You have a company, but feel you need to fortify your brand, especially now…the most challenging business environment the world has ever known.
– You don’t want to waste precious resources on marketing that won’t get you the lasting growth you need.
– You’re not sure of the right tactics and strategies to deploy to ensure profitable, organic growth.
What most people don’t realize, is that for a brand to predictably succeed, it must satisfy the core human instincts that are planted firmly in the oldest, most primitive parts of the brain. Our instinctive tendencies to seek trustworthiness and certainty, prize pleasure over pain, and conserve energy (by avoiding deep thinking whenever possible) still govern the majority of our behavior to this day.
These instincts have guided our successful evolution as a species over the last hundreds of thousands of years.
The brands that satisfy these instincts are the leaders in their categories. Consider the success of brands like Trader Joe’s, Patagonia, Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker, sweet green, Starbucks, Spanx… I call these brands Brain Friendly Brands® because:
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- We trust them because they make their purpose known, and act in accordance with their beliefs
- They consistently provide pleasure over pain through feel-good customer experiences
- They make it easy to get what we came for (we don’t have to think too hard when doing business with them)
These brands connect with people in authentic and lasting ways, not because of what they say about themselves, but because of how they make us feel when we do business with them.
Here’s the best part. When your brand satisfies, on this kind of deeply human level, your customers start spreading the word. They talk about you and recommend you to their friends and family. And then you start growing organically and exponentially, and through every marketer’s dream: word of mouth marketing. The most powerful form of advertising you can’t buy. (Hubspot tells us that 75% of people don’t believe in ads, yet 90% trust suggestions from family and friends, and 70% trust consumer reviews.)
Our purpose at MKBG is to help brands realize their greatest potential by operating in sync with the natural wiring of the human brain.
Megan’s 7 Brain-Friendly Branding® drivers are specifically designed to help brands satisfy universal human instincts to create the most powerful connection possible with their customers. These drivers are not new, strange or unconventional (in fact they’re largely pre-historic.) They’re simply essential in order to succeed as a brand today.
The Brain Friendly Branding® principles
Brain Friendly Branding® represents the cutting edge of brand strategy. It teaches brands how to communicate in sync with the natural operating system of the brain. It shows brands how to reinforce their promise behaviorally and experientially. The result is a brand that consumers will find irresistible.
Self preservation is the brain’s number one concern. Brands that prove to be genuine, purposeful, and true will be instinctively preferred.
What is your brand’s authentic point of view and purpose?
Humans are hard wired to learn best through stories. They help us make sense of the world and engage us far more emotionally than facts alone.
What are your brand’s most interesting stories (of the founder, employees, ingredients or products themselves)?
We’re certainty seeking creatures, naturally driven towards the familiar and predictable – we stay clear of situations with uncertain outcomes. The brands with the most consistently satisfying experiences are the winners in today’s marketplace.
Do you offer an effortless and consistently satisfying experience across all aspects of the customer journey?
We’re biologically conditioned to process the world first and foremost through sight. Visuals immediately attract our attention, help us learn more easily, form lasting memories, and intuitively inform our thoughts, beliefs and feelings about things. Brands must be meticulous about crafting an appealing and cohesive visual presence across all aspect of the business – logo, social media, employee uniforms, in-store design, packaging, etc.
What colors, fonts, shapes, images, icons best communicate your brand’s essence?
We’re social animals and have a deep seated desire to belong; early on, our survival as a species was dependent upon acceptance by our “tribe”. We love to take actions to help us feel like part of a group.
What brand mantras, behaviors, rituals, can help build a sense of community among your “members”?
Like sight, our remaining senses are also “always on”: smell, sound, touch, and taste. Working together, our senses govern how we experience the world. They bypass reason, connecting instantly and intuitively with our feelings. Marketers that build synergy between messaging and the senses will create the most powerful emotional response possible.
What scents, sounds, textures, tastes can add sensory differentiation to your brand?
Our brains are finely tuned “novelty detection devices”. We’re always on the lookout for potential danger or reward. While it’s essential for brands to provide a consistently satisfying experience, stasis and boredom are the kiss of death for a brand long term. Brands that stay true to their core identity, while adding novelty to their customers’ experience prove they’re committed to remaining relevant, thereby encouraging lifelong customer relationships.
What improvements or updates should be employed to help your brand stay fresh and up-to-date?
Get better results
With the Brain Friendly Brand® blueprint in place, you’ll have laid the foundation to creating the greatest overall customer experience possible – leading to all important word of mouth recommendations and skyrocketing Net Promoter Scores, ensuring positive brand momentum and growth.
If you’d like to learn more about activating your authentic narrative, speaking visually, satisfying consistently, engaging the senses, creating community, showing novelty —or simply building a brand that works the way the brain works—please contact megan@megankentbrandinggroup.com. Your customers will love you for it.
“New times require new tools. MKBG’s Brain Friendly Branding® is
exactly the kind of holistic approach that brands need to effectively
compete in today’s rapidly changing marketplace.”