Blog
Brand is a promise delivered
A promise should be stretching and something to aspire to but also simple and memorable for staff and customers alike. It’s a statement of intent that will take your business into the future. Some businesses translate their promises into straplines; excuse the delivery gag but FedEx make their promise explicit on every plane, van and parcel that carries their livery “The World On Time”. This is a big, bold, confident promise that clearly communicates FedEx’s role of connecting people and businesses around the globe within a guaranteed timeframe. Promises also need to move to stay ahead of the market, FedEx used to be the brand that owned ‘Delivery by 10am tomorrow’, now that’s a generic message.
So what is your promise to your customer and does everyone in your business know what it is? More importantly do they believe it and do they care? I’m not an advocate of sticking company values and promises on the wall to sit there and fade, as a business leader or head of department you have to find ways to bring the promise alive for everyone in your organisation to understand.
If you get buy-in from your team you are more likely to be able to meet your commitment – the alternative is a broken promise and we all know what that feels like. I remember the first time I met Chris Lister, Managing Director of Envirotec, he spoke to me about how important promise was to him and how he can only work with people who understand the level of responsibility meeting that promise has. Imagine if The Bank of England broke its ‘promise to pay the bearer’ the notes in your pocket would be worthless.
So, if you can make a promise to your customer and deliver it to their satisfaction or delight you will become a brand that they will buy from repeatedly, talk about to their friends and may even want to work for – if not, well, I think you know the answer.
Our promise? To leave our clients clear, equipped and confident about their future.
Finally, the FedEx logo also reinforces the promise delivered ethos – there is a visual gag in the logo, see if you can spot it.