![]() To be truly insightful, research has to be filtered through multiple sieves in order to extract meaning. To give a simple answer, the easiest test is this: Have you landed on a simple, core brand idea? Are you able to boil the essence of your brand down into a phrase or sentence? In Search of Tension As a nonprofit communications leader, how do you know whether the job is complete and whether you’re looking at a successful brand strategy? The difference is stark to those of us who do this work regularly, but it can be sometimes challenging for clients to understand. ![]() Research is not the same as a brand strategy. ![]() You’ve checked all the boxes-understood the past, present and future of the organization, you’re familiar with who’s who when it comes to peers and competitors, surveyed your staff, held robust workshops with key stakeholders, interviewed experts and trusted advisors. These first steps can feel exciting (“We’ve always wanted to do this!”), illuminating (“I had no idea our team and audiences thought that.”), or magical (“Wow, how did they do that?”). Most people can identify what the initial phases of brand strategy look like: research, interviews, workshops, competitor analysis. What Does Successful Brand Strategy Look Like? So it’s essential to recognize that when your organization undertakes the huge task of building or renovating your brand, you are implicitly taking on the challenge of simplifying and distilling. Even if you attempt to communicate 20 percent of all the things you are, you risk watering the brand down into a bland discourse about nothing.īranding is an inherently courageous undertaking that will ask you to make tough decisions, accept complicated tradeoffs, and ruthlessly prioritize. You’re a lot of things to a lot of people.īut when it comes to branding, your brand needs to communicate one single idea – layered and dimensional of course, but still one that can be boiled down into a short phrase or sentence. And it has so many stakeholders: funders, clients, staffers, partners, community leaders. Your nonprofit organization embodies so many elements: programs, initiatives, issues, teams, passions. ![]()
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