In the shifting heat and silence of the boardroom, the fly beating itself against the closed window
sounded like a dentist’s drill whose power source was running down. Wrong day, wrong time,
wrong place to be holding a brainstorming session, thought Kit, the Head of Marketing. Enough
of this. She rose from her chair, and opening the door, murmured to the secretary outside. Ten
minutes later, even the fly stopped buzzing in surprise when the bemused vendor who usually
sold his wares on the street corner outside the Burton And Speake offices wheeled his ice-cream
cart into the boardroom.
“Ice creams are on me,” said Kit, putting a stack of plates, spoons, and paper serviettes on the
table. “Julio’s are all home-made, and cold. And he has waffle cones. Have whatever, and as much,
as you want.” The day ended with the management team on friendlier terms than they’d ever
been. After meditating on Julio’s ice-cream cart for a while, and licking blueberry ice cream off
her lips, Kit said, “We’ve been looking at our slogan all wrong. It’s not what we want to say about
our company than matters. It’s what we want our clients to feel when they use our products.
Look at Julio’s! ‘Today is gonna get better. Celebrate now with an ice-cream.’ Does it say,
‘creamy’, ‘tasty’, ‘a dozen unique flavours’? No. Does it even say having an ice-cream will make
your day better? No. So, what does it say to you, Sally? How does it make you feel?”
Many companies want to be spoken of a certain way – top of their game, leaders in the industry,
professional, etc. And for some, that’s the right messaging. But it’s not right for every company. It
wouldn’t work for nursery schools, cruelty-free beauty products, organic farmers, or ice-cream
vendors.
What kind of messaging does your company deliver?
The right slogan
The first thing your company needs, apart from a name, is a vision of the company. It’s
philosophy, goals, and offerings. This needs to be reflected in the slogan. Not only must it be
catchy, and memorable, but it must also reflect the brand. Coming up with a slogan that says it
all can be tricky, especially as companies are often made up of more than one person. Which
means that very often a slogan can, instead of being a thoroughbred racehorse, end up more of a
combination camel-giraffe. Before you begin thrashing out potential slogans, it’s a good idea for
your team to take a brand identity test.
The right logo
How can you illustrate your brand with one perfect image? Are you selling sportswear and also
wanting to inspire people to exercise more? Nike’s ‘well-done’, ‘that’s the way to do it’, tick mark
does both. It congratulates the efforts of the customer, but it also says, ‘Yes, this is the right
brand’. Like Nike, your logo doesn’t need to be an exact pictorial representation of your company.
Think of it as a metaphor for the philosophy that motivates the ‘why’ of your company.
The beating heart of your video marketing
Once you have your slogan and logo, you have the heart that should inform all your messaging.
What you build out of that is the stories you tell within your video marketing. The stories that
reach into the heart of your customers, because, as with your slogan and logo, it can’t all be about
you. A scene in the movie, What Woman Want, illustrates this perfectly. It’s not enough that
women exercise, it’s not even why they exercise, it’s that Nike helps them realise that they can be
themselves while they do so, without judgement. It’s this kind of understanding that creates
brand loyalty among your customers.
Brand loyalty
The most important person that needs to be brand loyal is you.
So how do you remain loyal to your brand especially in video marketing?
Here are 5 things you need to be loyal to when it comes to your brand.
- The type of story you tell. You can’t run the same campaign all the time. If you did, it
would soon become wallpaper. But you do have to ensure that you have the same
underlying foundation. Cadbury’s is a good example. The campaigns have gone from
country romantic, to pop-song rip-offs, to something the world needs now – kindness,
togetherness, and family. So, what’s the underlying story throughout? Joy. - Colours, fonts, and visual motifs.
You can have these subtly in the background as in the Cadbury’s Gorilla ad, or you
can be bold like Vodacom. - Music and sound effects. In the sixty years that Bond has graced our screens, the
theme tune has become the most iconic of all movie scores. And yet, if you listen to its first
outing in Dr No, you’ll discover that it sounds exactly-the-same-but-also-completely-
different to the orchestration in No Time To Die. It’s such an iconic piece of music that as
soon as it starts it’s like seeing an old friend across the room. - Tone. If you have a presenter or a narrator, make sure that their style, tone, and voice
reflects the philosophy of the company, the message in your marketing videos and the
audience to which you are talking. - Authenticity
Just as people are individuals, so too are their shoe choices. Doc Martins have a look all of
their own no matter what style, colour or pattern they have. So do the people who wear
them. The company created an ad that reflected their own authenticity, and also spoke to
that of the full complement of people who wear them.
If you are needing help in finding your company’s true voice, give us a call. We’d be delighted to
help you discover the one that reveals the authentic you.
Which company do you think has a great handle on their messaging
– which reflects their own personality and that of their customers?