Can Your Employees and Customers Verbalize Your Brand Promise?
When we do in-depth questioning research, one question that stumps people again and again is this: “What is your organization’s brand promise?”
Research by Gallup indicates that “the more consumers can accurately verbalize the principal characteristics of the brand promise…the greater the share of their business they give those brands.” As part of Gallup’s research, people were asked, “How would you describe what Brand X represents, and what makes it different from its competitors?”
That is a powerful question. Imagine asking your employees that question. Imagine asking your organization’s board of directors. Imagine asking your contributors that question. Gallup asked the question and compared the responses to a list of core identity elements. The alignment from the people questioned to the list of core identity elements determined the rankings.
Gallup came away with an important recommendation: Make sure “your workforce is aligned with and empowered to deliver the core elements of your brand identity.” It’s important to ask your employees if they know your promise and, even more importantly, do they believe in your brand promise? No alignment with employees probably means your stakeholders are not aligned as well.
You’ve heard people talk about brand awareness. But it is not awareness you need to be successful, it is alignment.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.
After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.
He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”
Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”
One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.
Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.