Having a great looking brand visual style and strategy is very important, but an often overlooked aspect of a brand is it’s ‘character’, i.e. its position in the public consciousness, how it is perceived… how does it feel?

This might sound a little airy fairy but humans naturally think like this about everything, assigning a ‘character’ or personality to almost everything they deal with on a daily basis. It’s easy to test it on yourself, ask yourself this; how do you think of Apple, in comparison to how you think of IBM?

If you’re anything like me, you imagine Apple as this creative, stylish technology brand, cool, switched on, energetic, fashionable. And maybe knowing less about IBM, you imagine them a little stiffer, straight-laced, maybe a bit cold.

How your brand is perceived in the public eye can be wrangled and used as a highly effective asset to brand positioning, influence and penetration. A lot of brands cultivate a very deliberate ‘character’ in order to come across in a certain way and stand out from their competitors in a crowded market.

Apple is a prime example of this!

Operating in the highly competitive technology market, rather than competing directly with technical specifications and device performance, they took a very different route. They went with becoming a technology style icon to stand out, and look how it has worked out for them!

But it’s a significant task to ensure your company sticks to the intended character, especially if your company is a big one with thousands of employees. Do they all know your mantra, your mission? Do they know the ‘feel’ of the company, or are they just clocking in and doing their job?

Take this recent story of the huge ‘punk ethos’ brewery, BrewDog.

Having marketed themselves as a counter-culture, anti-big-business, underdog company they then took legal action to force a small independent pub to change their name, as it conflicted with one of their product’s names.

BrewDog kegs at its brewery in Aberdeenshire – oh the irony!

The Lone Wolf pub in Birmingham registered its name and designed all of their signage and branding before Brewdog announced their new vodka brand, also called Lone Wolf. The small local pub soon received a cease and desist notice from Brewdog’s lawyers and fearing an inability to afford the legal costs, backed down and changed all their branding at great expense to themselves.

When word got out, the big brewery was accused of hypocrisy online as a while back they had received legal threats from the Elvis Presley estate about their ‘Elvis Juice’ and had been quite vocal about how they thought it was unnecessary behavior.

But worse than the accusations of hypocrisy is the potential damage to the Brewdog brand character. Brewdog certainly maintained a carefully cultivated ‘indie’ feel with their punk attitudes and branding, which worked wonders in making them one of the biggest ‘indie’ breweries.

Brewdog later explained that their legal department had acted independently and issued an apology, but maybe if their lawyers had been more aware of Brewdog’s brand character, they wouldn’t have gone after a small independent pub?

So, how do you communicate the nature of your brand’s character to your employees, whether you have 10, or 10,000?

In the past, companies have tried booklets and documents that outline the character of the brand. But these are often not read or forgotten, and most of all don’t engage the reader. A new technique many businesses are taking advantage of is the ‘Brand Character Video’, a short video presentation not intended to sell your brand externally, but internally. An ad for your brand, for your employees.

A well-constructed brand character video can inspire a workforce by making them realize how awesome the company is that they work for. An impassioned workforce that believes in what they’re doing is a company’s best marketing asset, as they will sell the company every day to every customer with their attitude, demeanor and conversation.

Why not watch Holla’s video to introduce you to the concept of a Brand Character Video, and if you’re interested in the production of a slick and modern presentation device to light a fire under your workforce, then drop us a line!

Sometimes it’s just as important to sell your brand inward as well as outward. If you’re unified on every front there will be nothing your brand can’t do.

If you would like to receive more informative articles like this one, please sign up to the Holla Club Newsletter.