Have you thought about the importance of developing a meaningful brand? Do you want your target audience to find value in their relationship with you?
It is no longer enough to just market your products and services. The marketplace has seen a rise in brands restructuring their positioning to include real social good initiatives.
“The expectation is that companies will continue to expand their activism on, and investment in, the issues that matter to their employees, customers and communities,” noted communications consultant Susan McPherson in a Forbes article.
Social good initiatives must be more closely aligned with your organization’s purpose — not just lip service. Some strong examples include Microsoft’s #MakeWhat’sNext social media push to encourage girls to pursue careers in science and technology. Then there’s the ongoing Dove’s campaign that celebrated the different sizes and shapes of #Real Beauty.
Though small organizations may not have the time and resources for awareness campaigns that align with their values, they can still be meaningful brands.
Approach meaningfulness with empathy
Branding guru Bernadette Jiwa, author of “Meaningful: The Story of Ideas That Fly,” reminds us that meaningful brands start life as a set of unfulfilled expectations, a moment of frustration or a feeling of helplessness.
You breathe new meaning into your brand by finding ways to fulfill those expectations and make life easier for the people you serve.
“Our job is not to simply obsess about the features and benefits of what we are making; it is to wonder and care about the difference it could make,” Jiwa wrote.
She adds, quoting Steve Jobs that a brand’s job is to “Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.”
Take a simple step: Create thoughtful content
One simple way to become more meaningful is to create content that resonates with your ideal clients.
Consumers expect their brands to produce educational and inspirational content, regardless of size. You may be deemed irrelevant if you don’t share content that improves the life of your village. Too many brands are not doing enough. And consumers are noticing it.
In fact, consumers wouldn’t care if 74 percent of the brands they use every day just disappeared, according to an annual brand study by the respected media agency Havas. The comprehensive report involved 375,000 people across 33 countries.
Havas found a 71 percent correlation between content effectiveness and a brand’s impact on consumers’ personal well-being. The greater the impact, the more meaningful a brand becomes in public engagement and business results.
Some other key points:
- 84 percent of people expect brands to provide content and experiences.
- 75 percent of respondents expect brands to make more of a contribution to personal and communal well-being and quality of life, yet only 40 percent believe brands are doing so.
- 60 percent of all content produced by brands is declared as poor, irrelevant or failing to deliver.
The point is not to produce content for the sheer sake of it. Brand content must inspire, educate, reward, inform, help or entertain. Havas found that brands are fulfilling customer expectations around rewarding content, but they’re falling short on content that entertains and inspires.
Reframe with these 5 tips
Havas found that to be meaningful, you should produce more thoughtful content and:
- Understand the values and needs of your ideal clients.
- Know how you are meaningful — such as by encouraging healthy choices or offering superior customer support — and strive to improve.
- Define the role you want to play in your village’s personal or collective well-being (for instance, will you educate or connect people to each other?).
- Be meaningful through a variety of touch-points, content and experiences.
- Measure your success rate and improve as needed.
Final thoughts
Take that step. Become a more meaningful brand. Find a common ground between your brand and a cause. Then develop a content strategy that both educates and inspires. You’ll do good and win the loyalty of clients who want relationships with meaningful brands.
Hook PR & Marketing works with changemakers to build meaningful brands with strategic messaging and campaigns. Do you need help relaying your vision and brand promise? Let’s talk.