People fall in love with brands in the same way they fall in love with people… They fall in love with lovable characteristics.
Remember your first love? You fell for his or her personality, their infectious laugh, their stunning good looks, their cheeky smile. You fell in love with their unique, lovable characteristics.
Finding love for your brand is no different. Lovable characteristics are everything in the battle for your brand to become number one.
So how’s your brand looking? Lovable?
The following 4 brand characteristic categories will help you determine the lovability of your brand.
1. Destructive characteristics.
This category is typified by characteristics that, put simply… piss people off. A brand with destructive characteristics is often associated with rude, unfriendly and inconsiderate people, policies and practices. Such a brand oozes indifference.
Picture your local restaurant displaying a sign at point of payment… “No separate billing” or “minimum $10 purchase for debit card use”. Or the website message that says… “Click here to chat with us now: Offline”. Or website forms that don’t retain data when you click the back button to edit your input.
Destructive characteristics are everywhere!
2. Non-descript characteristics.
This is the characteristic category you’ll find associated with most brands. These characteristics belong to the brand next door where the name, trademark, positioning and overall brand story are sub-standard, inconsistent and characterless.
Picture the building company called Superior Construction whose trademark looks like this [Superior Construction]. This brand came out of a Weeties® packet. The name is common, bland, average (unlike Google® and Yahoo®), the trademark is characterless, of home-made appearance and lacking professionalism. Superior? I don’t think so.
3. Misguided characteristics.
Brands distinguished by this type of characteristic often impress at first glance but only because they’re the best of a bad bunch. The brand name, trademark and positioning may tick all the boxes but it’s never enough to overcome a ‘misguided characteristic’ contamination.
These misguided characteristics are failed attempts at being lovable. Strategically sound, structurally floored. They often lack personality, warmth and empathy for the customer.
Picture the brand manager who knows she should communicate with you regularly but doesn’t understand how to do it properly. Her regular, impersonal, insensitive, uninteresting, self focused emails are treated with disdain, disinterest and disregard.
4. Lovable characteristics.
This characteristic is rarely found in close proximity to its own kind. A small percentage of brands can boast having one or two lovable characteristics but few brands are imbued with enough lovable characteristics to become truly lovable brands.
Thankfully we can be guided and encouraged in our quest for more Love Capital by learning from Apple, Disney, Obama, Ikea, Ben and Jerry’s, Harley Davidson and Dubai.
So what should you do with an incumbent brand that has little or no Love Capital?
Change the brand’s characteristics so they’re more lovable. In the world of branding, a leopard can definitely change its spots – but be careful – not all spots are easily changed. Your brand’s core identity spots (niche, target market, distribution method, etc.) may not be safely changed without changing the name and visual identity of your brand.
This particular subject could fill a book of its own. Suffice to say that if you believe your brand may have core identity problems, you should definitely consult a branding expert.