Branding - Look where you are going

Focus on where you are going, not on where you are, or where you have been, this will significantly influence your handling of the present.

Five years ago in my mid forties I took this overwhelming desire to ride a motorbike, mainly down to visiting a showroom and seeing what I thought was the most stunning bike I had ever seen. I enquired more about it and was told that it was a “Honda Pan European ST 1300”, affectionately known as a “Pan”. Three months later having taken lessons and passed my test I drove straight to the Honda dealers and picked up my spanking new Pan!

Doing my lessons was mindlessly boring and if there wasn’t a “Pan” at the end of it I wouldn’t have gone through the pain of doing my test. Why? Because the focus was the ability to ride my dream bike.

Rational? No! Emotional? Yes! Could anybody stop me? No! Was I mad? Yes! Did it matter? No!

We are emotional beings all the time and one of the things that we frequently forget or ignore is the value of emotional decision-making based on the way we communicate our message to our target audience through the emotional values that are at the centre of our Brand. In most instances it is the “emotional wrapper” wrapped around the “substance” of your brand that reaps the greatest rewards. Hence the value of adding appropriate emotional tags to your core brand statements and communications, always with your target audience in mind.

A good example of this dynamic is Apple, who has a quality product with a passionate loyal following. Result - the worlds No. 1 cash generator since the start of the recession generating $44 billion. The emotional values of being part of the Apple community is immense.

I also learnt a profound lesson while being taught my biking skills that I now apply in developing Vision strategies for our clients. When you are turning around a bend on a motor bike you must look around the corner in the direction that you want to go and not the bend itself, as you can see in the photograph above. Scary at first but when you do it correctly it is an amazing feeling and works perfectly, down side is if you don’t look to where you want to go, you are over the hedge!

How many times have we been so engrossed in today that we never really get to where we want to go?

When you are building your brand you need to have a clear picture of your Vision for your company and let your brand communicate the correct messages that will get you there. This takes time and practise but very rewarding when we see the results.

The emotional ‘me’ got me on to the bike in the first place and the skills development and discipline to get better kept me on it.

We need to take our branding seriously right from the start and be disciplined to continually work at improving it and investing in it. You might be pleasantly surprised with the return you get on your investment.

The world is changing, the way we do business is changing and the way we position our brand in the marketplace is changing.

Winners of the future will not look like winners of the past.

It’s time to embrace change!