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Perception matters. It's why people spend
so much time, money and effort establishing a strong above
the line brand identity. And it's why every organisation
that takes marketing strategy seriously establishes a corporate
image and global branding which infuse everything from business
cards, letterheads, to collateral, websites and adverts.
But the visual look and feel of an organisation is only half
the story. What about the content?
It seems only common sense that companies which recognise
the importance of corporate fonts and logos should also recognise
the importance of establishing consistent marketing messages.
After all, in any business communication, it is absolutely
vital that the organisation should stand for something.
On the whole, however, companies just don't do this.
The value of a message hierarchy to market
positioning
I have known global blue chip companies refer
us to their marketing 'hymn sheet' - and give us a list of
40
or 50 factual bullet
points or vague taglines on two sides of a piece of paper.
I've known other companies who have extremely well crafted
and intelligent market and corporate positioning statements
for each of their products, but absolutely no context.
(In design terms, that's rather like having the world's most
impressive business cards - and nothing else.)
As a rule, companies don't have a properly systemised, top-down,
entirely consistent, detailed documentation of the message
that completely defines a company in its market places. And
as a result, they are missing out on business opportunities,
as well as restricting their ability to attract venture capital
and angel investors.
They don't have a hierarchy of messages
which start with, perhaps, a single corporate mission statement
at the top, works through a suite of supporting, evangelical
marketing messages, right down to product specific supporting
messages. And for each of these messages in this hierarchy,
they don't have a couple of paragraphs of well crafted,
fact-filled supporting copy to truly empower marketing professionals
both within the organisation and without.
Why aren’t messaging guidelines
part of corporate branding?
When you think about it, such
message guidelines are every bit as crucial to successful
corporate marketing and corporate
branding as design guidelines. So why don't they exist?
Perhaps it is a question of what people are used to. Every
organisation, after all, creates corporate design guidelines.
And (just as importantly), they can go to practically any design
agency in the land to get them to do this work for them.
But message guidelines are not an accepted notion. It may
make perfect common sense to those who think about it, but
even then there is a problem. Who do you turn to in order to
tackle what is, after all, a specialised, text centric activity?
What are the practical benefits of marketing
messages for market positioning?
Assuming these issues can be
addressed, what are the practical
benefits of such a document?
Well, if the corporate will exists, message guidelines can
(and should) become the foundation - and discipline - for every
relevant below-the-line marketing activity. Multiple agencies,
for example, can be given the message guidelines and instructed
to ensure that every piece of business communication articulates
these messages to the target audiences. Similarly, internal
marketing professionals, even internationally, can be directed
to 'sing from the same hymn sheet' - precisely because the
hymn sheet now exists.
At a tactical level, all proposed marketing
activities and deliverables can be forced to undergo a
messaging 'so-what?'
test. Does the proposed event, or deliverable, reflect and
reinforce one of the marketing messages? Does it improve
the corporate image, or your organisation’s market positioning?
If not, can it be adapted so that it does?
If the answer is still 'no', then the question must be asked
whether the project in question is a good use of marketing
budget in the first place.
Corporate branding needs marketing messages
The whole point of creating message guidelines,
then, is to ensure that strong, consistent visual brand identities
are
matched by equally powerful, consistent marketing messages.
As the old proverb goes – and as investors are always
keen to point out – beauty needs to be more than
skin deep.
Paul Ayling is MD of Writing Machine.
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