Brand integrity: How to boost it?
How can brands boost their brand integrity?
Many leading marketers say that brand integrity is a marathon, not a sprint — and they’re right — but there are many things you can do to get going in the right direction. We’ve narrowed it down to 5 top ways to boost brand integrity, which you can use to build a reputable brand that people rely on.
They are:
1) Be consistent and cohesive across channels
Consistency is hugely important when it comes to brand integrity. If a consumer is getting one message when they head to your website, and another one entirely when they check out your social channels, it’s easy for their perception of your brand to slip. This might sound trivial, but that cohesion across channels is what shows that there’s alignment on core values across the brand. Knowing that people will get a consistent experience with you makes you more reliable and trustworthy, and contributes to overall integrity.
Take Apple, for example — they’ve built a cohesive, interconnected, business ecosystem, that operates around real consumers. Their message is clear. Their brand is strong. They’re a brand with integrity, and their consistent messaging means they’re always adding value for users, as well as driving growth.
And it’s not just about being consistent for consistency’s sake. Inconsistent messaging can be damaging to brand integrity, particularly when the messaging isn’t aligned with the brand’s purpose and the beliefs and behaviours of their customers. CVS are an excellent example of this — after realising that selling tobacco was not aligned with their purpose of improving people’s health, they stopped selling it. This, alongside their rebranding to CVS Health, has removed the inconsistency that would’ve slowly eaten away at their brand integrity.
So how do you make sure you’re consistent? The best way is to make sure everyone across the brand is aligned on your core values. What’s your key messaging? Who is your brand helping? Aligning on all pieces of the brand puzzle might sound tedious, but it’s essential for building a brand that provides consumers with consistent, valuable experiences.
2) Have a brand purpose
What’s your brand’s reason for being? A brand purpose is something that consumers and employees alike can rally behind. Many people now expect brands to serve a social purpose, and actively choose to buy from brands that they align with on key social issues, even if it means spending more money. Serving a purpose is so central to growing a meaningful brand that it’s become almost synonymous with integrity. When your brand consistently affects positive social change, people notice — and in turn, they think your brand is more likely to care about consumers, care about what they’re selling, and be trustworthy.
Plenty of purpose-driven brands are killing it these days. Some brands are born with purpose at their core, and other big brands are taking a more purposeful approach as the times change. With brands upping the ante on purpose-driven marketing, it’s important to stay on top of what connects your brand to the world around you. Check out this practical advice for building purposeful brands to learn how brands boost their integrity by incorporating purpose at their core.
3) Be authentic & human
Consumers are cynical. Delivering a heavily edited, corporate message just won’t cut it anymore — to be seen as a brand with integrity, you also need to be seen as authentic.
A human tone of voice can go a long way to establish brand trust. Many brands are taking to social media and communicating with their customers using more authentic language — injecting humour, emojis, and colloquial tones to establish better connections. Avoiding one-sided conversation is a must — the brands with the most integrity are those who engage with people, offer genuine responses, and seek out that crucial interaction. Owning up to mistakes is also a powerful way to be seen as trustworthy.
The key to being an authentic brand is actual authenticity — the genuine will to be an authentic brand. Wendy’s are a prime example of a brand that uses human language, tongue-in-cheek wit, and colloquialism within their brand voice to establish integrity. And a lot of the time, it really works. Where Wendy’s falls down, though, is in the inconsistency between their brand purpose and their jovial, people-focused interactions on social media. Their sourcing of produce from forced-labour farms and refusal to join the Fair Food Program doesn’t marry with their brand voice, and that lack of cohesion is enough for even the least cynical of consumers to recognise inauthenticity.
Another example is Nike who led with a powerful and authentic campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick — he’s since released a Netflix’s series, ‘Colin in Black & White,’ recounting his formative years navigating race, class and culture while aspiring for greatness.
4) Be agile
Building brand integrity is one thing, but maintaining it is quite another. Sometimes it only takes one faux pas, one comment, or one action that deviates from your core values, and that integrity is no more. The best way to ensure you’re maintaining a consistent brand experience is to make sure your brand is agile.
With time, things change, and so do people’s needs. What’s important now might not be so important in a year’s time. The ability to be flexible and adapt is invaluable when it comes to maintaining a strong brand. In the same way, you’ll need to be agile to protect brand integrity when facing a global market. A slight change in direction to match consumer needs shows that you’re built to be open to change — as long as you’re not doing a u-turn on your brand’s core values.
5) Constantly measure your brand
How do you know how your brand is doing if you’re not keeping tabs on it? Maybe you can get a sense from your sales or your mentions in the press — but the truth is, that’s only scratching the surface. Accurately tracking your brand is essential to understanding your business, your customers, and the wants and needs of consumers at large. Constantly get feedback from customers, partners, friends and family, and test where possible. The best brands are always using insight to understand what they’re getting right, and what they’re missing the mark on. The sooner you can do that, the better — diminished brand integrity is a lagging indicator of a bigger problem.
Is your brand struggling to establish the foundations needed to develop a strong brand perception? Let’s chat to see how we might solve these issues and create a brand that you and your customers can fall in love with.
