Perception

Marketing expert Austin McGhie expresses that brand is inherent in perception “A brand is present when the value of what a product, service, or personality means to its audience is greater than what it does for the audience.”

Let’s take a moment to explore this statement in the context of NFP organisations:

1. What value are we providing our audience with?
2. What does it mean to them?
3. How is that meaning positioned more significantly than what we do for them?

      Value                          What does it mean to the audience                                         How is it more significant than what we do?



• Trust                  Mutually beneficial relationship with an authority                            Provides a relationship that can be built upon
• Respect             Pride in being associated with a respected organisation                Associated kudos that they can leverage
• Integrity             Consistency                                                                                     Sets a standard people are proud to align with
• Compassion      People-centric approach                                                                 They feel humanised, more than numbers and statistics
• Motivation         Source of encouragement                                                               Can result in career progression
• Loyalty              Sense of support                                                                              Prompts support of others including referrals
• Security             Knowledge that there is a greater force looking out for them        Increases a sense that their voice matters

This ‘brand perception’ exercise can reveal some foundational brand building blocks and is worth undertaking in a fuller sense, breaking down the exercise further into audience personas. It is worth reviewing on a regular basis to ensure that your brand evolves in step with your audience.

Essence

Sometimes the essence of what is important to us as brands can be identified simply by what’s important enough for us to bother measuring. For example, if we consider ourselves to be a people-centric organisation how are we measuring that and do we have a good grasp on employees' happiness or customer/member satisfaction? If this metric doesn’t correlate with our brand values, there’s misalignment to address.

Manifestation

We can reinforce the values associated with our brand (or otherwise) through the ‘manifestation’ of our brand, essentially, how our audience experiences our brand. Examples of this include our appearance (logo etc), our communication (what we talk about and the tone) and how our team engage and represent the brand (through many various interactions). Where the manifestation and perception aren’t aligned, brand confusion can occur and you can lose the audiences ability to identify and connect.

Confusion

Identifying brand confusion can be as simple as surveying or polling your engaged and/or target audience. This information-gathering exercise can really help to shape and inform brand strategy and guide where adjustments need to be made to align audience expectations and brand manifestations. For example, if your target market is the 18 – 25 demographic and your brand values resonate with more established affluent senior professionals, your appearance is somewhat vintage (and not in a cool way), with equally dated (somewhat neglected) digital interfaces, then it may be time to consider a refresh. This can ensure that your brand is something that your target audience can identify and connect with on every level.

Consciousness

Brand consciousness is something that everybody in your organisation needs to carry (that doesn’t mean brand policing colleagues, although it can!). An awareness of who we are, how we speak and what we stand for is critical to the ongoing growth and reputation of our brand, so get creative and get your team on board!

If this article has reinforced your thinking that your brand is in need of some attention and development, please reach out to info@nextra.net and we will be happy to advise as to potential actions to ensure your organisations brand is properly positioned moving forwards.