Take Along, Share and Simplify: Essential Verbs to Enhance Your Brand Strategy in 2015, Part 2

Back in November, I shared with you two essential verbs to enhance your brand strategy: amaze and respect. Now I have three more verbs to share with you for your 2015 brand plans: Take Along Pomegranates have always had a rough reputation in the world of fruit: How do you eat them? How do you peel or cut into them without getting that staining red juice all over the place? And, once you figure that out, how do you remove all those beautiful ruby seeds (actually called arils) out easily? Pomegranates are the antithesis of take-it-everywhere, eat-on-the-run bananas. But 10 years ago, the folks at POM Wonderful took it upon themselves to make pomegranates more accessible to Americans and introduced the nutritional wonders of pomegranate juice in a big way to our health-obsessed country. Customers found POM Wonderful Juice delicious to drink, fun to hold and loved the antioxidant boost. Sales soared. Pomegranate juice became a part of healthy lifestyles. Over time, the brand builders at POM took on this fresh fruit's primary pain point among customers—extracting the seeds without a huge mess. There had been a brief instruction on the website, but then POM took it a step further—it was simply done for customers! POM introduced conveniently packaged arils in easy-to-tote cups so customers can use them in salads or just pop them in your mouth like you might raisins. Voila! Ease, convenience, antioxidants ... all portable. Brands that gain the coveted access into their customers' daily lives do so by creating products that are in some way meaningful and easy to use. This "take along" effect (also mastered by others quite successfully like Starbucks and Republic of Tea with their traveler's tins of teas) keeps a brand top of mind. Is there any way this "take along" verb would help your brand become a bigger part of your customers' lives? Share GoPro's founder and CEO, Nicholas Woodman, writes this: We help people capture and share their lives' most meaningful experiences with others—to celebrate them together. The world's most versatile cameras are what we make. Enabling you to share your life through incredible photos and videos is what we do. The verb share centers GoPro's brand mission. Woodman elaborates, "Like how a day on the mountain with friends is more meaningful than one spent alone, the sharing of our collective experiences makes our lives more fun." In today's visually dominant world, the products that GoPro creates enhance its customers' experiences and make shareability easier than ever. As stated on the website: "Our customers include some of the world's most active and passionate people. The volume and quality of their shared GoPro content, coupled with their enthusiasm for our brand, are virally driving awareness and demand for our products." Does your brand make sharing possible in some easy and virally visual way? How can you differentiate your brand through creative sharing strategies? Simplify In brand building exercises, it is quite common to play with questions like "What if your brand was an automobile ... or a celebrity or a color? What would it be?" Those activities are often thought provoking if most of the conversation centers around the why that particular model/person/hue was chosen. Along those playful lines, here's another question to ponder: "What if your brand was a magazine ... in this case Real Simple?" Real Simple is one of women's favorite magazines because it truly demystifies almost everything ... from cooking several course holiday dinners to removing wine stains to entertaining outdoors to mentoring. Here's how the brand describes itself: Real Simple is the everyday essential for today's time-pressured woman, the guide she can trust to make her life a little easier in a world that's more complicated by the minute. With smart strategies, genius shortcuts, and shoppable solutions, we help her simplify, streamline, and beautifully edit her life, armed with calm, confidence—and the power of the right lipstick. Real Simple's articles are practical and informative and surrounded by lots of white space and often summarized in the back of the physical magazine on perforated tear off cards that their readers can slip in their wallet and take to the store or save in an easy to find manner. Real Simple is part knowledgeable friend, part cheerleader, part organizer and the verb simple is a brand filter for all they do. In our complex, hyper speed, information-overloaded society, Real Simple is an oasis of uncomplicated and straightforward answers. Customers crave simplicity (just take a peek at Google and Apple's strategic success). Is "simplify" a conscious part of your strategic plan in 2015? How can this verb be incorporated more holistically across all your brand touchpoints? Take along, share and simplify ... three more robust verbs that have the potential to set your brand apart this next year. Think through these verbs in relation to your brand mission. Fast forward and consider how your customers might feel if these were a part of your strategy, and then, go ahead do something with these verbs!

Branding

Take Along, Share and Simplify: Essential Verbs to Enhance Your Brand Strategy in 2015, Part 2

Andrea Syverson

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Andrea Syverson