Your Brand Promise: Where to Begin.

What is your company’s brand promise?

If you cannot answer that question quickly and confidently, then you have some unfinished work to do. Don’t feel bad. Most business people fail this test. A brand is a complicated, multi-faceted concept that is still misunderstood and over simplified  by many. The brand promise is just one element of branding, but a very important cornerstone upon which all else is built. Your brand promise is, in a nutshell, the one thing of value that’s uniquely yours that you deliver every time with no exceptions. This is a heavy burden, so what you promise must be both authentic and honest.

Your brand promise begins with examining your own core values and why you are in business in the first place. Deep inside, you must hold a belief that you have something of value that you are bringing to the marketplace that wasn’t there before. And, that belief was strong enough from the beginning to make it worth going into business (which is no small investment or gamble). Whatever that value was, start there and work outward. How does it affect your customers? How can you articulate that value in a way your customers will recognize?

Your brand promise can be short and to the point, or several sentences long. It can be a statement of customer benefit or a more philosophical committment to deliver a benefit. But, one thing I want to make clear. A brand promise is not a tag line. Sometimes it can be used as one. But, they are two different things. Here are some examples of brand promises of different lengths and approaches.

IKEA:  
Stylish furniture at affordable prices.

FEDEX:
Your package will get there overnight. Guaranteed.

Best Western:
We do not shirk our responsibilities.

McDonald’s:
An inexpensive, familiar and consistent meal delivered quickly in a clean environment.

College of Charleston:
At the College of Charleston, you will live and study at one of the Nation’s best universities for quality education, student life and affordablility. You will have extraordinary choices in what to study, what to learn and what to explore. You will work with exceptional professors who love to teach. You’ll change. You’ll grow and you’ll succeed. You’ll learn how to build your life.

As you can see, all of these are vastly different. But, they all have an element of authenticity. They are believable, and the companies behind them are delivering the promise. Contrast these statements to promises such as “Lowest prices guaranteed”, “World class quality” or some other generic sounding claim that we all hear every day. It’s believable compared to not believable. Authentic compared to hollow.

Once you’ve figured out what your brand promise is, write it down. You’ll be surprised at how energizing it is to be able to read a well articulated summary of that core value you’ve always held. But, more importantly, you will then be able to share it with your staff, customers and all others so there will be no mistake about what you stand for.