The Secrets to Building a Memorable Brand

Can branding still make any real and meaningful impact in the commercial clutter we live in today?

Today’s consumers are more discerning towards brand communications, as the line between branding and advertising increasingly blurs. To be a brand that consumers will truly remember, brands need a strong purpose based on a genuine spirit of bringing value into their lives.

The most well-loved brands don’t feel like brands at all. They immerse in the everyday world of their consumers, who then become walking embodiments of brand values without knowing it.

Ultimately, the essence of your brand lies in how people perceive who you are and what you do. Here are 3 ways to build and maintain a strong and memorable brand in the minds of your customers:

Tell their story

Branding is an art of storytelling, and a successful brand becomes an integral part of its consumers’ lives by telling their stories. The secret to creating a memorable brand story is to develop empathy, which means you need to think and feel like your consumers.

You’re no longer just a product or service provider – imagine you are now one of your consumers. What would you want and need? What are some pain points or frustrations in your daily life?

Circles.Life pulled off a remarkable publicity stunt with influencers to “vandalise” a fictitious competitor’s OOH advertisement, poking fun at existing data packages from “SG Mobile”. Image credit: Asiaone

Circles.Life, the fourth service provider to enter the saturated telecommunications market in Singapore, has successfully nailed their target group’s greatest pain points – data deprivation and being locked in telco contracts. With generous options like 20GB of data at $20, and flexible mobile plans that can be tailored to diverse individual needs, Circles.Life is on a mission to “give the power back to the customers” with their consumer-centric approach.

Their breakthrough approach offering SIM-only plans that no longer tie consumers down to two-year contracts is a market game-changer, for it forced other Singapore telcos to match up to Circles.Life’s competitive offerings.

Help them live the life they want

The most memorable brands do much more than help consumers solve problems. They embody a lifestyle their target group aspires towards, and help them realise it.

What makes these brands so powerful is the ability to make an individual feel special and recognised for who he/she is, and at the same time, part of a tribe with similar values and aspirations.

Such brands, with their distinct personalities, would work especially well with the millennial generation today. Many millennials are conscious consumers who see their lifestyle choices as an integral part of their identities, and hence are more willing to spend on self-expression.

For brands to engage these discerning consumers, they have to think beyond their product or service category, and innovate by creating a lifestyle or even a culture.

The contemporary nomad’s lifestyle is the heart of Moleskine’s aesthetic principles. Image credit: Etsy

A good example of this is Moleskine, a notebook brand that went from being plain analogue stationery to an essential companion for the thinker, traveller and other creative types. It may seem counterintuitive for an analogue notebook brand to thrive in a digital era, but Moleskine’s strong brand philosophy of helping people capture ideas and experiences on the move has given people an appealing alternative of slowing down and appreciating the details amidst the fast pace of modern life.

More than just a notebook, Moleskine is an inspiring canvas for dreamers and artists to express themselves freely. The online community myMoleskine is a “meeting place for Moleskine enthusiasts to share creations from their journals. From posting pages of watercolour paintings to videos of work-in-progress sketches, members share their inspirations and connect over a shared love for the Moleskine canvas.

Members of the Moleskine tribe will tell you that the Moleskine journal is unlike any other; it has a special aura that cannot be put into words. The secret behind this is its strong brand principles, which feels more authentic and heartfelt to the consumer than other products with “brand stories” crafted to market it.

Transform customers into advocates

Your brand is not defined by what you tell people it is, but by how they experience it. The key to winning your customer’s heart actually starts from an often overlooked part of branding: your company’s internal culture. When employees understand their company’s brand vision, it enables them to deliver on-brand experiences to customers.

Your company has to provide the tools for employees to understand, live and breathe the brand. This starts by creating an internal culture that inspires employees and nurtures their personal and professional growth.

When your employees nail your brand vision, your customers will naturally feel it.

Haidilao’s company tagline is “One Pot, Endless Smiles”. Image credit: Haidilao Facebook

Haidilao is a chain of hot pot restaurants from Sichuan, China that has expanded to other parts of Asia like Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. It is a very popular restaurant in Singapore for its dining concept of personalised service. Even before entering the restaurant, snacks and drinks, as well as manicure services, are offered to customers waiting in the hours-long queues.

Stepping into the restaurant, customers are greeted cheerily by every staff they pass as they are guided to their table. Once seated, the waiters serve hot towels for diners to refresh themselves, fruit platters and drinks.

The meticulous customer service goes down to the very detail of anticipating what the customers didn’t know they needed – such as a hair band for ladies to tie up their hair, and a Ziploc bag to prevent mobile phones from being stained with grease, and aprons to prevent spillage onto clothes.

It’s easy to see why so many customers are won over by Haidilao’s thorough and impeccable service, and readily share these experiences on social media with their friends.

Without knowing it, these happy customers have become Haidilao’s willing brand advocates.

How did Haidilao manage to transform a simple Chinese dish of hot pot into a wholesome experience of hospitality? The secret to happy customers is happy employees, and the management knows it, and more importantly, invests in it.

Haidilao’s philosophy is “hands change fate”, which empowers the employee to be the personal touch in creating an experience the customer cannot find anywhere else. The company’s management ethos is “human-based”, leading with affection and investing in the employee’s value.

These are not just catchphrases on the company’s mission statement, for the employees genuinely seem to enjoy themselves at work more than at other dining establishments. There is a synergy among them that helps them deliver the “incomparable service” that Haidilao prides itself on.

An inspiring and uplifting internal culture based on a strong brand vision can empower employees to deliver on-brand customer experiences. By investing in your employees, you help them transform your customers into your greatest advocates.

In the new business year ahead, may your brand story win your customers’ hearts and stay in their minds as part of their everyday reality.

References:
Techinasia, Straits Times, Marketing Interactive, and Interbrand