2.2
verbal
expression
1.1
active
expression
2.0
expression
phase
1.3
win-win
outcomes
1.2
their
desire
1.1
your
belief
1.0
clarity
phase
conscious
branding
phases
resource
delivery
conscious
branding
phase
3.1
application
of brand
3.0
transformation
phase
2.4
internal
expression
visual
expression
mezzanine.co
2.3
steps for
brand clarity +
authenticity
mezzanine.co 1 / 13
2 / 13
Authenticity and long-term sustainability
in business go hand-in-hand these days.
In our connected world, people can see right through to the core of
your business. They no longer trust companies that have dissonance
in what they think, say and do. Which is why the brands that make an
impact today start from the inside-out. They align what they believe
(purpose + values) with what they say (visual/verbal communications
+ story) and what they do (promotion/ products/services/
initiatives/experiences).
Creating a brand is very intentional, you can’t afford to have an ad-hoc
approach. Your content needs to be instantly recognisable, useful and
relevant to your audience and reflect your brand’s core values. The first
step in creating alignment + authenticity is to gain clarity around your
brand. Brand clarity will help you focus your efforts.
Us
Them
DRIVE
DRIVE
Intrinsic purpose beyond profit
Intrinsic need
ENERGY
Conscious leadership
Engaged people
Considered product
Collaborative process
CONTEXT
Situation
Ability
Mindset
We
PURPOSE-DRIVEN STRATEGIES
Purposeful and considered
Add value to people’s lives
Positive, honest and respectful
Serve all stakeholders
Sustainability and growth
Following are steps for uncovering and
understanding your authentic brand.
mezzanine.co
Let’s go!
3 / 13
Us
1 . Tr u l y u n d e r s t a n d y o u r s e l f
Reflect on your business as if it were human and become
self-aware. Uncovering your purpose and authentic brand
as a business is a process of deep reflection, awareness
and examination. Think about the core beliefs and values
of your company and its people, and what motivates you
to do what you do. And then at a deeper level, why do you
have these beliefs and values?
Here, you’re looking to uncover your brand purpose or reason for
being. You want to identify what drives you, what you stand for and
how your business adds value to people’s lives. You are determining
your intrinsic purpose beyond profit.
At this stage you don’t want to even consider your audience, that
comes later. This step is one of the most important when it comes
to brand authenticity and is often overlooked. To be authentic
you need to look within, not externally. In the case of a business,
that means your people, your collective values, mindset, natural
strengths + behaviour.
Get real with yourself and forget about profit right now – this is
about you, your people, your business and the legacy you will
leave. This part is about your collective fulfilment and your true
potential. What do you actually want? What do you actually believe?
mezzanine.co
What ignites the fire in your belly?
4 / 13
Below are some things you need to discover about
yourself as a business. You really need to apply divergent
thinking here, there are no wrong answers, you can distil
down and find common themes later. Emotions, feelings,
intuition, reflection, hope and imagination are required,
so dig deep.
++ What change would you like to see in the world? Why is that
important to you?
++ Is there something about your industry that you feel needs
to change or improve? Why?
++ What are you driven by?
++ What would you do with your time if money wasn’t a factor?
++ What do you truly value?
++ How do you want to live each day?
++ How do you actually add value to people’s lives?
++ Visualise your company at its full potential, thriving – what
does that look like? What are people doing every day and
what are you working on?
++ What do you want people to say when they talk about you?
++ What sort of people do you want to work with?
mezzanine.co
++ What are you afraid of?
5 / 13
Next, you need to think about your brand from this
future context. We call this your ideal brand state. It can
be hard to remove yourself from current reality but for
this, you really do need to dream, imagine and keep your
thoughts firmly in the future.
With your new awareness, and in the ideal brand state, you ask
yourself the below questions in order to get clarity around your brand.
Branding is what you stand for in the hearts and minds of your
audience. When people are evaluating brands, they use emotions
rather than information. The entire experience of your business will
determine how people feel and how they evaluate and categorise you.
Since brands are like people, we can explore them in the same way
we explore ourselves, and develop unique insights and approaches to
brand positioning and strategy.
Imagine your brand is a person:
++ Describe your brand personality
++ What does your brand get excited by?
++ What are your strengths?
++ What is your biggest fear?
++ How does your brand make people feel?
++ What type of car do you drive? Why?
++ What brands do you admire and align with? Why?
++ What do you do for leisure? Why?
mezzanine.co
++ What kind of clothes do you wear? Why?
6 / 13
You will start to build up a vivid image of this person
(a personification of your ideal brand) and a collection
of words and themes, which can then be distilled to start
to gain clarity and define your brand archetype. Your
archetype will help you articulate your meaning and
provide a strong foundation for your brand story.
Archetypal branding is about anchoring your brand behaviour to
the belief patterns that are already embedded within humanity’s
perception of people. Archetypes were first developed by Carl
Jung and represent 12 universal inborn behaviour patterns
all of humanity can be categorised into. The more you can
align your brand with the archetype and its related behaviour,
the more trustworthy and cohesive your brand will become.
Just remember that your archetype provides a guide for your
brand, its personality, behaviour and experience – you still
need to build a unique brand strategy that is derived from
your purpose and takes into account your situation, future
strategy and industry.
You can read more about brand archetypes and brand
mezzanine.co
strategy on our blog.
7 / 13
Them
2 . Tr u l y u n d e r s t a n d
your customer
Knowing your customer and actually understanding them
are quite different. Many companies come up short when
it comes to understanding the emotional needs of their
customers. All customers are influenced by their own
beliefs, and these (often unconscious) beliefs determine
the strength and length of your relationship. Without an
emotional bond, customers can be easily swayed away
from your brand.
Brand connection, just like human connection, is more psychological
than logical, and more unconscious than conscious. A purpose-driven
organisation that expresses their beliefs and strives to authentically
connect with their customer is more likely to attract loyal advocates.
“If you do not make an emotional connection with customers, then
satisfaction is worthless.” – ‘Customer Satisfaction Doesn’t Count’ ,
Article by the Gallup Organization.
The world’s most loved brands have an overriding emphasis that drives
the entire brand’s approach. They sell one emotional connection, not
a lot of different things. For example, Harley-Davidson sells liberation,
mezzanine.co
and Nike sells mastery.
8 / 13
During this phase, take all focus away from yourself
(your targets, goals, expertise, features and benefits,
credentials, and your bottom line etc.) and instead focus
completely on your ideal customers (their needs, goals,
problems, experience, value, feelings, thoughts, actions,
dreams, and their fears etc.)
Notice we said ideal customer. We always recommended that you
focus on your ideal customer when positioning your brand – those
are the relationships that are positive, fulfilling and profitable. Many
customers may bring profit to your business, but are neither positive
or fulfilling. In fact they can be downright draining. It’s true you can
learn a lot from difficult relationships, and you should definitely
reflect and learn from these experiences. However, you don’t want to
spend endless hours and money building a brand that attracts more of
those type of relationships, its not a sustainable practice for you, your
company or your brand over the long term.
Hint: If you are attracting lots of those difficult relationships, its
just an indicator that you don’t have an authentic brand… yet.
Empathy mapping and customer journey mapping can be used to
uncover the aspirational self-concept, desires and fears of your
customer, which is what you need to know in order to build a brand
that truly connects and inspires your audience. Get below the surface
with qualitative research, talk to customers directly. You will not
truly understand your customers with surveys and big data alone.
Remember you’re trying to discover your authentic brand position, this
mezzanine.co
isn’t about marketing right now, so keep focused on the bigger picture.
9 / 13
Here are some questions you need to be able to answer:
++ What do they think and feel?
(worries, aspirations, preoccupations, expectations etc.)
++ What do they see?
(environment, people, brands, information etc.)
++ What do they say and do?
(attitude, appearance, behaviours etc.)
++ What do they hear?
(influences, media, peers, colleagues etc.)
++ What are their frustrations + fears?
++ What are their wants + dreams?
When you have a true description of the people you’re trying to reach
and where and how to reach them, you’re armed with the knowledge
you need to address their values and motivations through your brand.
By uncovering emotions, you learn the basis of your customers’
motivation, and thus the authentic attributes of your brand to
mezzanine.co
highlight in your branding strategy.
10 / 13
We
3. Find where you and
your ideal customer
authentically align
You now need to find the bridge between your authentic
business + purpose, and the needs and desires of
your customer. By now you should have a lot of useful
information and insights at your fingertips about your
business and your customer. With some thought and
reflection (this may take a while), you should be able to
find where both your values + aspirations align – that
is, how you can position your brand to best serve your
customers needs + aspirations. What story can you tell
that is both authentic to you, and relevant to the wants +
aspirations of your ideal customer?
Something we find that’s helpful at this point is to find the ‘we’
statements. These are statements you could make that would motivate
both you and your audience, they need to ignite some passion. Again,
apply creative thinking and write down anything that comes to mind
– lay out all of the words and information you’ve gathered so far and
mezzanine.co
look for insights into commonalities.
11 / 13
This part about uncovering your unique emotional benefit –
the core element of your brand strategy that will magnetise
your ideal audience when expressed and executed
consistently over time. The good news is,when you have an
authentic brand position and strong purpose, behaving and
communicating consistently comes more naturally.
Here are a few questions that might help you find alignment:
++ What core needs are your customers trying to fulfill by using
your category (generic industry/category archetype)?
++ What are the core emotive drivers for people to choose your
brand specifically?
++ How does your archetype fulfill these desires? What needs
doesn’t it fulfill?
++ What characteristics are associated with both your archetype
and your generic category archetype?
++ What does your customer believe that you also believe?
++ What values do you have in common?
++ What strengths do you have that serve their
core human needs?
++ How do your products and services align with your purpose +
brand archetype?
++ What future needs will your customers have? How is your
purpose aligned to that?
++ What implications does your archetype have for your brand
mezzanine.co
positioning and your brand story?
12 / 13
Hopefully this ebook has provided you with a new way to
look at and live out your purpose-driven brand. We hope
it’s been helpful.
If you want to build an enduring brand that has a positive impact
on people, your business and the world, here are the 6 key areas
you need to focus on:
1. Higher Purpose - Connect, unify and mobilise others around a
common goal. This is the foundation for creating real change.
2. Purpose-driven Strategy - Refer to your purpose to drive, integrate
and evaluate everything your company does in order to ensure you
create your desired future.
3. Intrinsically Engaged People – Become the critical bridge between
employees and the purpose they seek. A brand that has been built
from the inside out must start with its people.
4. Conscious Communication – Be mindful in ensuring that all company
and brand communications are aligned with your company’s purpose
and focus on positive and intrinsic values.
5. Empathetically Connected Customers - Build a culture of empathy.
Understand customers at their core and genuinely want the best for
them. Drive to deliver value how and when customers really want it.
6. Agility and Responsiveness – Use your vivid goal and defined
purpose as a framework for change and direction. Conscious Brands
are able to stay true to their purpose and values while transforming to
adapt to changing market demands and customer expectations.
mezzanine.co
You can Assess and track your brand
development over these six key areas on our
Conscious Brand Index - consciousbrand.co
Mezzanine is a Conscious Brand agency,
helping purpose-driven business leaders
to grow and nurture brands that have a
positive impact on people and the world.
To find out more about how we can help
you visit mezzanine.co
Assess and track your brand using our
Conscious Brand Index
Follow our Podcast ‘Find Your Possible’
Follow us to learn more about Conscious
Branding and purpose-driven business
Enjoyed this ebook?
Help us create a better future for
business by spreading the love.
61 Parry Street
Newcastle NSW 2300
Phone 02 4929 1555
[email protected]
mezzanine.co