What comes to your mind when you think of your favorite brand?
You may feel happy, inspired, pleasurable, youthful etc.
Every brand is associated with a set of feelings and emotions. The customers’ perception of a brand is built on the experiences and interactions they have with the brand. The words that help to shape these customer perceptions are known as brand essence. It is one the big brand concept. Let’s discuss more in detail.
What is brand essence?
According to Ipsos Encyclopedia, brand essence can be defined as “a compact summary of what a brand stands for, typically as part of a more detailed brand key. The brand essence is a single thought, typically expressed in 3-5 words that capture the soul of the brand, the brand’s fundamental nature or quality.”
To understand it clearly, we can say that brand essence is the soul of a brand. It is the core of your brand and can be felt in every action. It brings together the brand’s mission, vision, value proposition and beliefs. Brand essence is the starting step for creating strategies for reputation building. For example, the brand essence of Tata is trust and dependability. You can feel these two emotions in everything they do, be it their ads, products or other actions.
Some examples of brand essence are
Volvo – Safety
Adidas – Relentless
BMW – Driving pleasure
De Beers – Forever
Walt Disney – Magical
Characteristics of Brand Essence
- Brand essence is a feeling or emotion, customers’ associate with a brand based on the perceptions developed by them during their interaction with the brand. It helps to differentiate the brand from competitors.
- Brand essence is all-encompassing. It is the heart and soul of the brand and can be seen everywhere from packaging to brand advertising and marketing.
- Brand essence helps customers to assign a human-like personality trait to the brand and interact with it based on the emotion it evokes.
- Brand essence gives depth to your value proposition by going beyond the product price and features.
- Brand essence attracts the right audience through emotional connection and helps to build a loyal base of customers for your brand.
Features of brand essence
Brand essence should connect with the emotions of the target audience and help to build a favorable brand reputation. Here are some of the essential features for an effective brand essence statement.
- Brand essence statements should be meaningful. It should be crisp and describe the brand’s soul to evoke an emotion from the target audience.
- Your brand essence statement must be unique and authentic. It should convey the brand’s core characteristics in an engaging manner.
- The statement should be customer-centric in order to connect with them and evoke the intended emotions.
- The brand essence should be consistent across different channels and in every action of the brand.
- It is essential to define your brand essence in a sustainable and scalable manner. The brand essence should be easy to build on as the brand grows and matures.
Importance of brand essence
Effective branding involves creating a brand essence statement that resonates with the target audience and improves the credibility of the brand. The brand essence statement helps to create a strong brand identity in the minds of the prospective customers and motivates them to interact with the brand.
- Aids in marketing
Every brand needs to advertise and market its products to its prospective customers in order to inform them about the product/service offerings and differentiate itself from the competitors. Brand essence can be used as a guiding point to shape your marketing and advertising strategies.
- Helps to build a connect with the audience
In today’s world, customers no longer compare products based on price alone. They value the experiences provided by the brand. Brand essence plays a crucial role in shaping the perception of customers about the brand by conveying the value proposition and vision of the brand in a crisp and relatable manner.
- Brings consistency
No matter, the trend, the values and the beliefs of the brand should be consistent. Consistency is crucial to ensure that people remember you instantly. Brand essence plays a significant role in bringing consistency to your brand identity. For example, no matter where you go in the world, the essence of a Mcdonalds meal is “I’m lovin it,” and they have changed it in spite of the changing trends.
- Is Your brand’s rallying cry
Brand essence is the war cry of your brand. It gives a voice and tone to the brand and brings it to life. Brand essence is a set of words that convey the core beliefs of the brand and define its character. It gives a unifying message for everyone associated with the brand, be it the customers, fans, or team.
Brand essence is the starting point of brand building. It is the heart and soul of the brand and differentiates the brand from its competitors. The brand essence need not be a lengthy sentence, it can be a simple phrase that conveys the fundamental nature of a brand. Brand essence should be authentic, succinct, crisp and resonate with the audience.
Reader’s Insight
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