Brand consistency must be maintained throughout all areas of an organization; it builds credibility and consumer trust, allows for clear ownership of a brand’s differentiated positioning, and inspires a culture of development and innovation. Yet in a landscape where consumer preferences are ever evolving, market conditions are exceedingly dynamic, and the competition is always changing, it’s equally important to be responsive, creative, open to new ideas, and fully committed to your brand’s continuous development.

I’d like you to take just 10 minutes to take note of something you probably don’t pay much attention to, but that your customers notice every time they shop your store. Look at what is hanging from the ceiling and the walls of your store, and ask yourself, “What does this say to our customers about our brand?”

I sent an email to a business prospect last week. I thought the content of the email would make a good blog post. An edited version of the email follows.

One morning last week after finishing a golf lesson, I was standing in the golf course parking lot pondering Melissa McLean Jory. Melissa is a high school classmate I connected with on facebook last year. Melissa is a nutrition expert, specializing in Celiac disease. Because of her deep knowledge and wonderful personality we hired her to speak about blogging and Celiac disease at our GPS (Green Positioning Summit) workshop last year. Melissa writes an excellent blog, and her facebook posts are very well written. Her voice, her tone, her language is positive, upbeat, informative, happy, humorous, and insightful. It resonates with me; the language makes me smile and demands my attention. Kudos Melissa! So, in this parking lot pondering moment I realized how really important voice, tone and language are to advertising and marketing communication.

“To thine own self be true” writes William Shakespeare in Hamlet. “Let your conscience be your guide” the Blue Fairy tells Pinocchio and then asks Jiminy Cricket to serve as Pinocchio’s conscience.

Throughout your store you carry many nationally branded products sold at every one of your competitor’s stores. Do your customers prefer Hunt’s Ketchup or Heinz Ketchup? It really doesn’t matter to you which brand they buy, as long as they buy it at your store. You can’t help Hunt’s or Heinz differentiate their brands—the only way you can differentiate them is with your shelf price.

It’s a different story in your deli department.

“Why,” she asked “did you put two Xs in Exxon?”
“Why ask?” he asked.
“Because,” she said, “I couldn’t help noticing?”
“Well,” he responded, “that’s the answer.”
—Alan Fletcher, The Art Of Looking Sideways