Elevate, Differentiate, Communicate: Standing out by standing up for your purpose

brucegrover3
Jun 27
3 min read

By Bruce Grover, Founder + Chief Strategist

This series of articles explores the principles of branding three ideas at a time.

What sets your brand and communications apart? How do you cut through the noise of today’s marketplace? Has your brand been stretched to accommodate more and more programs and products? Or, is it still rooted in your organization’s unique vision, purpose and offerings?

Many brands struggle to strike the right balance between simplicity and detail, information and inspiration. Over time, communications, websites, social feeds and emails get over-stuffed with information and options that leave audiences overwhelmed. And when people get overwhelmed, they look elsewhere.

As hard as it is to assess your brand’s effectiveness, it's worth stepping back and looking at your brand, communications and collateral with fresh eyes.

One way to think about this is to ask, does your brand look like a “local” brand selling widgets or like a “national” brand with a clear and compelling offer?

“Local” quality brands tend to be organization centric. They bury their mission and value in a jumble of programs, services and products and can be cluttered, confusing and uninspiring.

“National” quality brands tend to be audience centric. They’re clear, consistent and coherent. They’re informative and inspiring — and they invite people to see themselves as part of an experience that is shaping a shared and sustainable future.

How does an organization rise above the noise to inform, inspire and invite audiences to engage? Great brands:

Elevate. How do you personally show up in conversations with people you care about? You probably talk about more than stuff. You probably tell stories and talk about ideas. You ask questions. You listen.

So why do organizations fall into the trap of just talking about stuff — programs, services and products? Without a clear brand strategy that teams commit to, organizations can end up over-relying on their “products” and, worse, competing with themselves.

To rise above this trap, great brands elevate. They infuse their brand and communications with what they do, why it matters and how it works. They tell stories. They talk about ideas. They ask questions. They listen.
Differentiate. To stand out, we must become deeply curious about our audience, business and brand. We need to understand the needs and aspirations of our audience — as well as those of our business and brand.

This requires listening as we explore needs, goals and pain points with real people — our audiences, our teams and our stakeholders. It requires collaboration with decision makers to ensure we gain unity of thought, vision and action.

Differentiation requires a thorough look at peers, social forces and the communications landscape. What do other organizations look and sound like? What are the social forces impacting lives and behavior? Who else is out there trumpeting similar ideas and offerings?
Communicate. Once we’ve gained an understanding of our audiences, defined business goals and built clear, compelling and differentiated brand tools, we are almost ready to invite others to get involved. But first, we need to create a communications plan that is true to who we are and that makes coherent choices across paid, earned, shared, owned and partner media. This takes real work to, first create a plan that can evolve and be effective, and second to do the week-by-week work of growing social followings, email lists, engagement, and brand authority.

How do we start?

Telling our story and inviting people to help build a shared and sustainable future is a thrilling part of the journey. This work requires a learning mindset to ensure our approaches are flexible, creative and effective — and engage the right people in the right ways at the right times to spark fresh thinking and invite interaction.

While there is a lot to think about, the first step is simple: Start asking questions. Is our brand bogged down by complexity? Do we inspire our audiences — and ourselves? How can we elevate, differentiate and communicate our offer in ways that invite interaction, actualize our mission and compel change over time.

Thanks for reading.

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