What you need for a brand model
Now it’s time to put the key elements of your brand together – your purpose, positioning, promise, personality and DNA. Wholehearted Brand Building applies a proven brand plan for this – the brand model.
The brand model crystallises everything of value into a single, focused idea that expresses what we say, do and believe
Your brand blueprint
The brand model reflects our process of clarifying, simplifying and amplifying.
It balances reason and emotion, and business insights and brand strategy, to create a simple, coherent blueprint for how to express the brand.
All the parts come together to articulate what you believe, where you excel and how you can offer competitive advantage. An effective brand model succinctly expresses the will and business strategy of the organisation’s leadership. It helps every relevant stakeholder quickly understand the brand and business.
An effective brand model succinctly expresses the will and business strategy of the organisation’s leadership.
Further focus
We add two other components to help direct focus in the brand model: the brand function and attributes.
Brand function is a dictionary definition of the brand and business. It’s the answer to the “nature of the business” question on business registration forms. Starbucks might answer “food and beverage retailer”. This gives someone new to your brand a very basic but clear understanding of what your brand actually does.
Attributes are brand characteristics expressed as keywords. People inevitably recall little about anything. Positive, powerful and relevant keywords repeated frequently reinforce perceptions and create favourable associations. Attributes complement the personality traits to fully express the brand.
Build your own brand model
Now let’s look at Stepworks’ own brand model as an example:
The brand model crystallises everything of value into a single, focused idea that expresses what we say, do and believe, our Brand DNA: wholehearted.
When creating brand models, it’s valuable to focus on arriving at the one clear, single-minded concept central to your brand narrative that you can own to deliver competitive advantage. All leading organisations allocate resources to actively build and manage their brand. Most have a unique brand blueprint to guide them. Many ambitious organisations find our brand model framework helpful as a starting point:
| Brand model component | Objective |
|---|---|
| Purpose | The societal purpose that drives our passion |
| Function | What we do as a business |
| Positioning | How we wish to be thought of in audience’s minds |
| Promise | Our offering as a key value proposition to our audiences |
| Reasons to believe | Evidence to back up our assertion on what we promise |
| Attributes | Keywords to reinforce associations |
| Personality | The way we talk and behave |
| Brand DNA | The essential idea we wish to communicate at every touchpoint |
The secret to creating effective brand models
Brand building is a journey. The blank brand model is a map. On any journey, an experienced guide is more helpful than a map. The outside perspective of people familiar with the twists and turns of developing a brand model is valuable for obtaining clarity, objectivity and certainty.
So the secret to successfully developing your brand model is working with the right team.
With a wholehearted brand building team, you and your brand can gain ground faster and explore unfamiliar territories more confidently than going it alone. An experienced team makes your brand journey easier and more rewarding.
