Unlike so much of the technical jargon and shorthand we toss around in the business world--brand promise is pretty clear. It’s the promise that your brand is making to the customer. It is the value or experience that a customer should be getting every time they interact with you.

Starbucks seems to be changing their philosophy a bit--but they built their business model around the interest in being your “third place.” Home, work, Starbucks. Geico wants you to expect it to take fifteen minutes to save 15% or more on your car insurance. Disney “creates happiness through magical experiences.”

And they each delivered on those promises. 

Our brand promise at IFC is that we’ll only do what we’re good at. That doesn’t mean that we’ll never expand our skill sets or offer new services, but we’re not going to use our clients as guinea pigs to try them out. 

So why does it matter? It matters because of trust.

Now more than ever it is important to reestablish trust with your clients and customers. The door to the age of cookie-based marketing is slowly closing. Companies can no longer rely on Facebook (or similar) to connect them with their ideal audience just by clicking a few buttons in the background. No more cookies means we’ll all need to connect with clients the old-fashioned way: building networks and offering superior work and customer service.

One of the first steps in creating trust is to deliver on your brand promise. Take Geico for example. I don’t know if every phone call takes fifteen minutes and I don’t know if every customer is eligible for a 15% reduction in the cost of their car insurance. But they’ve been using that tagline for about twenty-one years now. I think someone would have called them out on it if they weren’t delivering on that promise at least most of the time.

Next week we’ll be chatting about what makes a brand memorable--but in the meantime--if you need any assistance honing in on your brand promise--just shoot us a message. We’d be happy to help.