Branding is branding
It’s not every day we get a call from an organization like the California State Military Reserve (CSMR) asking for branding advice, the reserves aren’t our typical client, but as the man on the other end of the phone so eloquently put it, “Branding is branding.” I got him in contact with Laer for a heart-to-heart, which you can read all about in the summer edition of the CSMR newsletter, Warrior Words.
Whether you’re a large homebuilder or a state military unit, the steps to develop a brand are much the same. First, you need to ascertain what your current brand is. Your brand isn’t the slogan you put on the top of your website; it is the way the consumer sees you. CSMR has no brand established in the public’s perception, which turns out to be a benefit. By starting from scratch, they won’t need to change perceptions, so they have a completely blank slate.
The California State Military Reserve is in an identity crisis—or a lack of identity crisis. State reserves have faded into the background in the face of successful branding and public relations campaigns from other, bigger and sexier branches of the military. The CSMR needed advice on how to start the process of developing its own brand.
Once you know where your brand stands, you can find the emotional connection it has with the public and build your brand off of what you learn. It could be the benefits your product, agency or project will bring your stakeholders, or a long history of being a good corporate citizen, or, for the CSMR, the amazing volunteerism and personal sacrifices the soldiers make to serve California.
Believe it, they are heroes, and they work for you without seeking praise or recognition. That’s why Laer was more than happy to suggest the slogan “The heroes you’ve never heard of” as a first step toward building a CSMR brand. Feel free to give LP&A a call to see what Laer can do for your branding.
–Lauren Pearce
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 at 2:33 pm and is filed under LP&A, messaging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
