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Historically branding was all about being descriptive or having a certain “cool” factor to be memorable.  Of course having a huge advertising budget helps for global impact doesn’t hurt.  So, for all of you who don’t have JP Morgan or Coca Cola or Facebook’s budgets, you will need to approach branding and communications with a bit more finesse if you want more predictability that possible with blind-ass luck.

A tried and true method for the stoically minded marketer was filling in the following formula:

For <TARGET PERSONA>

Who need to <BUSINESS PROBLEM>

Company is <SOLUTION DESCRIPTION> that

Enables stakeholders to <VALUE OF SOLUTION>.

Unlike today’s approach of <EXISTING PROBLEM>,

Company’s <SOLUTION DIFFERENTIATION>.

Unfortunately in this brave new socially driven, globally flat world of marketing, this may paint you into too small a branding corner for true success.  Today it is all about the conversation:  how to initiate; how to participate; how to behave once engaged, and how to handle opposing views.  To this end, I invite you to start with this:

  1. Context: Boundaries of the conversation you wish to participate in
  2. Problem: The most dramatic challenge everyone in the above context faces on a daily basis
  3. Promise: In a perfect utopian world this is how the above problem would be dealt with
  4. Difference: Something that uniquely separates your approach from the myriad of others avaiable
  5. Enabler: Your solution name or brand

Spend some time with various word choices trying to get the word count as low as possible.  Completing this successfully will then enable your entry into conversations in this new digital low-touch marketing-centric world.  As you can imagine there are few shortcuts to success, so we at Magnetic Monkey Marketing are always on the look out for new best practices, so please share if you have any.