Transcript of How Real Brands Build Trust and Consistency (Most Companies Miss This Entirely)

Most businesses think branding is what they say about themselves. They're completely wrong. Branding isn't about your message. It's about what people think when they hear your name. It's the long-term position, the consistency, the trust. And here's the thing most founders miss. Branding and marketing are not the same. They're two completely different systems. Today we break down the three-part architecture that separates brands people love from brands people ignore. Strategy, identity, execution, and the one mistake that's probably killing your brand right now. This is Howard Lim. He's rebranded companies that sold for $750 million. He's IPO'd brands, and he's here to show you exactly where most businesses get it wrong. This is The Vault Unlocked.

Let's unlock it. Today is all about the difference. We have sales, we have marketing, and then we have branding. And today we are going to break down what we think branding is, what traditional branding really is, and what people think branding is today and how they see it. And today we have a special guest. I'm gonna call him the branding expert, the master of all branding. Here we are, have him. Howard, how are you?

Good, good. Thank you. How are you doing?

Oh, I'm doing great. Thanks so much for being here. I'm just gonna start us off because I think it's a big question that I actually ask and I know that you have a unique way of answering it. So I wanna ask the simple question, what is branding?

Well, branding's a very deep and broad subject and it's the most, You could say it's the most complex business language that we have in the arena of business. And there's actually 3 parts to branding, but ultimately branding is about, it's not about what you say, it's about how everyone receives you as a brand. In other words, what matters most is what people think about you, what they're saying. So people have a kind of like a one-way street. They say, oh, we're building a brand, you know, such and such. And they don't quite understand it's not really what they're saying, although that influences the outcome, but it's about really what people think about your brand.

That's interesting 'cause right there, I mean, boom, let's just kick it off. Ding, ding, ding. I love it. What I just heard you say there is one of the cores of branding where it almost is like where most people probably get it wrong is you think, we think branding is about what we wanna say to the market or what we're trying to say to the market. But true branding and understanding where branding actually, what it really means isn't what I'm saying to the market, it's what the market's perceiving what I'm saying.

Exactly. And then, and so with companies, what, what, what's most ideal if they understand how to position their product and service information. And so therefore the expectations is matched to the experience of that buyer, that client, or the customer or consumer. So therefore there's an actual, you could say, alignment between what they're saying, what's being received, and how that experience is actually matched to the expectation, which sounds simple, but most companies, every company I've ever met, quite honestly, has it where there is not an equilibrium.

Okay, so let's talk about this. How did you come up— I mean, talk a little bit about your past now, about how you've come up with this, because obviously you've you've seen, you were, I know you've worked with some big companies and you've, you've created this entire organi— your, your businesses around the idea of like true branding. Where did you come up? How did, how did you learn all about this? What's the history here?

Well, I was pretty fortunate because I was in school for 8 years studying different, you could say different subjects, but overall came out with a degree in applied art and science. But the point being is this, I started off by looking at design and advertising. And the funny thing is, uh, a big part of branding is strong designing because it's all about how to engage people in their senses, especially out of our 5 senses. We use our eyes 90% of the time to perceive and evaluate things. So Graphic design is what I majored in, applied art and design, but I also took on some other courses like, you know, computer science, for example. The point being that all came into the workers of my company. So branding is a twofold where it used to be divided when it came to firms. You had graphic design firms and then you had advertising firms like BBDO, Chiat/Day, so forth and so on. They're all about positioning. Advertising's all about positioning. So when I was in school, I was studying both and I said, oh, there's something to this. And so I started building brands, literally coming out of college, but I used to call it image marketing 'cause branding wasn't even a category just yet.

So I knew we're doing more than just design and I know that we're doing more than just advertising, that we're actually combining the two. And that's really where hence branding came from is those two, two core principles.

From, so branding came from the idea of advertising and advertising you said was positioning and brand and, and then there was design of that positioning and then brand. So brand isn't been around for a long time. It sounds like it, it seems like it's more of a newer concept.

Exactly. It became popular. Like you could say around, it was around 2010 is where like, but around where 2008, 2010, we started to hit like Forbes Magazine, Time Magazine, Money Magazine. It's all about brand, you know? And actually that was coinciding with Apple 'cause Steve Jobs was a natural brander. But branding's actually even further than that, quite honestly, what I call authentic branding, which is branding in the current modern day. It's more than just design, advertising. Now we're including, of course, is the parts to marketing and social media. And so we're looking at now where it takes on a deeper and wider scope. And a lot of it has to do now, quite honestly, with what I call authentic branding. What is the backend story of a business, the authenticity of a business? So it's evolved to more, you could say, what I call the DNA to building a strong brand. It involved more ingredients than just how it was before. Why is that important? Because it's all about differentiating from your competitors and you have to be very clear how you're differentiating. So these ingredients create that DNA of what's gonna make you different, look different, sound different, and feel different.

So as you walk in and you've seen and you're working with a lot of these companies, you said you've, a lot of them get it wrong. Where are they getting it wrong? From where, like from the, is it the messaging, is the positioning, Is it just understanding, you said that equilibrium, the whole thing coming together? I feel equilibrium comes from other things connecting so that you get this holistic brand approach that people can, what you're saying is also being perceived of what you want it to be versus what you think it is.

Exactly. So a big part of what people miss is they think that branding's the same as marketing when they're totally two different animals. Branding is about the long term. What is your overall position of who you are, what makes you unique, and why this matters? Marketing is about the tactical side of sending that message out.

Mm-hmm.

Tactically, meaning through the different channels, right? So that's the first mistake people make. They confuse the two and they collapse the two as being the same. We're totally— are two completely different paradigms. The second thing is that Um, even if you, even if you hire a branding person, there's 3 parts to branding. There's those who come up with the strategy, okay? There's, they're called strategic, a lot of times they're referred to as strategic planners or strategic brand designers. Um, what they're doing is really coming up with a strategy, okay? Now, the second component to this is building the identity. And this is where most people will only go so far, because branding and building the identity is an understanding of all medias. Because you want to create cohesiveness between your radio spots, TV spots, your social media, your website, your print, your product design, your vehicle wraps, your building. So the only way you can build things effectively, understand each of those different principles, because they're all different. What I see a lot of times is people, brand designers, are actually designing for, let's say, a newspaper ad for like a website, or website they think is a catalog.

And so what they're doing is they're missing the opportunity to truly engage that person based on that media of how to really engage your emotions. Okay, okay. Or to use the wrong quote-unquote, uh, principles when it comes to the layout. So I've seen a lot of people, like for example, design something like a package design, but it is, they design a package design like it's an ad. And so they don't, those two don't translate when it goes from media to media. So that's where brand identity, what I call brand identity, where you become a brand designer, that's where a brand designer is different than a graphic designer. A brand designer is understand, has an understanding of, we're talking decades of understanding these different medias and which media to use. And actually how to design for those core principles so you're most effective when you're using those, the medias.

But I think it's interesting because even, even we start talking about the medias, which I would say is getting closer to the marketing probably side of this equation, there's something before this which is really the core, the truth, which is you said their identity. What is the identity that you want. So where it's interesting because that alone goes, okay, well, I know my identity, I can go figure that out. But it's not actually the case because you can think you know what your identity is or you can think you want the, I would say, your audience to want to know what your identity is. But there's a nuance here that nobody talks about. There's an expertise that happens in between that of actually really understanding what your identity is and how to actually land so that your potential customers, clients, whatever it might be, actually resonate and want to be part of that brand. Like, I mean, as you said, Steve Jobs was, I mean, yes, he was probably one of the top guys if you think about what he did with Apple, right? Like, what was Apple? What does even Apple mean, right? But when you think about it, you hear it, you know exactly what it is.

Simplicity.

You're exactly right. So I always say it's about asking the right quality questions to get the quality answers. Most people try to do is almost like they try to operate on themselves without having the expertise on the outside of what's really going to be able to scale and grow that company. So they're doing the same thing year after year. They may get their team together, their board together, but not having an expert come on the outside to ask the right questions, right? It's kind of like, you know, there's an old saying, you know, you can't see the forest through the trees, right? Yeah. It's like they, they're only taking one perspective, their perspective. What they need is an outside perspective of understanding actually how to ask the right questions to get the right answers that are so sustainable. Those questions, those answers are so sustainable, they become the foundation, the backbone of that business slash brand.

How do we ask? So then how do you ask those right questions? How does a business ask those right— is that market research? I'm thinking branding research, I guess you would call it. But how do you, how do we ask the right questions and know we're getting the right answers?

Uh, we came up with a proprietary process of what those questions should be. Okay. So another one, just to give you an idea, okay. If you had to go to jail for a year, what values would you find so inherent that you would say, I would need to go to jail because these reasons, you know, there's like, that would be a question like, what, what do you feel like? Are your, like for example, when it comes to brand, there's usually 5 values, right? Those values are like, you know, almost like people treat 'em like, well, what's your personality? No, that's not a strong value. A strong value is what's gonna actually dictate the culture. What's gonna be so inherent in a culture that your business would cease to exist. Like for example, Steve Jobs was a natural brander. His is all about quality. When the board members thought he was crazy charging that amount of money, for a consumer to purchase. They thought there's— they were looking at a profit, they weren't looking at the brand of what's going to supersede all other brands and stand out, stand above it all based on quality. Yeah.

Okay, so he didn't want to create any corners to produce the best product. He understood it's going to take more money, more time, but you know what, it's going to keep them ahead. And not only that, but give the consumer what they ultimately want. So that's a value, a very strong value, was that he wanted to make it a user-friendly operating system, or I should say user-friendly computer in general. And so that meant that he had to do more programming to make sure that the interface, the GUI interface, everything about it was going to create the best experience. So it wasn't clunky like a PC, where it was inviting and allowed people to get more creative. He was not going to bend on that value if it had been that— like, not to say he would do this or not, but the point being is like Would it mean like a prison for a year that you felt so strongly about those values, right? As a core. So that's what I mean like as a question, but to pose a question in a way that actually sinks so deep, it becomes part of foundation, it's unshakable.

See, and I like what you said, unshakable. But it's interesting because as you say that, from just my experience that I've seen, even in that one question, you can get it wrong. It doesn't matter. For me, it doesn't matter what I think, what I'm willing to go to jail for. It matters what my clients are willing to go to jail for, like what they're going to perceive that I'm willing to go to jail for. Because I could say, hey, I want, you know, X, but X doesn't land with my Y client. So I can sit there forever, right? Thinking, and I'm going to hold and hold and hold. But at some point there's like a test that has to happen. And that's what I never understood is how did— you can't test without brand. You can't, you need, you, how do you get that in between so that you actually have something that could be in alignment to go to the market? Because I'm sure when you go to market, it changes.

Well, here's what's— now this is what's interesting. So there's certain core principles that will always remain true to the founder, to the CEO, the founder, you could say, right? There's two parts of this. There's what's true to that founder And then what's gonna resonate to the consumer and then building that bridge.

Mm-hmm.

Building that bridge is coming up with a statement that resonates with both.

Yeah.

Yeah. I, I love it. I, so then that's the nuance, right? Is, is, is the bridge is how do you build the bridge between what the founder truly believes, what he's willing to die for, and then the bridge to what the consumer is willing to perceive or go, I'm in or I'm out.

Exactly. Now here's the killer part. It's like you can't please all the people all the time, but the great thing about it is that if you're really clear based on your, your love, your passion, your heart, you're going to build others that want to resonate with that. You just need to— that's where then, once you forget that part, that's where then marketing comes in place, right? Because now you're marketing it out there and saying, here's, here's who we are, Here's how we are available to you. This is how you can resonate with us, right? So that's where marketing comes in. But you gotta get these other components straight and figured out first before you could actually market. So yeah, so it's building your own tribe, what I call tribe. And so you create a culture and a tribe that's so strong. I remember when Apple, I was one of those guys that stood in line for 8 hours getting the first iPhone because that's my loyalty and that's the ultimate. So there's two parts to this when it comes to a strong brand, is building loyalty and building trust. The more that you're consistent to what your values are and your philosophy is, for example, the more consistent you are, the faster you're gonna be recognizable as what I call instant recall in the mind and heart of your customer.

It's when you actually bend those, that's where the trust goes down and you start to break that trust. That's where the brand can deteriorate literally overnight after all the years of building up. Boom.

And that could be what, the, the product you're selling, the messenger, the color? Like, is that a combination of all of that where you can start losing the trust?

Exactly. It's a combination of all. Like, so, and I get a little abstract, but this will make sense. So there's, there's kind of like the universe that you're building, which I call the context. So there's certain components that make up that context, your philosophy, your vision, and your values, and your overall core message. You're not telling, you know, you're not telling specifics, but you're actually like, it's almost like, you know, quite honestly, it's like, you know, the Declaration of Independence.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It builds the context of this country, right? Then you fill it with the content, okay? The content, when it comes to product, could be like a series of different products or a different line of products, but they all follow a certain principle based on a context, which is the philosophy. So, going back to like Steve Jobs' philosophy, he wanted to have a user-friendly interface, but he also wanted, he also believed, and he was a designer as well, he also believed in minimalist design. Most companies don't even know why they're copying the iPhone. It's the most simplest form you could design for a phone. You can't get any simpler than this, right? Yeah. So you got Samsung, all these other companies are copying it, right? They don't even know why they're copying it. But the point being is that Steve Jobs, with all his products, wanted to bear it down to the simplest approach, which is Japanese design, influenced by the Japanese, which is minimalist design. Everything they design is based on a philosophy for consistency and also for recognition. You could always identify an Apple Mac product because it has a certain look and feel to it.

Absolutely. I mean, even their stores, they have a look, feel, you know when you're in one, right?

Exactly.

So it was interesting 'cause as you were talking, I was thinking, so what comes first, the product or the brand? And it seems like the brand really dictates the product.

Yeah, so a lot of times what happens is that Right now, what we do a lot, majority of the time, 80% of my business is really redesigning companies. They have the content, like let's say a product, but it isn't positioned properly to their target market, 'cause first of all, they haven't defined themselves far enough. And second of all, they haven't defined their customer. Not only that, have they not defined their customer from the standpoint of demographic psychographs, but they also have subcategory, subsegments. Okay, it gets kind of complex, but you got 4 generations now, the buying powers. You got the Baby Boomers, you got the X, you got the Millennials, which is why— and then you got the Zs. Anyways, the point being is they all think differently. That comes to the psychographics. Are you designing based on one psychographic? Are you designing for two psychographics? Or you're designing for three? Should you be designing one product for one psychograph and then create that same product and redesign for a second? A second group of psychographics. And so I say that nowadays branding goes beyond the demographics because we're living in a global market now.

It has to do with more generations and their psychographics.

For example, it, it's interesting because now we're getting into the deeper, like, so how, as you say that, I'm thinking, okay, so how do you do that if you, if, if you have a product, let's just say, or a business that you wanna speak to all 4 demographics? It's very easy if you know what your demographic, your target market avatar, whatever the name you want to use it, but like it's very niche, you could speak to them. But if you're like, if you want to be a household name or a product that, let's just say, works for all those different generations, how do you do that? Like how do you do that under one umbrella?

So a lot of times what we'll do is we'll create sub-brands if we find like, well, first it's taking the data. This is where now marketing and sales comes into place. Well, we'll look at the data from the sales and marketing to find out, well, who's your quote unquote, who's your number one clientele from the standpoint of the demographic and psychographics, right? And then let's get from marketing, let's get it from sales and look at the data and then start to look at, well, is it even worth to consider, you know, Y or Z generation because there's maybe 2%, right? And they're like, oh, we just design for all, right? And then they're like, well, maybe we should scale it to a specific one. A specific demographic, psychographic, excuse me, psychographic, because that's your biggest buying buyers are right there. Let's say they're 80%. So then it gives us an idea, well, this is designed for that market specifically. There's, there's also looking at too another set of variables that we look at. Are you going to be price-driven? Are you going to be value-quality-driven? Okay, what most companies that we work with, on nearly almost every company that we work with, we tell them to be value-driven because that will set us apart than price-driven.

We're price-driven, you're beating up on pricing, especially when it comes to the B2B. Okay, they go, well, how can we get it where, you know, we're more than just, uh, we're price-driven, more than just price-driven? I said, because you got to create a brand. You ever go through your website, you're totally commodity. Everything you're talking about is about the, is about the features about your price that anyone else can say, but it's not talking about the benefits. It's not talking about the brand from an emotional standpoint, how people could benefit from that quote unquote product, even it's a B2B.

So as you're saying that, I'm thinking it comes to that question I kind of asked, but we didn't really go deep into it is, so when you, what are some of the common mistakes or the common things that you come into businesses and you see right away? I know you said the first one was like the equilibrium is not there, but if we were to go deeper, what are some other things that you can just see and you're like, yep, that's a game changer. Like the things that really make the, the difference?

So a lot of times I start them with a 1-hour intake where I'm reviewing all the material, like everything they've produced to represent their brand, their website, social media, if it's a product design or product design, everything. And what I— first thing I notice is they look like Sybil, like that old classic movie, like a bunch of personalities. Yeah, yeah. So there's different looks and feels, different fonts, different colors, and different tone as far as the copy. I'm reading a copy on social media, it doesn't relate to the actual brochure, brochure does not relate to the website. So it looks like 10, 15 different companies. Guess what? You're now positioned in a way that you never get noticed because a company that looks like 50 different companies versus like one company like Apple, guess what? The one company that's gonna get noticed is the one company that actually is very clear who they are, what they stand for, and has a clear identity. So the first thing I look at is the identity and understanding that a lot of times, well, every time I ever work with a company where they're disjointed and there's no alignment, there's no consistency, it's no unification about, and not even there's unification.

Like say they are using the same color, same fonts, there's no unification about still of who they are as an overall position.

And would you say not even just who they are, but who they actually want to target?

Oh, very good. Exactly. So a lot of clients, they go, well, we're talking, you know, let's say X, Y, and Z. We're talking, we're targeting, targeting Z. But when I look at how they're targeting, it's really to X. And then they're trying to figure out why they're not getting their ideal customer.

Well, yeah, because I know when I've walked in a customer, like, you know, as you, as we build sales teams, we need to make sure obviously marketing and brand is on par or just sales becomes way harder. And one of the things I've realized is a lot of businesses that I've worked with, like they think they know, but they haven't really done the work on just, I'm talking about their actual ideal target. Like their other, you know, some people call it their avatar, IPC, whatever, ICP, whatever it might be. But I feel like in order to get your ICP, there's one even step before that, which is what I'm thinking I'm hearing you say is like that brand, which is before the brand, which is first, Who are we? So what is this company and what does this company want to represent? Number one, like we don't really even— and it's not, hey, I want to make business better. Like, it's not like that's— it's there. There's a nuance in that right there. My question always goes, if you get that wrong, everything down the chain is off. Everything is off a millimeter, a millimeter, millimeter.

And this is how then you get these businesses. You come in, they're fragmented. Nobody knows What's going on? So the challenge is, right, how do you get to that right message right in the beginning? This is what we represent because it's based off of obviously the founder or whatever the founding principle is. How do we get the founding principle that we know is actually going to land and is going to speak to our target market before we even know the target market? So to me, there's a nuance here I'm trying to figure out, and I don't know if you're not saying it because it might be giving away the kitchen sink, But we can look at it all in silos. I tell people all the time, if you don't even know who your target market is and you don't know the message and you haven't figured out the right message to the right audience for the right offer, that's what I always say, stop immediately. You're wasting money, you're wasting time, you're wasting energy. You don't have a sales problem, you got a marketing and in this case, a branding problem.

Okay, so the way that we do it, we go through our SIM system And it stands for strategy, implementation, and management. So the first part is strategy. We do a 1-day, 2-day, and a 3-day. Okay, so if you work on a 1-day, 2-day, 3-day, the core central is getting to that position exactly what we're talking about, like who are you, what do you do, what makes you unique. The uniqueness is what's super critical because if you're just saying, hey, we sell, you know, this widget You're right, that just becomes a commodity. You have to look at it from the standpoint, what are you doing uniquely that is unique from everybody else that actually adds more value to your ideal customer? And believe it or not, like, again, when I work with companies, you know, usually it's repositioning them, um, rebuilding them, repositioning them, redesigning them. And what I find is that they have all the gems, they're just all buried. They just didn't been asked— they haven't been asked the right questions to unlock those critic, quote unquote, hidden gems. When those got brought to the surface, when I look at all the data points, um, then we're like, okay, now we can make this into a brand.

So now we got— so they, they offer all the content, and then what I'm doing is looking at, well, let's create now the dots, and now let's connect the dots. Okay, that's the part they will don't— don't never get and understand. That comes back to being an expert in the space of branding and positioning. But the point being, you're right, they have all the answers. They've just been buried over the years and not been asked the right questions. And that's where I get into the strategy to figure out their positioning. And it even goes further than positioning, but also gets into the finances as well.

Okay. I was going to ask that because I wanted to make sure people— because I think I understand this, but I want to make sure people listening here are not confusing what you're saying to like a business plan versus a brand strategy or a brand document. Like for me, I have, I have a couple of businesses and that's like, where's the brand doc? Like the brand doc tells me, right, what the message is, what the fonts are, what the colors are, how to use those colors, when to not use those colors. Like there's like, so there's this common ground that anyone knows and sees, you know, it's one thing. Funnels, emails, we all speak in a certain language, but even then that this, you'll see me always go here because I see it and I can't get my finger on the pulse. Even having that, you can still do it wrong. Like it still can, the whole thing could be wrong. It's not what you, and I love what you said, it's not so much what you like, it's about what the customer perceives.

Right.

Exactly. It keeps going back there. So you go in and you do these strategy, this is one of your, now we're talking more about you specifically. You have a certain way of doing a strategy, which is basically understanding the business, the core, seeing underneath the hood where most people are not looking, and then be able to ask, or I'm going to say extract the right information through the questions and through this SIM system. I like that. To be able to understand, okay, wait a minute, we have an idea of like, here's who we are, here's what we represent or what we stand for, here's where we're going. Now we start making a message happening.

Yeah, exactly. So with the SIM system, by the way, what you're describing, which a lot of people get these two confused quite a bit too, is a style guide and a brand manual. Yeah. So I've seen now it's become very popular where I see a lot of designers are creating style guides, like what fonts to use, what colors to use, which is great. Don't get me wrong, that's great. But it's still all in theory. What they're missing is the core content. What's our message? What's our philosophy? Which comes from what I started to create, and to create a new category, which is brand manuals that are deeper. So therefore the culture, not just designers can understand this and marketing, but the culture at whole. So the more you have everyone working in a sense and going the right direction, right? And that means all the stakeholders, literally. So a lot of people will design style guides for the creatives, but what about the culture? What about the, the actual VP? What about the actual partners? So manuals, the way we do it, we build brand manuals where actually it allows everyone to participate into the brand and see the value.

And so you'll do this with— when you do these strategies, you'll do this with the whole business, like all the departments kind of in one?

Yeah, exactly. So when I do— well, that's a 3-day strategy session. You're right though. What I'll do is in these strategy sessions, the big— the 3-day strategy session, even a 2-day strategy session, what I'll do is I'll look at their business model, look at their brand, but I'll go beyond. Most business branding companies only work at the brand level, right? But I like working—

I—

the reason why I start with the business first, because a business is going to change how the brand should be shaped.

Say that again.

The reason why I like to start with the, the business, the business model specifically first, is because a lot of times what I'll do is I'll look at the business model and they'll have, let's say, 10 components that will actually, you know, quote unquote, create revenue. And I'll say, and I'll— because I work in every single space, I'm like combining in my head what might be a space I haven't thought of that's used in medical but actually we're working in finances, but it has been effective in medical and it could be adapted to finances to actually get the company out there even further when it comes to more revenue. So what I'm doing is I'm looking at dots that have not been created and create a bigger and stronger, quote unquote, business engine. So therefore then that's gonna change the way the brand identity's gonna be shaped. In other words, if it was only shaped from what the business started with and what it may currently do, It might be that it's half-baked. In other words, it might even be the name. They outgrown a name, which we had changed a lot of names as well, but the name itself could only be limited by their business model that they currently have.

When we change some of these components, the name itself can change. Like, AWS, you know, like, let's say, um, all these containers, they are much more than containers. Containers, when I worked with them, was only a quarter of what they did. They were leaving 3/4 of it buried, and everyone thought they only did containers when they looked at the name or heard the name. I said, no, we guys just changed to Aldez, which we end up doing and getting, by the way. But the point being is that that changed my whole thinking about what kind of brand identity we want to create, starting a lot of times with a name and a mark. So why I like to do and work with the quote-unquote business model— because the business model, now we could build something bigger and stronger, you could say. And then reflect the identity on that. So therefore the company looks literally more valuable than it ever did before, and it could grow into their brand rather than outgrow it.

Outgrow.

Ah, wow.

I— okay, so where— just so people have some context of that, uh, what brands can people that you can put your pinpoint on that have outgrown? Because I love something you can grow into versus outgrow. What companies have you seen outgrow their brand?

Sure. 20th Century Fox.

Okay.

We're in the 21st century.

That's funny. Yeah.

So a lot of names, literally, I see where they, a lot of companies will run into trouble and have run into trouble. Okay. Like 31 Flavors Baskin Robbins. Right. And that is to, you know, called Baskin-Robbins, right? The BR, they had a, and they did something clever with it, you know, adding a 3-1 in there. There's tons of companies where they were running in trouble where they were outgrowing the name and their image, okay? Their full identity, the look and the feel. So the name is part of it, then there's a look of it, you know? That's why if I showed you Apple changed their identity to where they have it where it's super clean now, I think it was like 5 times before they got it right. Um, but anyways, a lot of companies will outgrow literally their mark first. Okay, the mark, what people call logos, I call it a mark if it's done right where it lasts forever. A logo is like anybody could create, like someone's brother, but it misses the science into it. Like, can it be reduced to the size of a dime to build? Can that, can that mark be used to billboard?

Can it work in black and white? Can it work for embroideries? It doesn't take the science Logos do not take science and business into its approach. It's like what looks good, but does it make sense from the standpoint, how can it shrink down to, let's say, a thumbnail drawing, you know, let's say like an app. So a lot of logos, how they have outgrown, a lot of companies have grown is that now let's say they start creating apps where it can't even reduce the size of the thumbnail.

Absolutely. I hear that. I like that. And then I was gonna say, and then if you start grabbing, if you start getting attention on a brand, it's a lot harder to change the brand once it's moving versus the beginning of it.

Yeah, it is, but there's always times to change the brand when you're actually not creating a maximum value, is what I call the full potential of the brand, the maximum potential. So a lot of companies that draw like a 15% at most, most companies will reach maybe 15% and they're like, well, why should we change the brand when we lose all of our followers, da da da. And I say, well, the reason is because if you did change the brand, you're gaining about 10x or maybe 100x. And we actually measure to 2,000x. So that's what you're— that's the, that's what you're— the, the, the, the hidden cost is, is what is it that you're actually missing out on?

Or who you're not speaking to, uh, or connecting with. And, and you might have to take that step back to take 10 steps forward, but is the business willing to do that? So I know we talked about, uh, before the show, you're, you, you were saying You're very different than other branding. Like you have a unique, I guess it's your SIM system. What mistakes do you see traditional branding, let's just say, you know, agencies making versus you? And where can people really connect with you and learn more about how your system, the SIM system, is different?

So I just have a potential client that came to me and she goes, she saw me speak because I'm also a speaker. For the last 35 years. The point being is I was speaking at this event and she goes, oh my goodness, you spoke everything of what's not working about my brand. And she says, we've been working with two branding companies, we fired both of them and they did not even come close to what you're speaking on stage. And I said, well, let me take a look at what they've done. And they— she had literally a style guy and it was all conceptual, but nothing was executed, which is 90% of the work. I said, well, they gave you this style guide, but why didn't they execute it? He said, well, they said it was up to us. I said, what are you saying? That's so typical. They'll get— the client will be given a style guide and then leave it to the client to execute. The client doesn't know how to execute. It's a whole different language. And the reason why they do that, by the way, because the client, the company, the brand companies that do that, they don't know how to execute.

Like, remember I said execution is 90% of it, is understanding all the different medias. You have to understand color theory, RGB, hex color. You have to understand the difference between that and CMYK and Pantone colors. That's like years of accumulation of understanding how that works through practical means by actually going on the press or being on air and understanding and seeing the colors themselves. That's just color by itself. So that's the reason, that's the biggest mistake I see companies say that they received a style guide, but they didn't have any execution to that style guide. And then he paid like, you know, 30 or 40 grand for that. And said, you got paid 30 or 40 grand without any execution and you're back to the drawing board.

Yeah. So I guess what the key is, it's not just getting the style guide, it's being able to, in that, and I'm assuming that's what you and your agency does, is, hey, we're gonna first find the brand, we're gonna find the message, we're going to create the look. The style guide, let's call it the style guide. Most important, I'm gonna call it the nucleus, the core of what we represent. And then we're gonna be able to show that and then you're gonna execute that. So is that again, building the plan, like, you know, the websites and building the online presence and the emails and all that stuff that then the company can start using and understanding?

Exactly. So I call them a master blueprint. There's positioning blueprint, there's a 2-day essential, and then there's a master blueprint. They're all blueprints, right? And you're right, it's like a blueprint to a city. You got to start off the blue blueprint before you start building, right? So you're right, the strategy is all about the blueprint. And the I is for implementation, which is 90% of the work now, is— and they're all equal components, you could say, but when it comes to executing, that's where the heart of it comes in place.

That's the management.

Yeah, so you actually see it coming to life. Um, and then now it's now building it. So there's an architecture to it. I call myself a business brand architect. So everything has a similar look and feel and tone to it. The copy is written in a way of what we uncovered in the strategy session. The colors relate to our position and differentiate from the competition. So there's a lot of research, R&D, when it comes to the implementation. The M, by the way, stands for management. So a lot of my, my, a lot of my clients, they wanna actually grow as a franchise. They say they wanna go IPO, which Several have gone IPO, and a lot of them, let's say they want to go and start building new offices, okay? So they have one office, they want to build multiple offices around the US and eventually get to around the world. So that's where the management comes in place, is for consistency. Kind of like, think of it like this way, like McDonald's. Why is McDonald's consistent? Because people trust McDonald's. If they go to Hong Kong and they go to LA, then they get the same flavor, and that's built-in trust.

So the whole idea behind branding besides differentiation is building so much trust. You build that loyalty.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you get the loyalty, I say, and the relationship and just relationship and consistency of those relationships. And I would say that's where you see a lot of businesses go wrong is just not having consistency.

Right, right. Exactly. Exactly. They don't have that consistency. So the consistency— and by the way, it doesn't take much. I have a client right now I'm working with and they're using this internal designer and the first thing they start doing is they start to not go by our brand manual, start doing their own thing. I said, you're killing the brand overnight because that looks like a totally different company. Yeah. So, you know, graphic designers want to get creative, but a lot of times they get overly designed. They overdesign to a point that actually works and backfires. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Again, Steve Jobs, keep it simple. Right? Like it's, it's keeping— that's the whole thing here. On brand. Got to keep it on brand. And it's a hard one because people evolve, people change, businesses change, but you can't— the brand can't— like the brand's got to stay the brand. I mean, if you think about— I think about companies who say brand, big brands like Lulu represents something like Lululemon is a brand, right? Like their clothes are crap, but people still like they sell. $80, $200 t-shirts because people just want the Lululemon brand, right? And obviously we talk about the luxury brands and all that lifestyle brands and the game is branding. I see that like marketing is one thing, but you land the brand, people are going to buy just to feel part of what the brand represents.

Nike, right?

Like what's the brand? Yeah.

You're exactly right. And then people are proud to even show off that brand, whether it's a car, whether it's clothing, whether it's going to that restaurant, whether it's going to that destination location, whether it's that hotel, it's like they feel a sense of an extension of who they are. Extension of who they are.

I love it. The brand needs to be an extension of who they are. So the question is, if you're listening here, is your business, does your business have a brand? And are your clients feeling that they are the extension of who they are? Or I'm going to add, who they want to become?

Oh, I like that. That's great. And you're right. One of the biggest part for branding in my— it's not even my opinion, it's what I've seen as a result— is aspirational design. Aspirational design. Okay. So I remember when we were designing, when we were rebranding WSS, and, um, the, the, the founder was like, well, we don't wanna chase away our local customers. I said, this is what's gonna happen. You're gonna be an inspiration and aspiration for them cuz you don't even feel like they've been listened to. And I didn't have more pride shopping at your retail places. And it worked. The company sold for $750 million. Wow. To Foot Locker. Wow. Okay, so yeah, there's no joke. Yeah, so they're happy. But they had— we had to— I had to be really rigorous with their team because they had an in-house design advertising team, and I— we, we work on a master look and feel and I had to be really disciplined with them to stick with our system. Otherwise it will—

It breaks.

Yeah, it would not be good.

So where can people find you? They wanna work on their brand, they got a business, they wanna get a hell— like Holy V, where can they go?

Well, what I offer for those who are really, really serious is an hour call. I usually charge $2,500. It's $500. And it's really an assessment on your brand. And, you know, if they're interested, the easiest way is to email me and I can email that link. And there's a whole process to this. I want them to send me everything they have about their company, you know, besides their website, their social media. And then I start off with a dialogue, like a 10, 15-minute dialogue, understand the person, the client, the business, and understand what they're trying to achieve, but also understanding their obstacles., and then I start to go through and assess, quote unquote, their body of work that's representing their brand. And I start to pinpoint— we use Zoom— and I start to pinpoint exactly what they could change immediately to start to improve their positioning and their value. So what I do is ask people to email me at howard@howcreative.com. Howard at how creative.

Well, we're going to make sure that that's in the show notes as well. So if you're a business owner, you even you're looking to either recreate, start, and/or you're having some issues, I'm gonna say, in your marketing and sales, chances are it's probably a brand issue. So Howard's your guy for sure. I've seen the stuff you've worked with, and I know we've talked about doing something ourselves, so I can't wait to see what happens. And I love what you're doing. I think it's very important for businesses to understand the nuance, and you have it. So we'll leave it there. Howard, thank you so much for being with us.

Yeah, thank you for allowing me and being on your show. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Thanks.