Are you feeling like you’re surrounded by support and encouragement for your brand, but can’t help but feel like something’s… off? Are you waking up sweating from a dead sleep asking yourself… Is my brand actually terrible? Does my brand need work?
How to tell.
Sure, anybody in branding can and probably will tell you where your brand could use some work. It’s their job, after all. But if you’re wondering “does my brand need work” and want to do some testing on your own, here are six simple ways to tell:
- Put it on a t-shirt and give them out to all your friends. If they wear it, you’re a winner, baby! If they don’t… it’s time to take a long hard look at what is going on with the Audit from Branding For The People.
- Make a new friend at the airport, but keep your career mysterious. Email them the next day with links to your website, and a few of your competitors, and ask them which one they would choose and why.
- Wrap your car in your brand’s logo and marketing message, almost like it is a bus and then go pick up your kids, your neighbors’ kids, nieces and nephews (anybody young enough to be pretty unfiltered) from school and see how embarrassed they are.
- The cell phone case is the modern billboard, so get yourself a case custom-made with your branding. If you’re feeling brave, leave it somewhere “by accident” and see what happens when someone picks it up. Do they keep the case? Score! (Disclaimer: don’t actually do this.)
- Bake and decorate cookies using your branding and bring them to the next dinner or event you’re attending. See how many are leftover at the end. If you’re going home with a plateful of cookies (or trying to hand them off and not getting any takers), that’s a sign.
Make them love you!
The bottom line is that your brand should be making people want to be seen holding a mug, wearing a shirt, and singing your praises. Children should smile. Nobody should cringe.
So if you’re imagining any of these scenarios where your branding is creating avoidance and not advocacy, the first step to branding people will love enough to flaunt, steal, and/or gush about is an Audit!
- Bake and decorate cookies using your branding and bring them to the next dinner or event you’re attending. See how many are leftover at the end. If you’re going home with a plateful of cookies (or trying to hand them off and not getting any takers), that’s a sign.
