The following brand attributes are off limits
At A Hundred Monkeys we’re no strangers to helping brands find their voice. One of the key components to this process is something we call “brand attributes.” Others call it “brand personality” or “brand adjectives.” I’ll write another piece soon about how there are hundreds of branding deliverables that accomplish the same three or four things. Anyway, after going through this brand attribute process over and over you start to see a trend emerge. Everyone wants to use the same attributes.
It’s like walking into a well-stocked toy store only to find a horde of kids fighting over the same action figure. One of the biggest goals for branding is to create something that feels different. So why do all these companies want to sound the same?
Friendly, Approachable, Fun, Trustworthy, Bold, Simple, Authentic, Reliable, Innovative, Loyal, Confident.
What do all these words have in common? They’re painfully positive. They’re the pleated slacks of brand attributes — business casual to a fault.
Do you want your brand to be friendly or mean?
Approachable or standoffish?
Fun or miserable?
Trustworthy or duplicitous?
Companies are attracted to these words because they’re difficult to find fault with. They’re safe bets — defendable decisions. Who wouldn’t want their brand to be friendly and authentic? Too bad it’s a trap. Here’s why:
1. These attributes are table stakes
Of course you should be friendly to your customers. Of course you should be loyal. Bringing focus to these attributes doesn’t really buy you anything. Be loyal. Be friendly. Your competition will attempt to do the exact same thing. So while these are important values in an absolute sense, they aren’t important brand attributes at all. Think about United Airlines telling you to “Fly the friendly skies.” This does nothing for their brand because all airlines would say they’re friendly–especially ones who don’t physically throw their customers off planes. It’s an expectation that when you interact with a new brand they’re going to try to be nice to you. Don’t waste your energy using your brand to reinforce the basics.
2. These attributes don’t pick a side
Brand attributes should focus on qualities that don’t appeal to everyone. This is an essential component of differentiation that a lot of companies nod their heads at but don’t put into practice. Some companies attempt to use language to skirt around it by saying things like “there for you” instead of loyal. This is a loophole with no benefit. The effect is the same. By attempting to appeal to everyone the only thing you’re actually doing is appealing to no one. People are attracted to brands that are willing to stand for something.
A fundamental component of actually standing for something is that you won’t appeal to everyone. Some people might not like you. Some might make a video of themselves angrily throwing your coffee maker down the stairs to share with their 19 Twitter followers. That’s ok. When Patagonia stood up for two national monuments in Utah, their sales spiked more than they did during the biggest shopping week of the year (1). People stand with brands that stand for something.
3. These attributes lack humanity
Imagine if you had a friend who made sure that everything they said was perfectly sanitized. They never got mad, never got envious or frustrated. They never took a stance on a polarizing issue — just played it safe every single time. How annoying would that be? Your friend would be more robotic than human. You would never feel like you actually knew or understood them. This is the feeling these brands create. One of the most important things that makes humans, well, human, is that we have weaknesses. Brands that try to make you think they shoot sunshine and rainbows out their asses aren’t fooling anyone. It’s a shiny, political veneer and people can feel it whether they actually recognize it or not.
In 2010 Domino’s admitted their pizza was awful and that they were committed to changing it (2). This is admitting weakness in such a fundamental way — never something you’d expect from a publicly traded company. This campaign, and more importantly the changes they made to follow up on the promise, turned the company around. It also took their stock from around $9 a share in 2010 to $287 as of publishing.
Remember: branding is just like life. We haven’t evolved special parts of our brains for dealing with the ways brands communicate. We employ the same tools we use to process and understand how humans communicate. This is why we don’t allow our clients to pick brand attributes like “fun” and “innovative.” Instead, we try to find the beliefs, the idiosyncrasies, the fears… the humanity.
