Communication is all-important for a brand, and even more impactful it becomes when you see it carrying a sustained, cohesive and consistent message for the brand. Messages create memories, a lasting impact, and an image about your brands whether company or product. This image needs to be ingrained in the minds of the concerned audience for a long, long time.
Words, designs, look and feel, what you say, how you say, and present is all that form a part of this communication messaging. Most important being the messaging that needs to keep going in the desired format, regularly, in a sustained manner.
Context of communication is a subject to change for any brand and so is the content. While the context will drive the content for the brand, messaging needs to remain consistent to make a lasting impact. Messaging aligns our thoughts and ideas towards the desired impact on the mind space of our audiences. Choice of words, connotation, language, style, and types of phrases, etc. used in communication matters a lot in defining the messages we want to send to our audiences.
Words trigger emotions. Humans are intuitive beings, and they react to words, expressions, and imagery. In today’s e-age there are hundreds of touchpoints to a brand where the audience gets exposed. Anything written, mentioned, or spoken on these touchpoints impact the mindset of the audience, there is a takeaway for them, and they make decisions about the brand.
A proper messaging weaves the brand personality, brand’s purpose, and the target audiences closely and firmly delivering a long-term value to any brand. Messaging when delivered consistently, and carefully establishes the audience focus, enhances engagement, and builds brand loyalty and trust.
Brand messaging consistency is not just outwardly looking, it very much applies internally for any company. What is relevant for your customers, clients, trade channel, government, business partners, vendors, is also relevant for your employees. Your employees are also like your customers as they must always have a strong buy-in to be with your company for a longer time.
Brand values can be instilled via training, mentoring, or simply exposing the internal audiences to various elements that communicate and convey these. If the employees are groomed, empowered, and motivated to become brand ambassadors, they can be huge assets for the company in addressing external audiences.
Employees can leverage their presence on social media to disseminate these brand values through various elements of communication to the external audience they are exposed to. Employees coming from inside the organization, having a great understanding of their brand values can use the brand messaging most appropriately, and their voice could be considered as highly credible by the external audiences.
As there are multiple touchpoints available for a brand today, the brand messaging consistency across all channels is of key significance as it drives them towards a common belief, idea, and experience. Brand’s personality must remain consistent across all social media environments. For instance, if you are a healthcare provider, believe in bringing the latest technologies, and are seen as an innovator, then this image should be maintained consistently on all social media platforms.
A brand’s behaviour and personality should not change from Twitter to Facebook to Instagram, rather it should remain consistent through the platforms. Similarly, in the age of social media, there are several influencers. While brands may choose to align with these influencers, it is recommended to choose the right influencers having a proper brand fit in terms of their authenticity, appeal, and connection with the target audience.
The consistency in brand messaging will allow the brand to make a better impact for the long term and ensure the trust continues to be built up.
The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.
Praveen has been closely associated with many national and international events related to cinema for children, art and culture. He has a well-rounded experience that cuts across all key sectors of PR & Corporate Communications.
He started his career with URJA Communications, an advertising agency specialising in technology brands, where he was instrumental in developing the PR division. Post this, he had a stint with Horizons Porter Novelli, a global public relations consultancy. Thereafter, he was heading the IT & Telecom division at Clea PR, a leading Indian public relations and communications company followed by a fairly long stint with Omnicom Group agencies viz. TBWA\India and Brodeur India.
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