BBC Radio 1 proves Customers Engage with your Brand not your Products

Well kind of…..

OK, so this is not at all scientific, and it’s not actually proof…..but it highlights the fact that business owners and leaders need to nurture their people and their brand as much as, if not more than their products.

In this case, number one artist Olly Murs’ brand is himself. While he has a characteristic voice and style that I would have said is easily recognisable, an hour performing in London’s busy Covent Garden dressed as a busker appears to prove me wrong. Here’s the video:

In the video there are parts where the singing style and quality of performance is so clearly Olly Murs, yet that is ignored by passers by because he doesn’t look like Olly Murs – the packaging is missing and there is no ‘brand recognition’. It would have been interesting to follow this experiment with the real Olly Murs busking for an hour…. My guess is that Twitter & Facebook would have quickly spread the word and Covent Garden would have been filled with fans within the hour.

What can we learn from this as leaders & business owners?

We need to understand our brand:

• What is it about us that makes us stand out from the company up the road that has very similar products?
• What is the personality of the brand that makes customers return to us time and time again?
• How much of our perceived brand is actually about our people and the level of engagement between staff and customers?
• Is there an intangible feeling that is associated with our brand that customers like but we don’t articulate?

When we can answer these questions we need to nurture the brand and make sure that every person who comes into contact with our company feels it, likes it, talks about it and wants more of it.

If you’d like help with discovering and articulating the uniqueness of your brand please give me a call