Keeping the brand promise

There are many carriers of the brand promise- from advertising to web sites to customer service policies.

What gets said and done, indirectly by an organization or directly person to person, will either reinforce a brand promise or erode it.

Yet research shows as few as 5% of staff understand their company’s strategy and only about 20 “brand ambassadors” can articulate the brand promise.

One very practical way to overcome this is to articulate an existing brand as a series of promises. It is much easier for staff to understand what they have to do to reinforce a promise than it is for them to guess what agency talk gives them- brand attribute this and brand value that! The book provides a template that makes it easy to actually speak a brand as a promise. Singapore Airlines is given as a worked example.

Making a brand promise requires a different attitude and skills than making an ad. Designing a brand reinforcing experience so that a client can deliver on the brand promise is a skill most agencies do not have. The book explores the corporate values, brand promise and how the experience reinforces it at Swedish auto maker, Volvo Cars.