Would you trust him with $100/mo?
A homeless man, a What Not to Wear makeover, and the feeling your brand is already giving off.
Part 1 of 5. This week I’m putting what I believe about brand in writing, one question a day.
A brand is not a logo. A brand is not a corporate identity system. It’s a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company. Because it depends on others for its existence, it must become a guarantee of trustworthy behavior. Good branding makes business integral to society and creates opportunity for everyone, from the chief executive to the most distant customer.
— Marty Neumeier, The Brand GapNot the logo, not the colors, not the PDF your agency sent over. It’s the emotional resonance people have toward you, and once they’ve felt it, they come back to feel it again. At its core a brand is consistent delivery of a feeling worth repeating.
Whether you like it or not, a feeling is already being generated. Everyone who lands on your site or opens your deck walks away feeling something about you. You don’t get to opt out, but you get to decide whether you’re steering it in the direction you want.
Veering off course
This usually goes wrong in one of two ways.
The first is the guy on the left.
Same man in both photos. Same eyes, same face, nothing about who he is changed between the two frames. But if I was to ask you, "Which man would you trust with $100/mo?" you’d trust the one on the right more, instantly, before you knew a single thing about either of them.
That’s the brand that looks haggard. Ugly images and pixelated screenshots, a clunky UX, a site that looks malnourished and, perhaps, a bit crazy.
Regardless of their innate value, nobody sticks around long enough to see it because the outside is telling them "Don't waste your time, I don't even value myself enough to be presentable."
The second is a before and after from What Not to Wear circa ~2008 (don’t judge me, I have a sister who got her turn to watch TV just as much as I did).
That’s Denise, a flight attendant from season 8. She isn’t ugly, she's just... a lot.
Platinum hair fit for a toy, makeup caked on so thick you could scoop it with Fritos, three strands of pearls with a brooch on top, sequins, and showing off her feminine assets in way that says "I'm easy."
The shows co-hosts had a freaking field day.
Clinton Kelly told her, “It seems that you’ve developed this character, and that you’re playing this role of Denise.” Stacy London was less gentle and, straight up, said she looked like “a bubble-headed bimbo.”
Yikes.
From what I remember (and granted this was twenty years ago), she seemed to be perfectly lovely and completely trustworthy, but her outside and her inside are in a head-on collision. She bore the look of someone inviting a one-night stand, not someone you’d bring home to mom. Even a 12-year old boy was attune to that.
That’s the brand that let AI make it “cooler,” and now it’s playing a character too. A gradient, then an amorphous 3D blob, interactions out the yin-yang, topped with a swashed serif because, why the heck not?
None of it is ugly. All of it says: we’re desperate for your attention and your money, just look at our sparkles and cleavage. It might garner a free trial, but it will never earn respect or enduring passion.
True North
When the feeling is steered, though, it becomes the biggest trust signal you have. A consistent feeling is a promise: we are who we are, and you can count on us showing up this way forever. You are rooted enough to help others solve their problems because you look like you've already taken care of yourself.
People don’t hand their money or their team’s time, to a company that earned a vote of no confidence upon introduction.
So... the question isn’t whether you have a brand, you definitely do. The question is whether the feeling it generates is helping you or quietly harming you.
Look at your homepage. Go on, look.
Do they see a company with soul and pride, capable of forming an opinion they will hold under pressure and designing a product that will truly make a positive dent in their universe? Or do they see something broken and unsure of itself?
The good news: you can have it go either way. It is a choice.
— Zach
