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Understanding Brand Strategy – a conversation with Diane Lurie
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Diane Lurieis a Glasgow based brand strategy consultant. Diane focuses on coaching founders and leaders to find their true competitive edge, get the recognition they deserve, by helping them to uncover their authentic brand.
In this episode of the Abeceder podcast The Independent Minds, Diane discusses the seven principles of Brand Strategy with host Michael Millward.
Diane covers all seven principles of Brand Strategy and includes the importance connecting the personal values of the founders and leaders with the values of the brand.
Diane explains how a Brand Strategy is a like constructing a new house you need the correct building blocks.
During their conversation Diane and Michael discuss the Brand Strategy of Apple and the person who set the foundations for that strategy.
More information about Diane Lurie and Michael Millward is available at abeceder.
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Transcript
Introduction to Independent Minds Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
on zencastr Hello and welcome to the Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abyssaida and people who think outside the box about how work works with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
Guest Introduction: Diane Lurie
00:00:23
Speaker
I'm your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abyssaida. In this episode of The Independent Minds, I am joined by Diane Lurie, who is a brand strategist and executive coach.
00:00:38
Speaker
As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, The Independent Minds is made on Zencastr.
Podcasting Platform Promotion
00:00:46
Speaker
Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform that really does make every stage of the podcast production process, including publishing and distribution, so easy.
00:00:57
Speaker
If you would like to try podcasting using Zencaster, visit zencaster.com forward slash pricing and use my offer code, Abbasida. All the details are in the description.
00:01:10
Speaker
Now that I have told you how wonderful Zencaster is for making podcasts, we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
00:01:21
Speaker
As with every episode of the Independent Minds, we won't be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think.
Focus on Brand Development
00:01:28
Speaker
Today, my guest, Independent Mind, Diane Lurie, who is a brand strategist and executive coach.
00:01:36
Speaker
Hello, Diane. Hello, Michael. I'm very pleased that you can join us today and i'm looking forward to our conversation. But before we talk about branding, please could we start by you explaining a little bit about your career and what you do?
00:01:54
Speaker
Absolutely. So I'm a brand strategist and executive coach and I've got a focus on leadership. So essentially I develop brands and leaders and underpinning all my work are the ideas of possibilities and potential.
00:02:14
Speaker
So for brands, I think about, well, what could this brand be? And what does it want to be? if it could If it could tell us what it wants, what would it say?
00:02:25
Speaker
And similarly for people, I think, what does the person want to be? And who do they want to be? want, really want. really really want Because often I find that that people kind of limit um how they express their wants, perhaps when they're saying them out loud, but but also when they're thinking about them just silently to themselves, they might kind of delete certain certain goals or wishes.
00:02:58
Speaker
And I like to help them get in touch with those. And so it's the things that we think about in terms of our ambitions or objectives that we think, oh, that's so buts so one of those big, unbelievable objectives.
00:03:18
Speaker
I mustn't tell anybody about it. People will laugh at me to have a think. But actually, if you put the the various different building blocks in place then and look at it as one brick at a time, then those objectives stop being so outlandish and can actually be quite realistic.
00:03:39
Speaker
Definitely. And I really like what you say there about breaking things down into micro steps, you know, working back from what it is that we really want and and figuring out how to get there and in small steps.
Brand Strategy: Seven Building Blocks
00:03:54
Speaker
One of the things that you were telling about earlier is that you've got seven steps, seven bricks around brand brands and brand strategy. So thought it'd be interesting to explore at least some of those.
00:04:09
Speaker
But what are the seven building blocks of a of a brand? So the first principle I'm thinking about is how a particular brand can best serve an audience.
00:04:25
Speaker
So that's, if you imagine a Venn diagram and on the left hand the left-hand circle, we've got the brand and on the right-hand side circle, we've got an audience.
00:04:36
Speaker
Where they overlap is is Nirvana. So that's serving an audience by being true to the brand. Okay.
00:04:48
Speaker
The second principle is brand listening. Brands listening to their stakeholders. The third principle I've got is around the big idea, brand idea.
00:05:01
Speaker
So we might be thinking about something like Purcell's Dirt is Good or Dove Real Beauty or the AA's Fourth Emergency Service. so A really big idea.
00:05:19
Speaker
And the fourth idea, i'm ah sorry, principle I've got is brand empathy. where brands seem to understand what we're feeling and what it's like to be us.
00:05:32
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And the next one I'm thinking about is brand trust, which is probably self-explanatory.
00:05:41
Speaker
And then the last two are brand vitality, where a brand works hard to stay relevant.
00:05:51
Speaker
And the last one, brand distinctiveness, where a brand stands out and apart from their competition? Oh, there's quite a... There is quite a lot to think about there in those s seven ideas, principles, an awful lot to think about. And yet, in just the few words that you've given me, went as you were running through that list, I can see...
00:06:25
Speaker
an awful lot of common sense and logic. And as someone who works for an organization that's own name, that means to put into logical order, I'm liking these seven.
00:06:39
Speaker
and There's an awful lot of logic to these seven things. I think what would you say, i mean, with all, all sort of plans of action,
00:06:52
Speaker
one of the things that people tell us to do is to go for the easy wins. What would you say is the one that most brands and have an easy win or the biggest chance of having an easy win with from these seven?
00:07:10
Speaker
Well, I think I would go with um brand empathy, actually. Although it is...
00:07:21
Speaker
part of emotional intelligence and some of us have it more than others.
00:07:29
Speaker
I think that when a brand understands not only itself, but its audience or audiences, then there's a connection and a lot of things flow from that. Right.
00:07:49
Speaker
To understand
00:07:52
Speaker
who we're serving, what makes them tick, what they need, what they don't perhaps know they need. um A brand can excel in in that.
00:08:07
Speaker
And it if if if we put the work in at the brand level, um and that can engender a lot of loyalty.
00:08:19
Speaker
Like you say, it's the emotional intelligence aspect of it ah the how a brand operates. And listening to you speak there, i was thinking like, okay, so which brands are good at this empathy side of things?
00:08:33
Speaker
I think I'm right in saying that in the early days Apple,
00:08:38
Speaker
they identified, I can't remember who the the figure was. He was one of the- Steve Jobs? It wasn't him actually, it was another one, but he was one of the original founders and and he said, we're going to excel at brand empathy.
00:08:54
Speaker
um And it it was kind of ahead of its time, but it's probably never been more important now.
00:09:06
Speaker
um that that it is now sorry um and the thing about empathy is is that it takes time and a lot of emotional intelligence skills and i say skills because they can absolutely be learned and mastered um
00:09:27
Speaker
A lot organisations, if I can flip to organisations, don't have, don't don't allow people enough time.
00:09:42
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and and I think that's a very important priority to get right, that we allow people the time to feel understood Right.
00:09:54
Speaker
I think I know what you mean. I don't know the name of the person, Apple either, who said that they were going to be an empathetic brand. But from what you're saying, they and Apple definitely understands their customer, the person who wants a particular type of technology.
00:10:13
Speaker
suppose what you're saying is understanding technology. why someone buys whatever it is that you have to sell, whether that is a product or a service. They are buying it for particular reasons which may not necessarily be tangible. It could be something totally intangible or it's the messages that you have attached to the product or service which resonate with the people that you or people or the organizations that you are wanting to be your customers.
00:10:47
Speaker
I think that's spot on. It's a kind of obsessive understanding of of what makes a particular audience or or tribe tick. And spending time on understanding what they say and also what they leave out, what they don't say, um is a really important part of what brands do.
00:11:14
Speaker
so that they get below the surface and as as you talk about those intangible needs and wants they can define what those are for for people and and help feed that into product and service design and also communications clearly it sounds as if sometimes a brand may need to understand its customers better than the customers understand themselves.
00:11:54
Speaker
Completely. i mean, we can be mysteries to ourselves, strangers to ourselves, definitely.
Brand Authenticity and Alignment
00:12:01
Speaker
And and a brand that helps us understand who we are is is a brand that that we grow to love.
00:12:09
Speaker
so there is almost an element of coming to ah brand that knows who we are is a brand that we come to love but actually we can become the brand absolutely yes it's sort of yeah sort of twin you know sides of the same coin Yeah.
00:12:30
Speaker
So thing no matter how yeah bad things may be financially, that empathy between ah so and a brand will mean that that brand will always be something on our shopping list.
00:12:44
Speaker
We will not take it off because of the empathy. That brand understands me, knows me, um is on my side. Completely.
00:12:56
Speaker
Completely. and as you you know, i can hear when you say that, just the humanity and shining through. and and we need that more and more.
00:13:07
Speaker
So the empathy one, the empathy idea, understanding your customers is is one where you can get some easy wins if it's simply a matter of, I suppose, talking to your to your customers. But If we change tacks like the, what is the most important one that a brand needs to get right?
00:13:30
Speaker
And I suppose if it's the most important one to get right, the one that you definitely don't want to get wrong, which one would that be? Well, I think I would go back to my...
00:13:41
Speaker
first one, which is serving an audience and and and the Venn diagram, ah where we've got the overlap between the brand and the audience. And that this really is is about brand authenticity, knowing a brand really know needs to know who it is.
00:14:03
Speaker
but When a brand doesn't know who it is or seems inconsistent or insincere, or confused about itself. that That's when it's difficult to establish loyalty.
00:14:19
Speaker
So brand authenticity or being true to itself is one of the most compelling dimensions of a brand.
00:14:33
Speaker
Even through repositionings and staying relevant, as times change and tastes change, a brand always needs to know who it is at a fundamental level, perhaps in terms of values, perhaps in terms of competitive advantage, so that it can iterate around those things.
00:14:59
Speaker
But it's it's like when we meet a person and they exude a confidence about who they are, They know who they are. They don't try to please too much.
00:15:13
Speaker
um In other words, they they don't modify themselves too much depending on who they're with. They're proud of who they are and will draw certain people towards them and others not so much.
00:15:29
Speaker
Because of their value set. Exactly, exactly, exactly. Yeah. it's It sounds like this is the other side of the coin to the empathy, where the empathy is to understand the customer, and the this one is to understand the brand, understand yourself and what it is that you want to do and what your audience what your audience needs you to be saying about yourself or what your audience is looking for. Let's change that around a little bit.
00:16:05
Speaker
Yes. We're talking about the performance of the brand, the way in which the brand performs and finding the the right audience for that brand by staying true to the brand's values and it will find and a brand that trace stays true to its values will find an audience naturally because there will be someone a large group a small group a medium-sized group of people who will buy into what is presented to them as the values of the brand especially if they like we said earlier there is the empathy with that audience that's absolutely right it's it's it's working out from
00:16:53
Speaker
Who are we as a brand? And I think is if I could just touch on employees, for example, in an organization, you have a very similar kind of situation with that Venn diagram.
00:17:07
Speaker
How can they be true to themselves and help contribute to help achieve the organization's needs?
00:17:19
Speaker
Yes. So that overlap, is that sort of sweet, so sweet sport. And what the organization in, in, in my opinion needs to do is help the employee develop and grow in terms of their strengths and special talents and qualities.
00:17:44
Speaker
Yes. As an HR person, I would agree with you.
00:17:49
Speaker
Yes. And, and from that place, figure out how they can best serve the organization. The big names in terms of value-based brands would be people like, or organizations like Body Shop or Patagonia or Tom's or um ah suppose a Virgin as well, um especially in the early days, was very clear about its values and the sorts of things that it would do.
00:18:19
Speaker
um being different. But the one that really stands out for me would be Patagonia. It's a premier brand. It's not a cheap product that you buy from Patagonia, but it's a top quality premier brand, but it is based on specific values.
00:18:39
Speaker
It's almost you buy into the values and you forget about the price because you're buying the quality and the brand values. Yes.
00:18:50
Speaker
I'm thinking that what would be the the most difficult of these for a brand to to make some inroads on it of the seven, which would be the most difficult to to deal with?
Maintaining Trust and Relevance
00:19:07
Speaker
Well, I've talked about brand trust. that that um and but That's a contender. And brand vitality, that staying relevant.
00:19:20
Speaker
A lot of brands that I work with um struggle, can struggle with both of these things. They underestimate how important it is in terms of brand trust to to be, you know, a brand needs to keep its word. It needs to mean what it says.
00:19:42
Speaker
And brands can often... miss the opportunity to live their values.
00:19:56
Speaker
they They can often think that brand is is about communications and and they forget about the the behavior that really needs to underpin everything.
00:20:10
Speaker
so I think it's... brat Brand trust is everything, you know, that that that people know that they can rely on you.
00:20:21
Speaker
And if a brand gets it wrong from time to time, it just needs to acknowledge it. Because we all make mistakes and and brands are very much like like people.
00:20:33
Speaker
They're flawed. And that's okay because we don't want a brand to be an automaton. But... but A lot of marketing departments can underestimate how important it is that but brands are really ethical and live up to whatever standards we expect of them.
00:20:56
Speaker
And have they've promised us. In some ways, is a is a brand a promise of... all of these values of quality, you buy into the brand as a promise of all of these seven combined, so to speak.
00:21:20
Speaker
And that promise is the trustworthiness. so we've got all of these things about our values. We've listened to you. We've put what you've said into our brand. We're delivering on what you expect of our brand.
00:21:36
Speaker
But I suppose trust is that difficult thing to earn, but an amazingly easy thing to lose. I mean, it really is.
00:21:47
Speaker
it that that It really is. And one of the things that makes life easier for us as human beings is is is when we can trust people and things.
00:22:01
Speaker
You know, our anxiety reduces, our decision-making times go down. We can do repeat things that, again, make life easier for us.
00:22:13
Speaker
So brand trust is is is huge. And sometimes
00:22:21
Speaker
it's the small things the that really kind of lock us into a brand, you know, that it's it we know we can rely on it to deliver the thing that it said it would.
00:22:43
Speaker
And it doesn't let us down. yeah So in some ways, from what you're saying, if we find a brand that we like, that we trust, and we believe we can rely upon that brand, sticking with that brand will have a positive impact on our mental health. It will reduce the anxiety that comes with saying, oh, I won't buy that product this week. I will buy that one instead that I've never used before.
00:23:13
Speaker
and we're but being unfaithful to the brand that we trust and we've built a relationship with and going off with this other one. And the process of changing brands causes anxiety in itself, but also the change that change process could potentially have a negative impact upon our mental health as well.
00:23:36
Speaker
Yes, we have to deal with so much complexity and the the amount of stuff, you know, life admin just seems to keep growing.
00:23:48
Speaker
And, and so what can you know, things that can save us that sort of angst that are treasured, you know, and, and and so brands that that we trust can make life a lot easier for us. And and we were grateful.
00:24:11
Speaker
i don't mean to overstate that because, you know, in many senses, brands don't matter to people. You know, there are things that matter a lot more, but I do think it's a paradigm of, of understanding,
00:24:31
Speaker
how to forge relationships, how to forge loyalty and keeping our word, you know, whether it's a brand or whether it's an HR department or a a board of an organisation, keeping our word is just of paramount importance.
00:24:52
Speaker
And I think you made an earlier ah point earlier on about small small actions, breaking things down when it's a very big, very big ambitious goal.
00:25:04
Speaker
And it's the same here. You know, let's not underestimate the beauty of small, the small things that we can rely on, that we know will happen when somebody says they will.
00:25:18
Speaker
Yes. Yeah.
Conclusion and Reflection
00:25:20
Speaker
You certainly, Dan, you've certainly given me ah huge amount to think about in terms of my relationship, the relationship that I have with the brands that I buy into and add to my shopping basket.
00:25:34
Speaker
And why do I do that? I'm thinking, yeah there are all sorts of different reasons why I do that, but also about my own brand, the Abucida brand and the other brands within the Abucida group. There is an awful lot in just, you know, 25 minutes to actually to think about and to start rethinking about as well.
00:26:00
Speaker
I really do appreciate your time. It's been extremely interesting. Thank you very much. Oh, it's been an absolute pleasure. And thank you. for making it so interesting yourself.
00:26:13
Speaker
So thanks very much for having me. Thank you. You know, I have the feeling that we have only scratched the surface of this subject. There is an awful lot to be learnt and an awful lot of value to be added.
00:26:27
Speaker
And I hope that we can come back and continue our discussion another time. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abusida, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Diane Lurie, a brand strategist and executive coach.
00:26:43
Speaker
You can find out more information about both of us at abasida.co.uk. The Zencastr system has, as always, been very efficient today. But if you're listening to the independent minds on your smartphone,
00:26:56
Speaker
and experienced technical issues, you may like to know that 3.0 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data. So listening on 3.0 means you can wave goodbye to buffering.
00:27:08
Speaker
There's a link and in the description that will take you to more information about business and personal telecom solutions from 3.0. and the special offers available when you quote my referral code.
00:27:19
Speaker
The description is well worth reading. I am sure that you will have enjoyed this episode of The Independent Minds as much as Diane and I have enjoyed making it.
00:27:30
Speaker
Please give it a like and download it. And to make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think.
00:27:45
Speaker
Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.