Branding as the Bird’s Eye View
This article was contributed by Levina Kusumadjaja
If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying 'Circus coming to the Fairground Saturday', that's advertising. If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk it into town, that's promotion. If the elephant walks through the mayor's flower bed, that's publicity. And if you get the mayor to laugh about it, that's public relations. If you did all of this on purpose, that's marketing. If the towns citizens go to the circus, you show them the entertainment booths, explain how much fun they'll have spending money at the booths, answer their questions and ultimately, they spend a lot at the circus, that's sales.
Reader's Digest, "Promoting Issues and Ideas" by M. Booth and Associates, Inc.
I first heard about this circus story from The Futur's Chris Do in an interview he did with Melinda Livsey and Fabian Geyrhalter. When Chris shared this story to the group, Melinda asked a question that I myself was dying to ask: where is branding? Which part of the process do we consider as branding? I wanted a further explanation on the question so I went on to ask Melinda personally about her thoughts. In Melinda’s opinion, branding isn't found in a specific part of the process, rather it holds the bird's eye view from beginning to end; and I agree with her 100%.
Branding has the bird’s eye view in a customer journey.
Branding is like the act of matchmaking a brand with its super fan. So, branding has everything to do with building this relationship between the brand and its super fan. Branding should have the highest point of view in the relationship, where it can see how everything else fits into this relationship. This relationship is what we know as the customer journey.
A customer journey has several stages: awareness, consideration, conversion, relationship, and advocacy. Although the terms may seem a bit complicated, but it's actually not because a customer journey is very similar to a relationship journey. I want you to imagine the journey of building a relationship with someone from the time when you first meet until you get married and eventually have children with that person. There are stages too, right? You meet, you date, and then you get engaged. Afterwards, you get married and you have children. It's the same thing for a brand and a customer.
Just like in a human relationship, a brand needs to first grab the customer's attention, then keep their attention. It needs to make customers fall in love with the brand and eventually stick with the brand.
It is called a journey because there is a process that involves more than just a brand strategist and one experience, but a team of people and many touch points. It's not just about creating one experience, but experiences and messaging throughout the years that connect with the customers and make their lives better. It’s like a real relationship, where you usually won’t get married and have children right away after one date, no matter how epic the date was. You need time to get to know one another, to build trust, and to grow the relationship. This is where the power of branding comes in, to have a bird’s eye view on this journey and see how the different aspects come together in harmony to build one brand.
Branding couldn’t be just one of the aspects because the customer's perception will not be made of just one aspect. The customer's perception will be built from every touch point with the company, and this could be in a form of many things—maybe it’s a billboard down the street, maybe it's a sales clerk they meet at the company’s story, or maybe it’s the company's website. Every part of the company becomes a part of the customer’s perception about the company, which then make up the brand of the company. Everything needs to be build from the understanding of who the company is and how the company would like to be seen by the customer, because everything will contribute to the company's brand.
Because a brand is going to influence every single part of the relationship—the customer journey, everything has to be built upon the bedrock of the company's branding. Everything has to be built upon the company's core values and purpose, so that the customers can feel the same feeling—wherever, however, whenever they interact with the brand. It's like telling one big story for one very important relationship.
So, when you think about branding, think about standing at the highest point possible in the relationship to get the widest, clearest, most comprehensive view of the journey. You can’t just look at one point of the journey, you need to look at it as a whole. Think about the big picture. Think about having that bird’s eye view.
Cheers!
Levina
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About the author:
Levina is a writer based in Indonesia. Because of Melinda Livsey, she recognized the power of brand strategy for every creative. She is sharing about her learnings as she goes to help creatives have fun in their growth and journey of building brands. Connect with her on LinkedIn and say hi!