One of the biggest opportunities I see in the world of start-ups and entrepreneurs is a greater focus on Brand Building. I don’t mean a bigger focus on advertising or PR. And I don’t even mean a bigger focus on the broader term “marketing.” I mean a bigger focus on putting the time, money and sweat into taking a systematic approach to…
…treat your company like the brand it really is.
Now the entrepreneurs among you might scoff at this statement. You might even be thinking that the guy writing this hasn’t lived the life of a start-up so what does he know. After all, a career spent at the world’s largest Consumer Packaged Goods company means a world where there are plenty of resources available to “build the brand.” Start-ups do not have time for this when they are trying to keep the lights on, just trying to survive and thrive.
I’m sorry to say, but if you are thinking that, you are missing the point all together.
Over the past two years, my work has thrown me head first into the world of Consumer Internet. On any given day, my meetings are as likely to be with an entrepreneur or Venture Capitalist as they are to be with another Brand Manager or Advertising Agency. Ironically my degree from college was in Marketing AND Entrepreneurship so these contrasting interactions are actually comforting.
And it is in these interactions that I have started to form my opinion about the need for start-ups to invest in building brands, not just products.
First a definition: what exactly do I mean by “building brands?” Keep in mind that brands really came to prominence in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, where brands were a way for people to tell the consistency of a product. So by one definition, a brand is…
a set of perceptions and images that represent a company, product or service. While many people refer to a brand as a logo, tag line or audio jingle, a brand is actually much larger. A brand is the essence or promise of what will be delivered or experienced.
Think about that for a second. You and a colleague have an amazing idea for a company. You figured out the name and your co-founder created what you think is a pretty cool logo. And you even came up with a tagline that you just love the sound of.
But have you really thought about your start-up, your idea as if it was a brand?
Have you thought about how your “brand” will be a promise to consumers? Have you crafted the Brand Visual Identity? Have you outlined the Brand Equity that you want? These things aren’t just buzzwords that keep Brand Managers and Agency Executives employed. They are the tools that a great Brand Builder uses to create and sustain iconic brands like Nike, Coca-Cola and Tide.
With this in mind, I think there is a need in our industry for translators, people that can apply the principles and discipline of Brand Building to the world of entrepreneurship. Examples are out there for sure. Pete Blackshaw was one when he left P&G to start Planet Feedback. And Bessemer Ventures just hired a translator (whether they realize it or not) as they bring Jason Putorti on-board to be a Designer in Residence and help portfolio companies build “simple, intuitive, and engaging web sites.” And Dave McClure was calling for the need for translators in his self-proclaimed rant that “More than half of all startups, and easily 9 out of 10 investors have no clue regarding .) user experience or 2) internet marketing.”
Brand Marketers realize that a brand is more than a name, fancy logo or marketing plan. A brand is about the product AND the user experience AND the marketing AND many, many other things.
Simply put, when Brand Building really works the way it is suppose to, the sum is greater than the parts.
So if you are a start-up, I would encourage you to start thinking about your brand today, not tomorrow. If you are VC, I would push you to sit down with your portfolio and ask how they are thinking about their brand. The opportunity is ripe for the leaders out there to embrace brand building in the start-up world.
And in full admission, traditional Brand Builders can learn plenty from start-ups as well. We need our own set of Translators to help us in the journey. But that is a subject for another post all together.
Tags: Brand Building, start-up
Great post! We share many of the same thoughts
Startup branding helps brings credibility to a startups customer, investor and partner relationships. For me its about a constient message – as you say through "the product AND the user experience AND the marketing AND many, many other things." Also branding doesn'nt require big PR budgets. In a startup brand personality means the founder’s personality and the commitment to delivering that constient message.
I see see the value in startup branding but I'm not sure many other founders do and are willing to put the time and effort into it – here's my thoughts
http://nickpoint.co.uk/2009/08/19/do-startups-rea...
http://nickpoint.co.uk/2009/09/17/what-the-heck-i...
Very straight to the point, Dave. Both you and Dave McClure have made calls for startups to begin thinking outside the code which is what we will need to do to survive.
Dave, as the director of marketing at a web startup, I wrote a whitepaper for the founders asking the question whether the property was to be "a technology, community or a brand." Technology changes and is easily replicated. Communities change because people are simultaneously predictable and unpredictable. But brands, ah, they are different. If tightly managed around a consistent promise – a brand can change to meet the needs of customers and prospects, while still holding place of value in their minds.
Brand plan first, use the technology to deliver the promise and the community will follow. (Sadly, the key founder opted to be a "technology" company and the property is no more.)
Brennan – I think you are taking my point the wrong way. especially when you claim on Twitter that "marketers" don't get it. What I am calling for is for start-ups to take a page from the world of CPG and leverage some of the classical principles of Brand Building as early as possible. I'm not talking marketing, I am talking brand building which involves a whole lot more.
When you look at the list of the world's most valuable brands (http://www.interbrand.com/best_global_brands.aspx... only one company makes the list that was started in the past decade (Google). And if you go back two decades, only 3 companies make the list (Google, eBay and Amazon).
There is a reason that 97 of the worlds most valuable brands were started decades and the have staying power to remain relevant. The same opportunity exists for many start-ups if they have the approach of building a brand that will last. It might not be right for everyone, but it will be right for many companies
The semantics of whether brand building is a specialization within the wider field of marketing aside, are you arguing that because few recent companies show up on the top 100 brands list, that that's proof that startups don't focus enough on brand building? Correlation is not causation. Don't you think it's more likely that building a top 100 global brand takes a long long time to build? And, how many startups do you know go GLOBAL in their first 10 years?
Also, what about the points I made? I'm telling you that founders ARE trying to leverage classic principles of brand building. Look at consumer internet startups like like Tumblr, Mint, Foursquare, Etsy, Meetup – all of them got to where they are because they sold their "brand" very well. Talk about having a loyal fan base.
So when you posit that founders haven't "really thought about (their) start-up, (their) idea as if it was a brand" and that they're not thinking about brand "today, not tomorrow" I just wonder what your proof is? It just seems out of touch with all the founders I'm familiar with.
Have you ever read "Four Steps to the Epiphany"? I'll admit, I'm not deeply trained in brand marketing, but I imagine you will find a lot of principles in that book similar to the classic brand principles you refer to. (feel free to point me to a resource too because my interest in this discussion stems from my interest in learning more to help my startup)
I disagree with the premise that startup founders aren't thinking about their brand all the time. It's a little insulting.
Founders have been reading guys like Dave McClure for a while. Even 37 signals' book "Getting Real" teaches founders to pick a brand promise. You can't make critical feature decisions without it.
The problem is, companies pivot (My startup Pocket Tales is hardly the only example of this http://manindyarena.com/post/392772905/the-old-ru... ) As Steve Blank would say, your hypothesis about what your brand promise should be is going to change during the Customer Discovery and Validation stages.
So the question most entrepreneurs are faced with isn't DO we need to focus on our brand. It's HOW MUCH and WHEN.
If an entrepreneur started talking to me about "Brand Visual Identity" and "Brand Equity" I'd worry for his or her business.
Startups have no brand. Furthermore, nobody cares about their brand. Nor can you make them. People want a service or product that solves a problem quickly and easily. Do that and you have Brand Equity instantly. With the exception of search, Google has TERRIBLE user interfaces, is ugly, and basically has no brand (and does no branding) at all – yet is so useful that ubiquity followed in spite of those flaws.
My advice to an entrepreneur is NOT to waste time thinking about a brand that doesn't and might never exist, but instead to focus on understanding your customer's needs, over-communicating, and recognizing (as was pointed out earlier) that a product pivot will likely wrench your business in a completely different direction in the very near future.
Is marketing important for startups? Sure. Do they do messaging badly? Yep. Do many startups suffer from ugly baby syndrome? Definitely. But suggesting that high level brand thinking should come before sleeves-rolled grunt work and customer discovery is, in my experience, silly. Silly and dangerous.
If Coca-Cola had taken your advice and thought long and hard about how best to build its brand, it would today be a forgotten but very well branded patent medicine dispensed in soda fountains. My point is of course that startups need to stay lean, humble, and ready to change everything about their company in an instant.
This is not coming from a coder. I'm a recovered agency creative who has worked in and with Canada's startup industry and ecosystem for the past four years. Imo, branding is a by-product of good design and incredible customer service. I meet too many founders who think they have the 'next big thing' and create a very nice user experience and draw up deep plans for their 'brand' of world domination.
Thing is, they forget to make a product that does something useful first.
Very well said.