Your brand is too small

Many nonprofits have spent enormous sums of money and organizational energy on "branding." The lucky ones are able to have it done pro bono by a powerhouse commercial ad agency -- though judging from the work you typically see from them, they're giving the job to the interns.

The end product is usually a document -- brand guidelines -- the prescribes fonts, color palates, design practices, and often a short copy stylebook for the organization. The smarter documents also discuss the meaning of the brand. But even that is generally taken care of in a paragraph or two.

In the end, branding -- as practiced in real life by nonprofits -- is just packaging.

Same is often true in the commercial world. And the Brands Create Customers blog takes a useful look at the issue in Don't build a brand. Build a movement.

In building brands you have to look beyond the wrapper. Brands command a canvas that knows no edge. As a brand builder, you use this canvas to connect customers with themselves in new and vastly better places. While fine-tuning the wrapper is important, it's not the most important part of the brand. That distinction goes to where your brand leads the customer—in that vast and fertile canvas you provide.

If a commercial brand is a movement, how much more so is a nonprofit brand?

While commercial brand must struggle to position the shoe, soft drink, or widget they sell as larger than life, your cause is, by definition already a superhuman, larger-than-life thing. Every nonprofit that does fundraising is a movement of idealistic people who want to make the world a better place and put their money where their mouths are.

Is that evident in your brand guidelines? Is your branding energy about building, describing, and sustaining a movement? Or do you have a whole book dedicated to packaging?

Technorati Tags: fundraising, brand guidelines, advertising

Comments

[Eric]

Brands Create Customers looks like a cool blog. I'll put it next to Donor Power in my feed reader and try it out.

Thanks for the tip.