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Your brand is your promise
A while ago, I blogged that brand is more than a logo. People often get caught up in a logo or a quality seal but brand is so much more than marketing mumbo-jumbo: your brand is your promise to your customers and other key members of your community. Key members of your community include (but are not limited to) suppliers, competitors, and community associations.
Your brand is not a legal contract but it is a social contract, which is why I prefer using the word promise. Without offending too many lawyers, social contracts are
generally stronger than legal contracts. Lawyers make their money negotiating around legal contracts but it is much harder to "negotiate" around a social contract: try telling your wife that you don't have to say "Happy Anniversary" to her until the exact hour, minute, and second you were married. If you find yourself saying "Technically, we don't have to do X" chances are you're breaking your brand promise.
While the external nature of your brand is obvious, it's also an internal promise. How you treat your employees and how they treat each other is a reflection of your brand. If you commit to helping your town recycle, but you don't commit to it internally, your hypocricy will leak out through your employees. Your brand helps align your team with your values.
You may be asking, "I understand how brand applies to someone that can afford to pay a brand manager that spends his time waving his arms talking about synergy but how does this apply to me, a local activity-based tourism provider? I live in the real world." In my experience, most small businesses are excellent at managing their brand because they are their business. However, one area where it pays to write out your brand's promise is if you want to grow from a small activity based tourism company to a slightly larger activity based tourism company. I'll talk about that in the next post.
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