The brand promise, one of the most important elements that make a sustained and long-term impact on the brand’s growth and in capturing the mind space of its consumers. Whatever uniqueness the brand has, which supports the brand’s purpose and makes a commitment to its customers in terms of delivery, whether a product or service, completes a brand promise.
This is extended internally within the organisation by way of the mission and vision set by the organisation, explaining why you do, what you do and how you do. However, on the external front, this is expressed through brand personality and brand positioning among its customers. It is the audience that receives and experiences the products and services, where the manifestation of brand promise becomes visible.
It’s a promise, an assurance, a confirmation of the quality of experience of the products and services offered by any brand, it’s a statement that reflects the brand values, and connects, binds, carries ahead together with an audience on a long-term association. How is the brand different from the competition, how is the brand better than other brands, how is the brand ahead of its competition, all of these are driven by the brand promise made to its audiences.
It takes a long time to build trust among the consumers. The brand promise, when fulfilled continually over a sustained period, strengthens that trust fortifies that belief in the brand, and ensures a great bonding between the brand and its audiences.
Having said this, it is however most important to have the brand promise internalised first within the organisation before extending it in the outer world, since the seeds of successful delivery of a brand promise are always sown within the organisation.
An organisation’s entire hierarchy starting from the CEO to staff right at the floor level needs to understand this clearly that it’s not just about offering great customer service, but it’s about delivering an excellent customer experience at all brand touchpoints in a sustained manner. It involves everyone in the organisation and not just those who interact with customers.
All employees, in the thread of production to market delivery, is an important constituent of living, inculcating, involving, and internalising the brand promise, to make it deliver eventually externally on various touchpoints, even if most of them do not directly face or interact with customers for that matter.
A dialogue, a discussion, a talk, an informal chat, a formal presentation, or any such exchange around the brand promise internally being done in a sustained and regular manner can be of great value for any brand to live up to its promise. If the employees internally are aware of their roles, their contributions, their value additions, and their commitments towards the brand promise, it can simply be a game-changer.
If the internal audience understands well, how to live the brand, the impact on the external audience can be just amazing. An internal alignment with employees apart from marketing it internally, a dialogue and discussion-oriented work culture, and passionately being involved with the brand can make a great deal of difference towards living the brand promise.
Whether the brand promise is clearly defined and articulated for the audience, or it is somewhere hidden in the messaging and remains open for assumption among the audiences, brands should remember that they will be rewarded or punished based on how they lived that promise.
Brand promise communicates the brand value, its benefits, and the experience audience should get from using the brand. Living the brand promise internally through the hierarchies, both vertically and laterally, can create a great pathway to extend this externally, and reap the benefits of delivering it at multiple brand touchpoints, thereby enhancing trust and long-term association with the brand’s audiences.
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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