Member Article

Brand is to organisation as character is to human.

Your organisation works to deliver for its audience. Your brand is the reason they’re your audience. The human body is a wonderful thing, hundreds of individual parts all working together, in synchronisation, to make the body work. All functional elements that make a body ‘tick’. Everything you need right? Well, let’s put it another way.

Would you want to hang out with a completely functional friend? Probably not – they’d never want to get ice cream for a start.

Think about your friends, (your real friends, not your social media ones). What you like, and love about them is their Character, which comes from the choices they’ve made and the experiences they’ve had. They’re honest with you. They’re there when you need them, and they’re always themselves. They grow and change with time and experience. (And often, they’re not perfectly functioning human bodies.)

Organisations, and ‘brand’, are pretty similar. A great organisation will run smoothly. Each department knows what it does, and does it well. All functional elements that make an organisation ‘tick’. But, just like the human body, who’d want to interact with a completely functional organisation?

Brand is the character which comes from the choices the organisation has made and the experiences it’s had.

What you like, and love about an organisation is their ‘character’. They’re honest with you. They’re there when you need them, and they’re always themselves. Sure they grow and change with time and experience. (And often, they’re not perfectly functioning organisations. They are only human after all.)

Often your organisations brand is based on the founders actions and beliefs, but over time, as organisations grow, brand becomes diluted due to the number of staff, each one a representing the brand, whether they know it or not.

Consider your organisation and it’s character. Would you want to get ice cream with it?

Brand is an ever present part of every organisation. Make sure you understand, and communicate yours clearly.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Wonderstuff .