The correspondence I had from the watch company… not so good. I wanted to be reassured I’d made the right choice in spending more on a repair than most people blow on a weekend in a smart hotel. With champagne.

I also wanted the communications to sell me the quality of work they were going to do – to explain the processes behind the price, to make me feel special, to tell me I was one of the cognoscenti for buying their brand. They didn’t.

It had nothing to do with how much they care about service.  That was clear from the quality of work.  This company employs real craftsmen.  But applying the same perfectionist standards to their communications would mark them out from their competitors as clearly as a new tourbillon.

The difference – luxury and commodity

Luxury brands exist in a different world from commodities. It’s a world where experience is all. Walk into Argos to buy a commodity Casio and you get one sort of experience. Walk into an authorised dealer to buy an IWC, a Piaget or a Lange & Söhne watch and things will be rather different.

This difference in experience is absolutely key. Why? Because people buy a luxury brand for what it says about them – as much as for the thing itself. That means the brand needs to make that experience overt, clear and distinctive throughout.

Making the luxury world real

Everything is geared to making the experience – and the luxury world – real. For some customers it is. For others – the majority – it’s aspirational. That means, when they touch the brand, it needs to be solid and real or they’ll stop believing in it.

But the world won’t always be perfect. And the higher a brand raises aspirations, the further it has to fall when things go wrong. And that’s how I felt when my favourite watch company sent me the estimate for servicing my watch. A bit let down. As though the brand I loved – and have bought into – cracked a little.  It was a little like taking the back off one of my Glashütte watches and finding a battery.

There was nothing dreadful about the stuff they sent me – it was polite and accurate. But it didn’t try to reassure me, convince me they’d be the best people to do the work or give me any sense of the brand I’d bought into.   People want to be acknowledged by premium brands; to feel they’re special, part of the club, members.

Communications – the measure of the brand

Every single communication a luxury brand has with its customers is a chance to prove that the brand has real depth. And, because people need to interact with the brand functionally, the service comms needed to be at least as good as the ads, if not better.

Vital at every stage of the process

That’s why communications at every stage of the process – not just purchase – are more vital to your brand than the ads and events. That’s why service estimates, instruction booklets, guarantee cards all matter. That’s why they need not only to carry your brand values but embody them. The process needs to run like a Bentley engine – unobtrusive, smooth, quietly efficient.  In short, they need to delight as much as the original product.

Without the same care – or more – than your ads, the whole thing comes down like a house of cards.

By the way – the watches in the photos don’t give any hints about which watch I’ve just had back from service!

Written by Mark McArthur-Christie

“Leadership involves the creation of powerful narratives…that are much more than mission statements or messages. They are actual stories where there are goals and obstacles, where good and bad things can happen along the way, and where the people involved feel part of an enterprise that’s trying to end up in a better place. Top businesses are using stories to share knowledge and build effective corporate cultures.”

Howard Gardner, Harvard University

Well said Howard! Brand stories saw a revival about 10 years ago. Sadly, the idea has never found the credit it’s really due. Why?

Firstly, true brand stories are simply not there to be direct sales tools. Secondly, and most fundamentally, brand stories only work if there’s a deep authenticity to them.

Let me explain.

Selling stuff

We’re all looking for that little edge – that final, gentle push that makes a potential customer buy from you rather than the next guy. Selling through stories is a fairly effective way of doing this – but it’s not the same as your Brand Story. Sales stories usually end up being more like embellished case studies than real “stories” – nothing wrong with that, but they don’t serve the same purpose. Look at it this way:

Sales stories can help sell the businesses product.

Brand stories explain the reason that business exists, and therefore its value.

Put another way; Sales stories prompt a call to action, Brand Stories give a reason to believe.

Brand stories encapsulate the journey for that business, the highs and lows, the successes and failures, the visionary who saw the World slightly differently and went out to change it. They are the expression of an inner belief system that builds authentic depth to a business; and authenticity and depth are key to differentiation.

Sales stories can be used by staff to leverage a potential sale but the process is different and brings about different results. It’s more focused on the benefits behind a product, that you can encapsulate in a narrative. Useful, and effective, but not a Brand Story.

Brand stories and the “why”

Behind every great business is a “why”. This “why” drives everything that business does, and often the way that it’s done. It often comes out in stories, which add a layer of character and depth to the business and, by proxy, what it sells. But you’re buying in to that business’s “why”.

Great businesses always have a compelling “why” underpinning them, or more accurately, they’ve recognised the value of a Brand story in supporting their position.

Finding, encapsulating and expressing that “why” can bring a dimension to a business that’s often lacking. It solves the “your product, service and delivery are all as good as the next person’s, so what next?” conundrum.

For anyone interested in the reasons for the importance of “why” I’d recommend Start with Why by Simon Sinek.

Authenticity is key

The key to a great Brand Story is authenticity. We’ve found this time and time again – when a story doesn’t quite ring true it undermines a customer’s belief in the business. Stories are about unrelated events, about people, about failure and humanity. They’re about belief in a greater cause – a vision to create a business that does more than just sell.

If there’s a dissonance between what you “say” your story is, and what your customer knows to be true, you’re demonstrating that you don’t really know yourselves. Being true to oneself and building an authenticity into your story are the key to getting the right people to adopt it.

These things can sound a bit “other worldly” until you think about the percentage of a purchase that’s made up from emotive reasoning. Even in the driest of B2B sectors, emotive reasoning still plays a huge part.

Relevance. Then and now

The shift in consumer empowerment has meant your customers have a hand in creating the Brand narrative. Their impressions of your business all add, or detract, from the original story and position.

For some, this is a terrifying thought, but usually only those who are masking their “why” with a story veneer. It’s not the feedback that worries them, it’s the fear of being found out! It’s another reason why honesty and authenticity are so vital.

I don’t want to make a big song and dance about social media but in terms of empowerment, it’s had a HUGE impact on customers’ ability to make their own stories up about a brand. What’s more, they can then communicate these stories to other potential buyers.

Businesses only have a small percentage of the power they once had in this relationship, so the role of accuracy and honesty are more important than ever.

In summary

Brand stories, weaved into your business and expressed through your communications, gives a powerful depth to your position. They explain why you do what you do. This, in turn, gives your customers both reassurance and a sense of why you’re different.

That difference – a way of setting you apart from your competitors – is becoming ever more important. Consumers are actively solicited constantly by your competitors. First mover advantage lasts just months. Price competition and comparison is instant.

But you can’t just make something up, nail it together and hope it holds. Customers can spot fakery instantly, and tell their Facebook friends and Twitter followers in seconds – so your brand story needs to match what really is at the heart of your brand.

But get it right, build a powerful brand story that’s authentic, well-communicated and sound, and no competitor can touch you.

Written by James Freeman-Gray

Businesses create mini-universes where they exist and operate. They have their own culture, own values, and with them, they develop a language. But this language is often so far from reality (and comprehension), and so far from how we actually communicate, that is becomes a barrier. It’s a wall to hide behind and that limits experimentation and growth. It also dramatically impacts on how well an organisation is actually understood. Rather than using language and communication to empower, it becomes a secret code.

There’s a pomposity to the language of business; a need to overcomplicate simple things with layers of confusion. But pompous language not only makes the writer look as though they’re trying too hard, it simply doesn’t communicate or inspire. It’s no more that a shield to hide meaning – either because there is none or because the message is unpalatable – right from customer service-speak to mission statements. “Baffle them with complexity and pomposity” becomes the mantra.

There’s a splendid quote in the programme from Peter Day on mission statements. “Everyone marches under that trivial, tattered banner… not believing a word of it.”

If any organisational statement should be rich in belief and authenticity it’s a mission statement, but so often it’s a selection of buzz words, strung together in a “tick all the boxes” bonanza. It becomes a weak reflection of something someone once believed, mixed with the watered-down approach risk-averse organisations have.

This raises another question, one which is larger and a great deal more complicated. If a mission statement is convoluted, or opaque in its meaning, then surely so too is the business that makes it. Not the individuals, but the “cause” of “why” that every organisation should have at the heart of it’s ethics.

If an organisation lacks authenticity in its mission, it will lack authenticity in everything it does. This raises questions over what, both internally and externally, it is there to do in the first place. Perhaps that’s one for another day…

Written by James Freeman-Gray

After a bit more ribbing, I asked what he did about brand language and making sure all the comms matched the brand. After all, getting the logo lined up makes sense, but what about getting the brand tone lined up too?

He looked at me blankly (and I suspect four pints of Hooky weren’t wholly to blame). He’d not even thought about it. No remit. There was plenty in his organisation’s brand guidelines about how everything should look, but nothing about how it should sound apart from a few vague phrases about ‘active language’ that everyone ignores.

It’s odd that brand tone – the way an organisation sounds – should be so far behind corporate visual ID. They’ve got the same aims, after all. And they’re both equally important. In fact, your brand tone is probably more important, simply because your customers see more of it, particularly once they’ve bought. Think of all those customer service letters. When was the last time any of those went to the Corporate Style Police for a check-over?

We’ve been doing some work recently for a high street fashion brand with a large mail order arm. The brand is friendly, upbeat, straight-talking. At least, you’d have thought so until you started reading their customer service letters and e-mails. They were full of third-person passive, legalese and jargon – but that’s easily fixed. The real surprise was how far off the tone of the brand the stuff was – it just didn’t sound like our client.

Getting brand tone right in material like this isn’t just a ‘nice to have’, it’s a key part of your marketing and comms.

People look at your brand writing – on your website, in letters and e-mails and texts – for instruction, but also reassurance. They want to know that the brand they’ve bought into is real. That you’ll live up to the promises you’ve made. Your brand tone needs to build authenticity and humanity. That’s what, in turn, builds trust & loyalty in what you say and the things you do.

It gives depth to your brand character which gives people more reasons to love you. It touches them on an emotive and personal level.

That’s why it’s so important to make sure it runs through every piece of written communication you produce.

Written by Mark McArthur-Christie

One of our heroes, Theodore “Ted” Sorenson, died last week. He was President JF Kennedy’s speechwriter. He wrote the “ask not what your country can do for you” speech that changed the way a generation thought – for a while, at least. But, he claimed, the most important piece he ever wrote was a simple letter.

In October 1962, the USA was poised to declare war with the Soviet Union. The two nations were ready to fight because the USSR had sited missiles close to the USA in Cuba – and refused to withdraw them.

Kennedy ordered Sorensen and Bobby Kennedy, the administration’s attorney general, to draft a letter to Khrushchev, the Russian premier.

Their simple, but painstakingly-drafted letter — which ignored Khrushchev’s harsher statements and offered concessions involving US weapons in Turkey — changed the Soviets’s minds. They withdrew their missiles from Cuba, averting war.

All from a letter.

Written by Mark McArthur-Christie

It’s most noticeable in the FMCG sector (because we’re all exposed to it), where time after time, brands will copy each other in the attempt to compete – and in doing so, end up looking exactly like each other. And when you look like everyone around you – what do you have to compete on? Ultimately, value or price. Both of which impact the bottom line.

There are two simple reasons why corporate karaoke is a bad thing for a business – market share and sales.

• If you look like your competitors, your customers (new and existing) won’t see a difference between you.
• If you talk like you competitors, your customers (new and existing) won’t see a difference between you.
• If you act like your competitors, your customers (new and existing) won’t see a difference between you.
• If you try to compete by being more like them, you’ll lose everything that made you special in the first place. You’ll lose your proposition, or you’ll all use the same one!

This last point is perhaps the most important.

There comes a point, and it’s true for any sector, where the competing businesses have spent so much time looking at each other they begin to blend, unintentionally, into each other. They start sounding the same, looking the same, have the same outlook.

Try it with any industry you like – IT, management consultancy, toothpaste, tyres, lawyers, shavers, advertising agencies, trainers, the list goes on. Pick one, find the market leaders, then ask yourself what differentiates them?

Once the market leaders start doing it, everyone else jumps on board too, because surely if the big guys are going in one direction, we should too!

WMH have done some great branding and, I must confess, they’re idols of mine. Not necessarily because of the creative, but because they do such a great job of turning blands to brands. Making a product stick out in its sector, simply by being different, by picking a new angle.

So in conclusion, with your business, don’t ask what you can do to be more like your competitors – ask what you can do to be less like them, to carve your own niche and make yourself stick out as much as possible.

It involves risk, it involves a bit of creativity and it’ll involve some different thinking, but if it’s done right you’ll have the most valuable thing you can own – sustainable cut-through and greater awareness from the people who buy from you.