A great reader for local-direct businesses who are constantly brand challenged! It's all about consumer belief in the brands they see and how they feel about them. Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

Unlocking The Amazing Power of Belief

• by Robert Wheatley , July 15, 2024

For a brand message to have any real impact, to influence behavior and seed advocacy, requires more than awareness and publicity. It must advance a relevant higher purpose, cause or belief system that people who share your brand values can quickly resonate with. Only then will your message create any lasting marketplace advantage.

It is not the quality of your products that causes the category to tip your direction. Absent a refined brand WHY, new innovations and technologies will ultimately find themselves playing the circular, commoditizing price-and-feature game. Your competitive advantage gets real traction when you are crystal-clear about the human-relevant purpose you exist to champion.

An identifiable cohort of consumers exists who share your beliefs and then want to integrate your ideas and products into their own lives. It is their ability to understand and embrace your purpose, your WHY, that causes them to prefer your brand. Because what you make offers a tangible way to flag their purpose and priorities to the world around them.

Beliefs are powerful and can be enlisted to change the trajectory of brand growth

It’s important to remember that consumers are human -- and as such, are hardwired for attraction to brands that reinforce what they believe about the world and themselves.

• Beliefs are emotional and rise from deep within to inform decisions.
• Beliefs run underneath the analytical radar to impact feelings and actions.
• Beliefs help people understand and engage with your brand.
• Beliefs are respectful of how we’re wired (our biology) to take action.

Yet we find that belief systems are largely undernourished as business strategy because of a flawed assumption that a better mousetrap is the motivating tool to draw consumers in. Ultimately, products in any given category will be more similar than they are unique. Frankly, there isn’t any proprietary tech advantage that can be sustained over time to withstand competitive dilution. Instead, people are magnetically drawn to leader-type brands that communicate what they believe.

When brands become symbols of values, we hold close

Health, achievement, creative exploration, better relationships, education, love, serving others -- there are so many places a brand can live to inspire users and improve their well-being.

The process to explore and refine a brand’s “why” begins with the consumer and works backward from there. Here are five components of a successful “why” exploration:

1. Core beliefs that are consumer-centric and address how the brand contributes to improving users’ lives and the world around them.

2. Based on those beliefs, Why the company exists, its core mission and higher purpose.

3. How the company will fulfill its belief-driven higher purpose and mission.

4. Therefore, what business the company is truly in, and assets required to fulfill that promise.

5. The company Brand Stand (purpose) that expresses the business’ true north and becomes an embedded guide for decisions on strategy, policy, employee policy and recruitment, innovation and marketing.

An optimized purpose and mission will lead to brand advocacy and evangelism.