporation’s mantra, its raison d’etre. It describes the overall purpose of an organization.

Some mission statements are quite elaborate. Mission statements don’t usually address the issue of competitive differentiation which is the heart and soul of a positioning statement. A mission statement can also include a company’s value system. Mission statements often become visible externally.

Mission Statement example:
The American Red Cross is a humanitarian organization, led by volunteers, that provides relief to victims of disasters and helps people prevent, prepare for and respond to emergencies.

Elevator statements

An elevator statement is the shortest possible explanation of “what a company does.” The term refers to a person’s ability to tell a stranger—in an elevator between floors —what their company does with brevity and accuracy. A classic elevator statement would take one minute to say. Positioning statements can be used to develop brief elevator statements.
Here’s a great example from Volvo abbreviating the Moore positioning template:

“For safety conscious car buyers, Volvo is the automobile provider that keeps you and your family safe.”

Vision statements

A vision statement is aspirational. Unlike a positioning statement, it does not focus on defining who your company is or how it’s different. It is not internally focused like a mission statement. Rather, it focuses on a definition of what the company is trying to be and achieve.

Talk about a vision statement with vision! The following was written in 1888 by Northwestern Mutual Life (The Quiet Company). Note how the statement is aspirational:
“The ambition of Northwestern has been less to be large than to be safe; its aim is to rank first in benefits to policy owners rather than first in size.”

Here’s a vision statement by Levi Strauss:
“We all want a company that our people are proud of and committed to, where all employees have an opportunity to contribute, learn, grow and advance based on merit, not politics or background. We want our people to feel respected, treated fairly, listened to and involved. Above all, we want satisfaction from accomplishments and friendships, balanced personal and professional lives, and to have fun in our endeavors.”