Keeping your Brand Promise

Have you ever walked out of the cinema feeling let down?

Did the film you had just seen completely fail to live up to the promises made in its action-filled trailers and hyperbolic advertising campaign?

How would you feel if I told you that some of your customers had this feeling after using your Brand?

Your Brand Promises

When you create a USP for your business, and when (through your promotion, your advertising, your website and your branding) you communicate this USP to your customers, you are creating an expectation of experience. This expectation is your Brand Promise.

As we all know, making promises is the easy part.

The difficulty of any promise is not in the making; but in the keeping.

Are you keeping your Brand Promise?

So how do you monitor whether your delivering your Brand Promise? Here’s a little Venn diagram that will help you quickly identify where your Brand Promise is being matched by the Brand Experience.

The diagram uses these three areas:

Aspirations: This is essentially your USP. How do you want your Brand to be percieved?

Audience: The Audience is everybody outside of your Brand. This includes – but is not limited to – existing and potential customers, suppliers and competitiors.

Agents: Your agents are the people within your brand. This could include you, your staff and any contractors or freelancers who may work for you.

By discovering the Audience and Agent’s opinions of your brand, and plotting them in relation to your Aspiration, you can quickly and easily see how well you are keeping your Brand Promise, and where you are failing to live up to expectations.

If you find all three areas converge in the middle then well done. If not, you’re going to need to adjust some of your business practices to compensate.

Printable versions of this diagram can be downloaded in both .jpg and .pdf format.

Will you find this diagram useful? Do you use any methods for matching Brand Experience to Brand Promise? If so, please leave a comment below.