What’s in a name?

Any company aims at being recognised by creating a name or a brand. The value associated with this recognition is immense in many aspects:

• Positioning
• Customers expectation
• Return visits
• Financials

If we mentioned brands like McDonalds, Zuma, Hilton, one would immediately understand what to expect and an idea of cost.  That is not the result of chance, but the fruit of many hours of deep reflection, strategical thinking, and correct communication.

THE 4 KEY QUESTIONS

While seating in front of your white board, there are 4 questions you should be starting with in order to define your brand….

The WHY

Why does your business exist?

This must be the essence of your aspiration, the purpose of the business. This is at no point about money, as money and profits are only a result of all aspects and mainly an operational result.

I will take in this paper the example of McDonalds to illustrate the 4 questions; For them the why is to make delicious feel food moments easy for everyone.

The WHO

Who are you as a business?

You will have to list the various values that your business represents. Could it be collaboration, accountability, friendliness, all these points will define the services provided, the style…

The HOW

How do we do things?

Here we cover the behaviours you are looking for and from people to deliver the WHO and WHY. This is how we want to look and feel, how to place the name / brand across to the customer.

This will cover the tone of voice you use in all aspect of communication, internal and external.

For Mac Donald, these would be light-hearted, playful, welcoming, dependable, unpretentious.

The WHAT

What do you do?

This is a summary of the business intention.

To carry on with the McDonalds example, they want to be the world’s largest informal eating out chain.

Once your 4 questions are clearly answered, you can work on word’s association and searches that will relate to most of the answers given. This will become your brand. There will be a meaning attached to it, and a clear understanding of what it represents for the public and employees.

The final step will be to work on a logo that would represent that brand. Logo could be a word, a symbol but it should link to most of the answers you already gave and be clearly associated with your brand.

The Logo M of McDonalds is clearly recognised all over the world. It is associated with the sense of hospitality, you are welcome under the arch, the yellow is warm and the line is soft and welcoming