Part IV. Learn
In Part II, we laid out a basic set of brand components that need to be tested against reality. We proceeded to test how well they triggered conversion in Part III. At this point, you should have answered questions such as:
Does our communications strategy reach the desired audience and convert new customers?
Does our brand story resonate well with the needs and aspirations of those we seek to convert?
Do our visual symbols generate the right impression and convey the correct meanings about our brand, attracting viewers into following desired action path (convert)?
In this section, we will synthesize our learning, pivot in new directions based on the data we’ve collected, and produce a working version of a brand that we can continue to build on.
Looking back at our Brand Learning Log (introduced in Part II), the gray area is where we should find ourselves.
Using everything that we’ve learned thus far, this section will show you how to pivot each of your brand components based on those lessons:
- Brand rechannel (Chapter 9)
Which brand communication channels should we select, based on our target audience’s preferences?
- Brand reposition (Chapter 10)
Which elements of our brand story do not resonate well with our audience, hinder customer acquisition, and need to be changed? How can we go about doing this?
- Brand redesign (Chapter 11)
Which brand symbols dissuade or confuse new customers and need to be redesigned? How can we go about doing this?
The Lean Branding Map: Empathize with Your Brand
A helpful way to visualize our validated brand components—those we’ve built and tested so far—is to map them out. If you’ve followed the process in Chapter 1 through Chapter 8, filling out the following Lean Branding Map shouldn’t be difficult.
Lay out the components that you’ve tested so far using sticky notes. This allows us to move them around and remove them as necessary. You can use a highlighter to signal components that have been tested, and another one to point out those that need further testing. This map should be visible to you and your team as you build, measure, and learn during the brand development process. If you created the Brand Wall we talked about in Chapter 3, make sure the most updated version of this map is pinned onto that surface.
Sometimes we fall in the trap of thinking that only the marketing and design teams need to be inspired and surrounded by brand elements. In fact, the more stakeholders know about what your brand stands for, the easier it will be for everyone to get on board and bring those symbols, story, and strategy to life.
That is precisely the purpose of the Lean Branding Map: to capture these brand elements so that everyone on your team can truly understand the story that you are building in the marketplace. This “understanding” is no different from the way we try to empathize with customers when we go outside and observe or interview them. The only difference is that now you and your stakeholders use this tool to empathize with the brand. To identify with it, put yourself in the brand’s shoes, know when it fails and when it wins—to truly live up to the brand.
Resistance to Change: Brand Friction
One of the key problems with iterating, evolving, and learning as your brand grows is something I call brand friction. You’ve been carrying around a fixed set of assets (files, documents, videos) for so long that the mere thought of changing (each and every one of) them terrifies you.
You’ve probably wondered about (and feared) any or all of the following:
Will the market see me as “inconsistent”? (The idea here is to change the symbols and story only when necessary and strategy whenever possible.)
Will I confuse the press? How can I pass on the news?
Will customers be completely unable to recognize my brand anymore?
How will I communicate this change to all of my team members?
How can I communicate this change to existing and new customers?
How can I share the new assets (story, symbols, strategy) with as little trauma as possible?
Behind these fears lies a two-sided sword that we’ve come to know as “consistency.” Let me tell you a few words about brand consistency. It is true, and has been proved repeatedly, that consumers learn to recognize brands over time when their symbols and stories have been positioned steadily. You know what the “Happiest Place on Earth Is” or what a giant yellow arched M stands for. You probably can figure out what social network is behind a light blue bird and what superstore is represented by a red bull’s-eye.
We know these things because we have been conditioned to relate them.
Consistency is important because it helps us establish our brand’s longstanding message to the world and build the right associations that consumers use to recognize us. It is dangerous because a consistency obsession, on the other hand, can trap us in a strategy where little or no brand learning is taking place. As you think about your own brand’s consistency, ponder this for a bit:
No brand has “cracked” the end-all story, symbols, and strategy because these things simply don’t exist.
A brand is better off learning. There’s no use standing still in the marketplace when consumers’ ideas of who they want to be are changing all over the place. Brands today are better off listening to these changes and learning from them. Lean brands have conversations, not monologues. They embrace the fact that their mission is to help consumers get closer to who they want to be. These brands are comfortable with the fact that this “who they want to be” is always evolving. So they evolve, too: iterating continuously in endless cycles of building, measuring, and learning. You’ve progressed through the first two in the previous eight chapters.
Having said that, please be cautious about the way you roll out changes in your brand’s symbols, story, and strategy. Shredding your established brand recognition is not the point of learning. Optimizing conversion is.
The examples you will see throughout the following chapters are helpful to understand how learning can take place while protecting the messages that still make sense for your brand.
