Once Upon a Brand…A Branding Bedtime Story

Gail Guge, CEO & Brand Strategist
Guge Marketing

Once upon a time, there was a company who wanted to be well-known and to grow. So The Company ventured out to find a winning Brand and tell its Brand story.

First, The Company looked at its industry, called The Empire, and it was vast and wide. The Company looked around and saw that The Empire was growing and vibrant and offered a great deal of promise over the next several years. Then, a trend was revealed to The Company, and it was exciting and good. The Company realized that it had R&D that related to this trend and so The Company was very happy.

Suddenly, The Company realized that there were other companies in The Empire that were also trying to grow and be known. They were big and mean, and The Company was very afraid. They were called The Competition. So, The Company started to study The Competition and looked at what stories they were telling and how they were telling them. Sometimes the stories were confusing, and sometimes they weren’t even true. But after The Company studied really hard, it realized The Competition wasn’t that scary after all.

Next, The Company started to talk to The Customers. The Customers were nice and very pretty and held all the gold in The Empire. The company decided The Customers were the people who mattered most. So, The Company asked The Customers what they wanted, what they didn’t want, how they wanted The Product and when they needed it. And The Company listened. They really listened. They took all this information and used it to make The Product better and to find a better way to take The Product to market. In fact, they named it “The Little Product That Could.”

By venturing outside to look at The Empire, The Competition and The Customers, The Company was able at last to determine its singular claim of distinction and define The Brand. Now, The Company knows it stands apart from The Competition. It knows it is unique throughout The Empire. Now that The Company has The Brand, it is very, very excited.

But The Company knew it couldn’t just keep The Brand to itself. It had to find a way, just the right way, to spread The Brand to all The Customers throughout The Empire. So The Company called The Agency, the best advisors in the land, and developed The Brand Strategy to make The Brand known far and wide. The Agency along with The Company decided Who would tell The Brand Story, What to tell, How to tell it and When to tell it. The Company and The Agency worked very hard.

And when the way seemed long and treacherous, The Company gained inspiration from other winning brand stories. You can read about them at www.nike.com, www.bmw.com, www.llbean.com, www.apple.com and www.starbucks.com.

But The Company knew it could never give up. So over time, The Company focused on The Brand and shared it with The Customers throughout The Empire. Low and behold, The Company started to see its profits grow.

The Company began to grow and grow and grow. The Customers were willing to pay more to The Company and started buying more and more Little Products That Could. The Company CEO (also called The King) sat on his throne and smiled and smiled and smiled. The CEO was very pleased with The Chief Marketing Officer (also called The Prince) and The Agency. The CEO wanted to tell The Brand Story more and more. Pretty soon, The Company had its own pot of gold. Everyone was happy in The Company.

At last, The Company grew and became known throughout The Empire and beyond. And, of course, The Company and The Brand lived happily ever after.