Steal the secret of the iPod brand

Name a successful brand. Good chance you said, "iPod" the MP3 player that totally dominates the market -- even though, functionally, all players are pretty much the same, and most of them are cheaper than the iPod. Apple really got it right. Partly because of the software. Partly the great design. And largely with slam-dunk branding, the kind hardly anyone ever pulls off.

The Brands Create Customers blog has a great post on this: The iPod changes the game in brand identity. There's a lot there, but pay especially attention to this:

In a traditional brand identity approach, the brand team develops a brand identity that's company-centric. The identity stems from a unique company "essence" that differentiates the brand from competitors and supports marketing goals. Unfortunately, this approach comes with a major problem out of the box: it treats brand identity as a proprietary "package" that's separate from the customer. . . . The customer is simply invited (or persuaded) to embrace it, and to become, in effect, a (passive) brand follower.

Customers care about brand identity when it helps them grow their own identity. In truth, they want their identity, not yours. In other words, effective brand identity is about them, and not exclusively about you.

If you care about your nonprofit's brand, tattoo that last sentence on your forearm.

Nearly every nonprofit branding initiative I've been aware of has been an intense effort to crystallize the organization's self-expression, compounded by adding the design tastes of the relatively young, sophisticated people in charge of it all -- leading to a brand identity that has nothing to do with donors.

We can do better.

A truly donor-centered brand probably won't make your heart sing. Because it'll be about the identity of donors -- who are, on the whole, older, more religious, less hip, and less expert than you are. If you build an identity that make you say Yes! I love it! -- you've probably left them puzzled and cold. Want to do it right? Be prepared to be the once who "doesn't get it."

But you can learn to live with it. The increased revenue will soften the blow to your ego.

(See also Branding: the snake-oil of our time?.)

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