Say It. Brand It.

Branding law #22: The Law of the Word.  In Al and Laura Ries’ (2002), The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, the pair explain the importance of a brand wanting nothing more than to own a specific word in the mind of a consumer.   What’s the first word that comes to mind when its consumers see or hear their company name? The Ries’ blog gives a real life example of this law in their blog, Peeking inside the mind with Brand Tags.

In a nutshell, Solve Media offers a service that helps protect companies’ online market place from spam and fraud while managing brand recognition.  Solve Media uses Brand Tags to replace the annoying phrase-boxes (captchas) at the end of an online buying experience.  Rather than tying dispensed words or phrases, Brand Tags asks the customer to type the first word that comes to mind when they see a certain logo or company name.  Genius, right?

Law #22 asks one question: what comes to mind when you think about ___(insert company logo or name here)____?  The Ries’ (2002) explain that building a brand requires focused efforts word planting.  Solve Media solves a small branding gap companies face; no pun intended.

Rather than thinking about how a company wants to be known, it should focus its branding attention on how it is interpreted.  The latter is what we call brand recognition.  A brand should be a word; easily recognizable. 

Great brand recognition is one of the reasons great companies have trouble plateauing.  The Ries’ Pieces blog uses Purina as a Brand Tag example.  If Purina took on the branding attitude that it’s top in tasty pet foods, it would eventually hit the way—for several reasons.  1: pets don’t buy what they love; a human would  (almost) never taste pet food to know how scrumptious it tastes.  2: the buyer (pet owners) is never really in the market for great tasting pet nuggets for their four-legged friends.  Using Solve Media’s Brand Tags service makes it very clear what consumers thing about Purina’s brand.  It actually takes the guesswork out of strategic brand management.