Eight ways to create and sustain a balanced brand
Image courtesy of Mia Bruning on Unsplash
What is balance and why is it relevant in the context of a brand?
Fundamentally, balance is about propriety, proportionality, perspective and precision. The lens of balance gives us a frame of reference through which to think, reason and respond objectively. Balance also increases the confidence that others have in what we do. The reason for this is because when things are balanced, they present as more credible and less risky. When exposure to risk is reduced, people feel a greater level of assurance and are more likely to extend their trust. As we all know, trust is absolutely critical to the success of any brand.
In creating and sustaining a balanced brand, the question is not what matters most to us, but more importantly what matters most to our customers and others whose lives we want to impact. Remember, your brand is not what you say it is, it is what your customers say it is. Therefore if in the view of your customers, the definition of a balanced brand is less of what you have to offer and more of what they want to see, then that is the answer.
So how do you create and sustain a balanced brand? What are the opportunities to be maximised and pitfalls to avoid? Well, set out below are the eight key ways.
1. Scan the environment and adapt to the climate
A balanced brand is one that is both spatially aware and contextually relevant. Think about the brand characteristics that are necessary in different areas of activity such as sports coaching. One would expect that a balanced brand for a sports coach would include characteristics such as discipline, motivational skills, decisiveness and team building skills. However, think of another operational environment such as politics. I think that most people would agree that a balanced brand for a politician would include characteristics such as empathy, integrity, trustworthiness and influence. Beyond the characteristics themselves, there is also the question of weight and measure. Specifically, which of the relevant brand characteristics should be more dominant than others and which if any characteristics need to define a brand?
The corollary of the above is that with brand balance, you don’t just need to know what works best, you also need to understand what counts most.
2. Walk the high-wire with your brand
There are many similarities between brand balance and high-wire walking. Both require intense concentration, careful assessment of risk and precise distribution of weight. In both, the margin for error is small and the consequences of getting it wrong can be huge. Like high-wire walking, if you are going to build a balanced brand your progress is likely to be measured in incremental steps not seismic leaps. This kind of approach will help you to better understand not just what makes sense, but also what works best. As such, like high-wire walking, if you are going to build a balanced brand, it is the confidence you gain from making the first move that equips you with the knowledge you need to make the next one.
The key point being made here is that building a balanced brand requires disciplined thinking, careful deliberation and determined action.
3. Protect your brand’s ‘immune system’ and avoid over-exposure to risk
Think about how a vaccination works; a little bit of what could be harmful or damaging to you, is introduced into your body to force an immune system response and to build up anti-bodies. In the brand space, exposure to risk works in exactly the same way. A brand that is well-balanced is not one which only performs well when the climate is positive, it is the one that performs just as well when the climate is negative. As such, mistakes and even outright failure, can if carefully managed be the making of a brand not the breaking of it. However, a brand is out of balance if it becomes over-exposed to situations and circumstances that cause people to question its credibility and reliability.
Over-exposure to risk, like over-exposure to harmful pathogens increases vulnerability and increased vulnerability increases likelihood of harm or damage.
4. Learn things from your brand that tell you things about your brand
Brands are highly communicative. They speak to us all the time and often in real time about their experiences, stresses and their overall well-being. Unfortunately, the problem is that even when our brands are speaking to us, sometimes we cannot hear them or choose to ignore them. Think about any process of healthy communication; what are the characteristics that make it balanced or dynamic? Without exception it is the back and forth, the questioning and answering, the listening and learning. In the context of a balanced brand, regular communication empowers you to make informed judgements and careful adjustments that will help ensure that your brand remains balanced. If you are not learning things about your brand it is because you are not communicating with your brand.
The harm and damage of brand ignorance is that it is often the precursor to brand failure.
5. Know your brand’s ‘tipping point’
Recess back into your childhood for a moment. Did you ever play on a see-saw? If you did, this is a really good example of how a tipping point works. If you have two people of relatively equal weight at either end, you have the typical see-saw pendulum motion. However, if the weight distribution at one end becomes disproportionate, the tipping point mechanism is disabled and the see-saw becomes dysfunctional. Now think about your brand; do you know how much you are trusted? Do you know how much influence you have? Or how much confidence others have in you? If you do not, then you have no idea what your brand’s ‘tipping point’ is and as such, your brand could be much more fragile than you realise.
Knowing your brand’s tipping point helps you to know, not just how much risk you can expose your brand to, but also the bounce-back-ability of your brand in the event that things go wrong.
6. Specificity with diversity or diversity with specificity - choose one
Sometimes the key to a brand’s balance is whether it is sufficiently specific or diverse. If I go to a barber, it would not be a reach to expect me to return with a haircut. You might not know what kind of haircut I will return with eg: short back and sides, buzz cut or a trim — but it would be a haircut right? But what about if I made a trip to my local supermarket? Unless I told you what I was going there for, there is no way in the world you could know what I might return with. It could be an item of food or drink, cleaning supplies, batteries for my TV remote, personal hygiene items or something else.
Sometimes the key to brand balance is the extent to which you can demonstrate diversity in a specific area or specificity across a diverse range.
7. Try not to take on too much water
Hold this image for a second; the economy of a country is out of balance if it is over-reliant on imports (which create deficit and debt) as opposed to exports (which generate revenue and income). In a situation where the value of a country’s imports exceed the value of its exports this creates a trade deficit. As it is in economics, so it is with branding; deficits (eg: negative perception) are usually bad and surpluses (eg: positive perception) are usually good. A really strong brand, can in difficult times, take a real beating and still emerge resilient and even stronger after the fact.
However, brands can also be a bit like boats, in as much as when they receive too many direct hits, they may start to take on water. Whilst by itself, taking on water is not necessarily terminal; taking on too much water disrupts buoyancy and just like a boat, it will ultimately cause a brand to sink.
8. Make sure that you don’t over-extend your brand
Successful brands become successful because they know what they are good at and stick to what they do best. Brands tend to get into trouble when they are over-extended or over-leveraged. Even the most established brands can make the monumental error of over-reaching and presuming a sphere of influence that they clearly do not have. In these instances, the imbalance could just be a case of poor timing, bad judgement or a complete miscalculation. Do you remember the old Coke/ new Coke debacle? What about the breakfast beverage Pepsi AM? Or the Colgate frozen food range? Each of the above highlight the fact that even with the biggest and best known brands, it is still possible to get it spectacularly wrong.
So let’s conclude; for a brand to be impactful, then it needs to be relevant but for it to be relevant then it has to be balanced. Ultimately, however, ‘balance’ is a measure of what is ‘proportionate’ in the context of what is appropriate. Brands become balanced because they are built on reflection and they stay balanced because they are open to correction.
