Blending In Isn’t An Option

Make Your Brand Impossible To Miss

When running a business, it’s easy to do all the right things like delivering a great service, managing your team, and keeping operations running smoothly, while still feeling like your brand is invisible. You’re showing up, but the spotlight lands on your competitors instead. Or worse, your ideal audience notices you but then loses interest. It’s not that your business lacks value, it’s that your brand lacks impact.

We caught up with the director of redhotblue, Mackay’s longest-standing creative agency, who has spent decades helping businesses go from overlooked to unforgettable.

1. What makes a business blend in with its competitors?

In the age of digital technology, business owners are leaning more and more on quick fixes. The problem: you look and sound like everyone else. Understanding your brand personality requires skill. Identifying your audience and what resonates with them takes time and experience, and there’s no elevator to success.

2. Why is a unique product or service not enough to stand out?

Relying solely on your ‘unique’ offering to attract the right audience is naive. Your intended audience needs to connect with your brand and understand why you’re their best choice. If people don’t know about your business, they’ll just choose another option.

3. What mistakes lead to people losing interest in a business?

There are a few reasons that people lose interest:

Firstly, if your messaging and brand voice are inconsistent across platforms. Often business owners rush to get a message into the marketplace and forget to ensure they’re representing their brand values.

Secondly, if a customer’s experience with your brand is disjointed it can feel overwhelming, untrustworthy, and too hard. Love them or hate them, McDonald’s does a great job of providing the same look, feel, and experience regardless of location.

Finally, assuming your audience knows what you’re doing. No one is going to understand your brand better than you, but in a sea of visual communication, it’s easy to get lost if you’re not communicating effectively.

4. What’s the best way for a brand to connect with its audience?

To quote Simon Sinek, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” Your brand messaging should connect emotionally with your audience because the ‘Why Factor’ resonates with the limbic brain, the part of the brain responsible for emotions.

Essentially, people are more likely to connect with your values and mission than your product or service. That’s why it’s crucial to understand and clearly communicate your business’s purpose. Ask yourself, what story is my brand telling and is it memorable enough to stick with people?

5. What’s the first step a business should take to stand out?

It’s important to remember that standing out isn’t a starting point, it’s the result. We often see businesses creating bold visuals without purpose or connection to their brand. This hollow approach doesn’t provide any reason for a customer to remember you.

Instead, I suggest you involve your team and conduct a think tank. Ask yourself what your brand represents and remember that your brand is more than your logo - it’s about how customers perceive you, how they feel when they think of your brand, and what keeps them coming back for more. Focus on creating one clear message that describes the benefits of your business to your audience, and don’t talk about yourself.

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