7 Irresistible Qualities of Top Brands

• Create a clear branding roadmap to make it easier for buyers to instantly connect to your brand

• Be an early adopter of a mission-based business and promise to deliver massive value

• Make sure you use simple messaging for faster customer coherence

• Keep the pulse on trends and societal behavior and adjust your brand’s voice accordingly

We are all in the midst of a consumer startup revolution. And within this reality, it’s harder than ever to create those products or services that people can’t seem to get enough of. The ones your friends talk about on repeat like they’re golden, and how these brands have even been a “game changer” for them. But have they really? This is the level where every brand would love to be, but what’s their secret to shattering the glass ceiling? It’s a combination of many things (not to mention a lot of hard work!). Let’s take a deep dive into the 7 essential qualities of the quintessential brand superhero!

1.      Their brand vision and mission were well thought out and honored from the start. 

This all starts with the process of branding your company. However, many new entrepreneurs (and even seasoned founders) get marketing and branding confused. Some even see it as the same thing but knowing the difference between the two is essential to mastering both parts of your business. So, first things first, let’s clear this up.

Branding is an internalized process. It’s used to shape your brand and the messages you set forth. It’s about defining who you are as a company through establishing a clear and concise vision and mission, as well as all the characteristics that make up your brand, including your business name, logo and color scheme. Marketing on the other hand, is an external activity that a company takes to promote its products or services – with a set of tools, processes and strategies. They both play on the same team, but a brand with just the right mix of each will most definitely click into place in the mind of the consumer.

Imagine that you find out someone you’ve been wanting to meet for a very long time will be at a friend’s party coming up. And magically, you have a creative department that will get you ready! The marketing department kicks in by guiding you on what to wear, say and where to place you at just the right time with this person in order to meet. The branding department is the one who actually shows up at the party to engage with and get to know this special person. You may have never met this person in the first place if not for the branding department. In other words: marketing attracts, branding nurtures.

When you see a brand that people are responding to in a viral way, it is highly likely that company established early on in the branding process what their “vision” and “mission” was. The vision is the public statement of the founder’s intent: why the company exists. Literally, this is the vision of the future that does not yet exist. The mission statement is a description of the route, the guiding principles – how the company intends to create that future. In turn, all marketing tactics reflect and flow through that same lens.

If you do not define who you are as a business, the whole brand building process will feel disorganized. Your mission statement will help determine your goals. It’s the essence of your brand that you need to make known to your target customer base before you can create trust. It will incorporate why your business was created in the first place, and why they should pay attention to you.

By focusing on your company’s mission and the rewards it can offer, you will expose a differentiation point that makes it unique and powerful in the mind of the consumer.

2.     Their brand value outweighs the out-of-pocket-cost.

You know that feeling you get when you’ve suddenly won something that you hadn’t placed any expectations on prior to winning? It’s a joy that doesn’t come up often. It’s special. In a sense, it’s a little piece of hope for the future. Those are some of the same characteristics that can be infused into your service or product. That little extra that no one expects but creates a good feeling that will most certainly spark future purchases.

One of the most favorable ways to connect is to focus on a social mission and the larger impact you seek to have in the world. Then take a good look at your offerings above and beyond the “perceived value” and see where you can build-in that added value. Is it lightning-fast delivery, a free sample of one of your other products/services, an iron-clad guarantee, more volume or hours of service than they were expecting? Wouldn’t it be amazing if most businesses launched with a cause most people can wrap their hearts around?

People are naturally drawn to brands that are doing something good for the world. Let’s look at Allbirds for instance, a game-changing shoe brand that credibly stands for an emotional idea. Although their mission to use all sustainable materials is wonderful, they would never have the reach and impact they wanted if the company was built solely on sustainability alone. To reach a wider audience Allbirds had to tell a story that emotionally relates to people’s lives and not just their wish to do good. That business model (along with a moderate price range) has helped catapult the company into a fluid vertical of growth and brand stardom.

This kind of mission-based branding resonates so deeply with their target persona that not only does it make for returning customers, but ones that start talking – and that’s where things go viral, creating a growing group of brand advocates around your brand. Advocates that become your unpaid brand ambassadors.

Brands that have the mindset of delivering more than they charge for are going to be the clear frontrunners for success in 2022. Just make sure it’s a value that doesn’t seem like a top layer, something that’s not simply “tacked on.”

3.     The founder(s) personally influence the brand’s internal & external voice, beyond simply directing staff and signing checks.

There are many brilliant founders with the ability to manage operations, but great leadership is not based purely on managerial ability. Savvy founders understand that beyond the structures and systems are their internal staff and their external customers. Nothing more than just a collection of people. People whose human nature is ingrained to want to know the leader(s) behind the brand. Narratives about brand founders allow companies to describe the values and actions that reflect the brand’s authenticity.

Sooner or later, all brand founders learn that there’s no separating their identity from the identity of the company they started. Did you know that most people’s buying decisions are based in the sub-conscious mind? Within seconds, that mind is telling them if they can relate to product, how can it solve a problem they might be dealing with or, if they even like it. In growing your personal brand out front, you will foster trust and expand that deeper relationship that will separate the runaway successes from the rest.

In the branding world it’s a well-known fact that consumers invest in people, not products. This holds true especially within the decade we’re just getting started with: all eyes and ears are on what’s real, and what the everyday true story is that shapes perception and drives the brand. If you can show your personal side to the point where you become a live fixture in your industry, the opt-ins of your brand will pick up exponentially – from both the investors and customers alike.

4.    They know who their brand is talking to and focus on how to nurture them.

There has never been a brand that has become legendary without intimately knowing who their “brand champion” is. A brand champion is an imaginary person who is your quintessential dream customer. They deeply relate to your brand, they are a loyalist, and they spread the word about it to anyone who will listen. In other words, the ultimate advocate. Once that avatar is perfected in the mind of the business, the easier communication will be to attract them.

Although it sounds quite difficult to articulate just who that person is, it is possible. The way we ultimately uncover who that person is, we distill down what is called an audience persona. An audience persona is a fictional representation of your audience that’s built on their shared circumstances and characteristics. These are uncovered through their demographics and their psychographics, which are essentially their situations and behaviors.

Demographics are basic statistical data around who your audience is. Your demographics include age, gender, occupation, education, personal income, location and marital status. It is the ultimate categorization tool that allows us to group together the people that are most likely going to want or need our offerings to solve a problem.

Psychographics takes a more profound look into the behaviors of this group of people that ultimately shines a light on who they are, how they behave, what their likes and dislikes are based on the demographics of our audience. Little by little, we begin to create an idea of the lives that they lead, on how they behave as well as what they do and even where they might be at any given time. Eventually you will be able to craft a personality type that you use to resonate with your audience, effectively attracting your brand champion.

In a broader sense, we also need to realize we’re living in a world where we’re currently experiencing mass upheaval and confusion. For brands that means all types of customer personas are being extremely discerning of where and how they spend their money. They are searching for conscious brands that not only help solve their specific need or problem, but also give them a deep sense of comfort and safety. Behind that, they’re also subconsciously hoping for camaraderie and to knit the brand into the very fabric of their identity. As wild as that may sound, it’s exactly what’s happening across the marketplace. Having a mindset of ‘we’re all in this together’ sets the stage for a deep sense of connection, opening the gate to ultimate relationship building.

5.    They use minimalist, easy to understand language.

Even after you’ve done the hard work of developing your product or service and why it matters, the branding language that a business uses is essential to first attract customers, and how they experience your overall brand. There’s a huge amount of finesse and skill involved in translating those ideas as your consumer-facing expression and keeping those expressions fresh. Your brand expressions form the impressions that help people understand what you’re selling, what you’re all about, and what will ultimately drive a person’s perpetual fixation.

Combine that with the myriad of information we are all exposed to on the daily that has caused the human attention span to plummet to about 3-5 seconds as we try to decide whether what we’re experiencing resonates with our consciousness. To have to expend any extra energy in trying to understand what exactly a brand is offering us often turns into an automatic ‘pass.’

Using clear language with a clever twist, alongside bold, simplistic visuals that reflect the base message will unquestionably garner most of the attention that will prevail for decades to come.

Let’s take Apple as a perfect example of a brand that understands exactly who they’re talking to and how to speak the same language. Apple invested and aligned everything behind a brand idea defined as “Apple makes technology so simple that everyone can be part of the future.” They use this brand idea at every touchpoint, including the brand positioning, communication, innovation, purchase moment and experience.

As Steve Jobs once said, “The way the company is run, the product design, the advertising, it all comes down to this: Let’s make it simple. Really simple.” Apple has truly mastered the art of minimalism – where product aesthetics, user interfaces, the brand logo, support functions, and even marketing are clipped down to the bare fundamentals. Products have simple, clean lines, with even simpler names. The core principle of this simplicity is to make the products easy to use so they can be understood and easily adopted by non-experts.

Apple focuses not only on making products simple but also intuitive, meaning that there’s tremendous attention paid to every detail, even the unboxing experience. This all makes products not only exciting to use, but easily more enticing than a brand using flashy, in-your-face marketing elements, and/or over exemplifying product features. Apple has carried this principle through to its advertising and customer support as well. Typical Apple marketing pieces have the product name and a beautiful photo of the product—no tech specs, price tags, or expensive special effects.

The common misstep of brands is that they put too much focus on special features, and not customer benefits. Apple does not heavily follow the research and development model, they consistently practice being in the business of providing customer benefits. Apple understood early on that its products must fill the customer’s need and inspire first, and that this should be the focus of all their marketing efforts.

6.    They understand how societal shifts change their customers’ buying decisions.

The most successful brands today realize that they need to directly tap into what their audience is experiencing on a visceral level — a level that they will want to adopt as part of their own identity. The old school business model was inherently focused around product attributes. The certain qualities of a product or service that will enhance their brand champion’s overall life or image. The new generation of breakthrough brands align themselves with the values of the consumer themselves. It’s about meeting consumers where they are, instead of trying to force them into the self-serving story that their brand wants to tell.

This might mean positioning your brand values front and center, instead of having the spotlight on just your logo and tagline. Those values can relay a powerful story that’s less about the company, and more about the people who choose them. The modern brand will likely run into bottlenecking if it approaches one aspect of its business with good intentions but ignores ethics in another area. Modern consumers are striving to align their buying power with brands that reflect their innermost feelings and associates with forming identities. They want to feel good about themselves while keeping their growing identities under close supervision.

Brands today need to be seen as an opportunity to have real and transparent conversations. They need to devise a way to show the world their values so that their audience can make intelligent, more educated and deliberate choices, and then back those values up with action.

7.    They embrace tension.

A brand’s personality plays a major role in how people are attracted to and respond to your products or services. The brands that deeply resonate have an unusual quality about them – and the ones that people obsess over have tension built into them. They play with the power of surprise.

Although it’s incredibly important for your brand to have a clear sense of purpose, it’s also just as essential to have an element of surprise built into your messaging and marketing. Too many brands strictly adhere to an antiquated brand voice dictating how they show up across their customer touchpoints, but in today’s world with so many ways to communicate it doesn’t make sense to appear the same everywhere.

Think of how we all show up differently on different platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram posts and stories. We can even go as far as the dating sites. Even though we’re still the same person, we put on different faces and personas for different channels. It’s simply that each of these channels has its own set of cultural expectations, giving rise to different behaviors. People respond accordingly.

The same is true for brands today. The most beloved brands know who they are, but are able to adapt their messaging to any container they might put themselves in. This is possible because more than likely that brand established a base personality right out of the starting gate and can shift and conform that voice to whatever environment they find themselves in. In other words, they can dress differently for a party, a casual day of tennis, or a meeting in a corporate boardroom.

Current brand leaders embrace contrast, combining ideas that may not seem simpatico, but come together in an offbeat and adoptable identity. When a brand behaves the same way all the time, they lose the opportunity to give off the element of pleasant surprise or the sought after magic edge. When I am helping founders craft a new brand, one of our first strategic tasks is to define the brand’s voice or personality. The way it’s going to show up and relate to its audience of people. And that is where the element of differentiation comes into the spotlight.

It is here that we try to uncover at least one or two unique qualities in the brand and let them speak for themselves – different than any other industry competitor. By combining exceptional qualities that have never teamed up before always just ends up making perfect sense. This is how we ensure depth and nuance within the brand. As brands peal back the layers of their personality, they skillfully tap into the different ways their audiences view themselves — therefore giving people permission to exist in more than one way, to embrace their own polarities.

If you can second guess what a brand is going to do next, why would you keep listening? You wouldn’t. The brands you love create fixations by inviting their audience on a journey that has twists and turns, even dips in the road, and it makes it so much more exciting. You have to bend and flex to keep things interesting.

Those irresistible qualities of breakaway brands are not merely accidents, they are carefully thought out through real and hypothetical customer narratives and their typical purchase journey. Qualities designed to solve their problems, fulfill what may be lacking or to provide what just may be that unexpected “spark” that lands in front of them at the perfect time.