Your promise is in essence ‘a declaration or assurance that you will follow through or that a particular thing will happen.’
When it comes to branding, your promise is what you as a company can assuredly deliver to your customers and clients.
It’s the core benefit you will provide to them – one that’s in sync with their own needs and wants.
It’s not the products, it’s not the features.
It’s the value you’ll be adding to their lives.
The problem comes in when the companies and brands overthink or miss the core benefit mark altogether.
As an example, the core benefit for Ambsdr is not “helping you manage your brand,” and it’s not, “connecting you with the best brand insights in market.”
I researched what business owners and high achievers really wanted to accomplish with their lives.
While making money and being successful were worthy goals, I dug deeper and found that according to psychologists, business coaches and experts, self fulfillment IS the ultimate goal and desire for most, if not all of us, as outlined by Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
This revelation led to Ambsdr's 'brand promise'.
I applied the wisdom I'd gleaned and wrote down a draft brand promise.
At first It was a little longwinded: “helping people create the optimal foundations for ultimate self fulfilment and a legacy that far outlives oneself”.
After a few more attempts at whittling it down, I finally landed on this: “helping create firebrands that foster self fulfilment and lasting legacy.”
Nailed it.
I can’t insist on the importance of mapping your promise enough, because when you don’t, the results can be catastrophic.
When you miss the core benefit, you miss your audience and over time, the market.
Nokia is a brand that best illustrates how easy it is to blunder on what people truly want from a company.
In the 1990s they were at the forefront of mobile phones – they had share of market and voice. But ultimately they became a sitting duck to growing competitive forces and accelerating market changes.
Why the massive #brandfail?
Because they thought they were in the business of making phones and hardware, and they focused on that promise.
What they really should have been in, was the business (and promise) of enabling innovation through technology.
This would have allowed Nokia’s key leadership to think outside the proverbial box of a standard mobile phone, and constantly innovate and push for becoming better at delivering technology and connections wherever and whenever people needed it.
Can you imagine what Nokia would have been today with an elevated brand promise and legacy mandate?
Here’s the kicker: Your brand promise should be a strong, foundational benefit that creates legacies, not just a product, service or feature.
