Let’s start with some clarity.

A logo is not a brand. Your fonts and colours are not a brand. 

Your logo is part of your brand. So is your colour palette, your fonts, your website, your social media. But none of those things are your brand.

Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room (cliché I know). It’s what your customers experience; two providers can give the exact same service, but they can be radically different experiences, branding lives in those gaps. A brand is a promise. Say what you like about McDonalds, but we all know exactly what we’re going to get. That’s branding. Unboxing a new Apple product feels like an experience in itself. Also branding. 

A brand is the sum total of every interaction, impression and experience someone has with your organisation, directly or indirectly.

The three layers of brand

1. Brand Strategy: the DNA. Who you are, what you stand for, who you serve and why you’re different. This is where you define your ‘one thing’.

2. Brand Identity: the visual and verbal expression of your clearly defined brand. How your strategy starts to manifest, through words and visuals.

3. Brand Experience: how people actually feel when they interact with you. This is meeting the expectations your brand has set. You can’t just promise fun, you need to deliver it.

Most organisations in the disability sector only think about layer 2, and most of the time they don’t think too much about it. They view branding as a box to be ticked, a necessary evil or a pointless enterprise. With what I’ve seen and the increased competition in the NDIS, such attitudes are fatal. It has never been more important to get clear on your branding. 

Which is why we’re going to do this properly, all three layers.

Exercise

Write down three words you want people to associate with your organisation. Don’t overthink it – just go with your gut, be daring, be outrageous be ambitious. We’ll come back to these at the end of the course.

Secondly, ask yourself the following questions;

1. What are you hoping to achieve for yourself?

2. What are you hoping to achieve for others?

3. What made the risks seem worth it?

4. Why were you the one to do it?