What makes a brand authentic?

A brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room. It’s your reputation.

A brand is also the message you communicate through your website, social media, print marketing, word-of-mouth, and how you conduct yourself in the marketplace. Your brand identity (logo, colors, imagery) is important too, because it provides a consistent touch point for your audience.

What makes a brand authentic? How do you differentiate your brand from all the others?

One of my favorite Far Side cartoons beautifully illustrates this challenge.

Embracing the Pirate

I first discovered the value of an authentic brand in 2019, three years after I launched my business.

I was participating in a business development program with 10 other design-based entrepreneurs. One night, each of us took turns providing feedback on each other’s brand. When it was my turn in the hot seat my fellow entrepreneurs were direct, “We love the professional-level work that you do but you don’t have a brand, as far as we can tell.”

Ouch.

I was positioning myself as a brand strategist but neglecting to provide one for myself.

One of entrepreneurs asked me, “You’ve told us about your love for pirate re-enactment and you clearly love being a designer. Why don’t you bring the pirate and the designer together?”

This wasn’t something I had ever considered but, after mulling it over for a couple of months, I decided to give it a shot. And it was the sea change (pun intended) that I needed to distinguish my brand from all the others.

You can read more about my journey towards embracing the pirate here.

What is an authentic brand?

In my experience, there are four elements to an authentic brand.

It’s true to who you are

As a founder or owner you will shape your brand. It’s inevitable that the unique parts of who you are will influence how your business functions and is perceived. Why not be intentional about discovering and leveraging your uniqueness instead of accidentally stumbling onto it down the road?

I once knew an insurance salesman who introduced himself as a time traveler. When asked to explain, he said that he took his clients to the future where they could see the value of insurance at pivotal life-changing moments.

Your authentic brand breaks through the noise and prompts others to say, “Tell me more.” And because it’s coming from your authentic self it doesn’t come off as a gimmick or a facade.

It already exists

This point surprises some people. When I work with clients to develop their brand I don’t wave a magic wand and make something appear out of thin air. I take them through a series of workshops and exercises to uncover the treasure that’s buried in their story. I look for unique elements that can be brought to the surface and incorporated into an authentic brand.

One of my favorite workshops is an imagination exercise in which I interview my client 10 years in the future. I ask them about everything that’s happened to them over the last decade: how they’ve grown, the challenges they experienced, the victories they’ve achieved. I tell them that nothing is off limits and they can create “their past” in any way they choose.

This is an incredibly liberating exercise for some clients and helps them break out of entrenched ideas about their business and themselves. It’s a great tool to uncover elements that become part of their mission, vision, and core values — which are critical in developing an authentic brand.

It’s narrow

Because an authentic brand is based on your uniqueness, it will inevitably narrow your marketing and the audience to whom you’re communicating. Your authentic brand will not appeal to everyone and that’s a good thing. As the old saying goes, “If you’re marketing to everybody you’re marketing to nobody.”

Narrowing your marketing focus via a unique brand will feel counterintuitive at first, but so does sailing into the wind before you learn how to close-haul tack.

It can be discovered by knowing your “why”

Kodak filed for bankruptcy after being in business for 130 years because they lost sight of their “why.” When digital photography came along Kodak convinced themselves they were in the film business instead of realizing they were in the business of helping people preserve memories. They forgot their authentic brand.

When I take clients through my brand strategy workshops we often discover elements of their authentic brand within their mission (their “why”).

Along with your vision and core values, your mission defines who you are, why your company exists, and the driving force behind what you do. If you’re a start-up or an established business that never took the time to identify your mission, vision, and values you are missing a large piece of your brand.

I spent three years running my business before I understood that my authentic brand had been sitting in plain sight the whole time. Yours probably is too. If someone described your business to a stranger tomorrow, what would they say? Would you recognize yourself in it? The parts of your story that make you hesitate or smile are often the best clues to what’s already waiting to be found.