Love is in the air, everywhere we look around. Harangued hubbies are discovering that all the restaurants are already fully booked, supermarkets are selling limp red roses flown in on lumbering freight liners from Kenya’s Great Rift Valley (yes, really) and marketers are going all gooey with their copycat social media posts.
It might sound cynical, but it can be difficult to divorce the annual Valentine’s Day commotion from uncharitable thoughts of bandwagon jumping when it comes to our dearly-beloved marketing industry. Nevertheless, we’ve had a little heart-to-heart with ourselves here at Focus7 so that we can offer something truly meaningful among the all the mush.
Our message is aimed at the hearts and minds of business owners who may have fallen out of love with their own brand. “I don’t love it anymore” is not a phrase we actually ever hear, but it is precisely the sentiment behind the flagging fortunes of certain brands that some of us have worked with in the past.
Let’s face it, most things in life are “just like a marriage” and the relationship you have with your own brand is no different. It starts with fireworks, driven by the imperative of purpose and shimmering with the potential of hopes, dreams and ambitions. But by definition, successful start-ups mature, and the mundanity of day-to-day distractions soon begin to impose themselves. If it’s not problems with suppliers, it’s HR issues… and don’t even start on the bloody cashflow.
Extend this over a period of years, and it’s easy to see how spirits can flag. A business can lose sight if its driving purpose, while a lack of energy, focus and yes, passion, can compromise performance. This theme is often a key component of brand refresh, and it is something we can tackle with gusto during our F7 Brand Gym workshop.
We’d recommend it if you are a business owner looking to rekindle the love and put the romance back into your annual turnover. For us, a much-needed brand launch runs much deeper than a new logo and look and feel. (Although they do bring the excitement back and make the heart beat faster.) Often, a key aim of a workshop is to remind you of what drove you to set up your business in the first place.
Then as a group we can use that motivation to put real energy into redefining your brand purpose, personality, tone of voice and (above all) competitive differentiation for today’s business landscape. The upshot is a marketing reboot that will set your pulse racing all over again. Think of it as marriage guidance without the recrimination. You’ll love it.
