Brand Strategy Review: Leave No Stone Unturned
Given the importance of a brand being built on your organization’s unique qualities, it shouldn’t be too surprising that the road to a new strategy starts with a thorough investigation of who you are. It can be tempting to skip over the discovery, either because you think you already have a good handle on who you really are, or you’re excited to get to the fun, visual part of the rebranding process. But this oversight can ultimately lead you to a brand that looks and sounds great but isn’t truly credible, or one that your team does not totally buy into.
When Wealthspire Advisors began its own discovery, we included the following data points:
• Interviews with firm leadership, advisors and other staff in various geographies;
• A review of similar firms and how they communicate their value;
• Online surveys and in-person discussion “forums” for all employees that allowed all to weigh in on our identity and best traits for brand expression; and
• Client feedback, either through interviews or surveys.
Focus Groups And Brand Strategy
While you gather feedback, I recommend you also form a working group to discuss and prioritize the results. The group that worked on our brand launch came from varying backgrounds and roles within the firm. The thought diversity provoked excellent discussions.
Even with such a dedicated group, it can be challenging sorting through the findings. Once you have data and feedback, what do you choose to incorporate into the new image? For us, this is where a professional brand consultant was most valuable. We worked with Grafik, and they were instrumental in pointing us in the right direction.
Our working group found it helpful to boil down data and feedback into overarching observations about our firm’s core traits. Here are just a few examples from our exercise:
• Our people are our greatest asset.
• Many of us feel driven by a higher purpose.
• We believe our team-oriented approach is powerful and distinctive.
• Our size and scale present tremendous advantages for everyone.
• A shared vision for the future of the firm will guide us forward to great things.
Once we agreed to those, we discussed whether we needed a new name or wanted to work with the existing names. We also created a list of “adjectives” that described our real personality.