Written by Canon Wing

I teach entrepreneurs and organizations the proven action steps to stand out within their market, improve the perceived value of their business, and better connect with their audience through naming, branding, storytelling, and communication platforms.

May 4, 2021

What is a Brand Culture?

A brand culture is the beating heart of your brand and it begins with you and it’s reflected to your customers by the people who will work for you. Remember Mr. Rogers? Being authentic is the first step to building a healthy brand culture. Your brand’s promise for a greater future must be kept in the lives of your employees with every bit as much consistency as you want for your customers. How can your employees successfully telegraph to your customers what makes your brand so outstanding from the rest, if they don’t know themselves? Many business owners make the mistake of just telling their team what they want customers to think and feel about the brand, and believe they are paying their employees to project that impression whether it’s true or not. These are not values and ethics. Those are just words on a page in an employee’s handbook. Your brand’s purpose is to make people’s lives better. Your values and ethics should be more than words on paper, and the way they get expressed to your customers is by inspiring your team to live into them by living them yourself, and helping them to also receive the promise of the greater future offered by your brand.

For right now, the most important thing you can do to lay a solid foundation for having a great brand culture happens to be my brand’s motto: “Love what you do, and love how you do it.”

Yesterday’s consumers wanted to see your product in action. Today’s consumers want to see your brand in action.

What are your brand’s values? What emotion does your brand seek to inspire in others? Look into your heart for these answers. Draw upon that coursing undercurrent that stirs your soul. When you are clear about your heart-led driving forces, you can begin to embody your brand’s user experience. Show your future brand loyalists WHY you love what you do, by letting them watch you love what your brand has done for you.

The first example that pops to mind is Richard Branson, the entrepreneur responsible for the Virgin empire. Did you know Branson named his empire Virgin because when he launched his first business, he and his associates admittedly had no idea what they were doing! All he had was a love for music and frustration at not being able to afford all the music he wanted. So he created Virgin Records, which became a record label, which went on to sign The Sex Pistols and The Rolling Stones…since then we now have Virgin Air, Virgin Mobile, and coming soon Virgin Hotels…The Virgin brand has thrived since the 70’s, even though you don’t see Virgin Record Stores anymore, and even though Virgin hasn’t stuck to one industry.

The Virgin brand survives because, no matter what they do, Virgin Loves How They Do It and Richard Branson has been there from the very beginning, embodying the Virgin brand user experience. The brand survives, because the user experience survives.

Every brand is an invitation to a greater future, a new frontier, an exciting new world. Start living in that greater future now, and pave the way for your future brand culture and ideal end users. Start laying track. Bring this greater future into being in your own life so you can be the beacon that proves your brand is the way home.

Thank you so much for joining me! Keep treating these articles as a masterclass for becoming an Inspiration to Millions with Branding and be sure to follow me on FB and YouTube so you don’t miss a single thing! And as always the way to becoming an Inspiration to Millions starts with our motto: Love What You Do and Love How You Do It.