Branding and First Impressions
I recently was interviewing a marketing candidate and while I went to check on their arrival I saw (who I thought was the candidate) having a smoke in the parking lot before the initial interview. I must admit that my first impression of them dropped as my misconceptions of someone who smoked did not fit with the type of person I wanted to hire.
So how do first impressions impact your brand? Very significantly! Customers first impressions can come from many sources: web site, sales person’s visit, telesales firm cold calling, a LinkedIn profile, an employee tweet, etc. As a marketing executive while you can control all these you can certainly define the tone and set the direction.
The first steps are to be honest with yourself on what your company brand represents:
- Are you edgy, cool, or conservative?
- Innovative, creative, or operationally efficient?
- Premium priced or low cost?
Once you have captured the brand character then review all the communications channels and assess their value in re-enforcing the brand.
- Does your web site reflect your corporate personality?
- Do you blog on breakthrough ideas or are you contrarian, perhaps simply educational?
- What tools does your sales team use? Do the graphics reflect the brand? Does the tone support your goals?
Branding gets built up over many years, but can get diluted without the right supporting focus and leadership. What are the best examples of consistent branding you know of?
While there are plenty of good examples of good branding, the two that come to mind for me are Rolling Stone Magazine and Apple Computer. Rolling Stone’s brand is, as expected, defined by the style of their “covers”. They often cover (partially) their name with the photo of the subject. The brand is strong enough that people don’t need to see the whole name to know it’s a Rolling Stone magazine, in fact, I think many people don’t even need to see the name at all to know the brand. Apple only needs a simple icon at this point to identify itself. I know there is more to branding than “recognition”, but I believe achieving instant, almost subconscious, recognition is about as strong as it gets.
Was the smoker your candidate? How did he end up faring? I’ve had the same reaction, btw.
Turns out the smoker was not my candidate. Made the decision easier, as the candidate was very strong.