Brand and The Search For Meaning

I’ve been doing Brand work off and on, in some capacity, for about a decade.

Most of the time I didn’t think of it or call it Brand work. In retrospect, it’s obvious to me now that it was.

Brand, for too long, has been placed inside of the marketing department and, over time, has come to be synonymous with visual identity (colors, fonts, logos, etc). So before we go any deeper into this subject, we all need to be on the same page. While visual identity is component of Brand, the discipline of Brand is about substantially more than that.

Here’s how I define Brand…

Brand is anything dealing with what a company says about itself, what others say about it, how it actually functions across the business to deliver products and services, as well as the intersection between any or all of these factors.

So, yeah…pretty much everything is Brand work.

Fish 1: How’s the water?

Fish 2: What the hell is water?

The aspect of this work that I find most fascinating is the process of constructing a cohesive and unified Brand. That is, a business where what they say about themselves, is backed up by what they actually do, and is aligned with what others say about them.

So, how do we do it?

Most brands are built, either as an afterthought, or an exercise in rationalizing their visual design after the fact. A better approach is to plant the seed of a single idea and see that it grows until its presence is felt in every aspect of the company.

Regardless of how one goes about building a brand, I would argue that the process itself is, in many ways, the company’s search for meaning.

Raison d’être

When I begin working with a client and start asking about their purpose, one of two things usually happens.

1. They tell me the most literal answer possible: that their purpose is to make money.
2. They tell me the most uninspired answer ever: which is to rephrase what they do as a purpose.

Since every business, by definition, is required to make money, that is not its purpose but rather a condition of its existence.

Since every business offers something in exchange for money, fulfilling that service or delivering that product, is not purpose, no matter how you rephrase it.

The work of Brand, it’s not a “wordsmithing” exercise to explain in flowery terms how a business makes money. It is not to hide the fact that businesses must generate revenue. The work of Brand is to communicate clearly:

• what a company does (solution)
• how the company is unique (differentiation)
• what the company values (purpose, mission, beliefs, values)
• what customers, employees, vendors, shareholders, and other stakeholders should expect

When done well, this creates an entity with clear positioning and the exact same association in the minds of everyone who touches the Brand. Volvo didn’t become associated with safety by accident (pardon the pun). It was a deliberate commitment to making safety a part of not only their messaging and marketing, but in how they run the company. They are one of the most widely cited examples in Brand conversations for a reason.

So how do we find meaning in our companies?

The Search for Meaning

There’s no easy way to do this, but here is a great place to start.

• Since all companies need to make money, let’s take money off the table for a moment.
• Since all companies sell products, services, or platforms/marketplaces, let’s take that off the table, too. The meaning of your company cannot be just the delivery of the thing you offer.

Now, consider what you do, and think about all of the reasons you would still do it, if you had to do it for free.

• What benefit would it bring to the world?
• Who would it help?
• How would it help them?
• Why is it important?

Keep asking why until you get to the bottom of it. You need to figure this out, because at the bottom of this deep dive, is the thing that must supersede profit. It is the seed you will plant to grow your beautiful brand.

The Danger of Meaningless

When you see United Airlines breaking guitars and dragging people off planes, or Uber’s laundry list of sexual harassment and hyper capitalist policies, or any other company you can quickly recall that has received bad press, at its core, the reason for their failures is always the same: Brand.

• What sort of Brand Promise do you think Uber codified, put into practice, and stood by when it allowed surge pricing on New Year’s Eve to charge customers hundreds of dollars for a short ride lasting only a few minutes?
• What company values were they honoring when United CEO stated “our agents were left with no choice” but to call security to remove the passenger after dragging passenger David Dao from one of their planes?

These companies didn’t do the work to think about what they value more than money. They had no North Star guiding them toward making an impact, no mission held more sacred than creating shareholder value.

This is why we don’t trust companies when they make grandiose statements about DEI initiatives or climate change initiatives unless they have the receipts to back up their words. Companies without a clear Brand, rarely have the receipts because what they believe is dictated by trends or what makes smart business sense right now. If there is no conviction or deeper purpose, the Brand will be shallow and incapable of driving true emotional loyalty from customers or employees.

Find your North Star

Brands can find meaning by committing to the process. Searching for, discovering, and then aligning everything around a single purpose, triggers a chain reaction where every aspect of the business begins to have context. Decisions happen faster, campaigns practically design themselves, and sales conversations become much easier. When a Brand finds its purpose, it discovers its true identity.

While most companies treat branding like a change of clothes, the reality is, it’s a declaration of who they want to be that comes at the end of a long process in their search for meaning.