It’s a revenue problem.
Here’s why.
Your brand is more than just logos, colors, images, and fonts.
Your brand is the sum of all the experiences the market has had with your concept.
Those memories serve as entry points into different occasions to use.
Why does that happen?
Imagine you’re in the market.
Assessing your options. Trying to decide.
How do you choose?
Well, research shows that only 5% of our decisions are made using logical and rational thinking, or as it’s called – System 2 thinking.
Most of them, especially complex ones, employ intuition and instinctual thinking or System 1.
Brands come into play here, connecting to System 1 thinking by offering a mental shortcut and simplifying decision-making.
Here lies the danger in going “off-brand.”
It’s like throwing a wrench in the gears, derailing the connections you’ve built that keep your business chugging along.
Does that mean change can’t happen?
It can.
Brand “stretches” happen all the time.
They are intentionally designed to move the brand forward in a manner that is cohesive.
Conversely, brands can act in ways that confuse their target and the market.
Which is the point about being off-brand.
This is why you need organizational clarity around your:
– Relative point of difference
– How you deliver upon that point of difference throughout your experience