Congratulations! You have researched the concept of building an emotional brand and have created a concept you believe reflects an emotionally charged message that others will relate to, connect with and ultimately, create a lasting bond with you based on this concept.
Before you finalize your concept and integrate it into your work and launch it into the world, let's take a moment and review these five steps to confirm if you truly have an emotional brand, or if you have more of a concept or language that is possibly missing the key ingredient for effective emotional branding.
That key ingredient is a scientific emotional brand that impacts how people feel. It should not be confused with a state, feeling or mood. An emotion, scientifically, is a specific and verifiable way we make people feel and includes a physical reaction.
Let’s review and assess your brand.
1. Is you brand truly emotional? That means it creates a physical reaction within seconds in someone physically. It is not generally sustainable. Happy is more of a state or a mood. Ecstatic or thrilled is more of an emotion.
2. Is your brand thematic? Emotional branding is similar to a movie score. When you hear a few notes of it, it resonates throughout the movie. Your brand should have the same effect throughout your work, including your website, videos, speaking topics, media segments and books.
3. Is your brand a call to action? A strong emotional brand should move people to action. It creates a sensation to do something or move toward something. Embraced creates a desire to feel all that this entails. Supported is not as strong and thus not as effective.
4. Is your brand memorable? Your emotional brand should have an immediate resonation that almost haunts people. When Martha Stewart coined “It’s a Good Thing” years ago, the emotional brand of perfectionism and beauty became part of the culture. Her concepts of quality, excellence, and value all became part of her messaging, and the emotional brand of ‘masterful’ became her personal message for decades to come.
5. Does your brand have context? It’s wonderful to have a powerful concept to expand your emotional branding. However, if you build around just one single concept, you and hundreds of thousands will share that brand. That is fine in ‘real life’, however in business, you need to create enough context to give your brand a solid sense of meaning and practical application.
There is a great deal that goes into Emotional Branding Design. It is another level up from emotional messaging and generalized branding. You may indeed have a powerful message, but like a car, you need a specific engine to make the car run, no matter what the brand of the car.
Emotional Branding Design creates the full-scale messaging to level up your brand across all of your communication materials. An authentic emotional brand with a solid design and system to make it powered to implement into your work and your daily life will resonate with audiences, create lasting loyalty and solidify you as the definitive voice for your brand in every way.
Anne Leedom is the Founder of Leedom Public Relations, a specialized branding and PR agency focusing on strategy consulting, PR presentation and media placements to support and attract relevant audiences and opportunities to build your business. Contact Anne at www.leedompublicrelations.com to discover your Impression IQ™ and set your brand apart as an authentic representation of your heart-centered messaging.