Every week as SmallBizLady, I conduct interviews with experts on my Twitter talk show #SmallBizChat. The show takes place every Wednesday on Twitter from 8-9 pm ET. This is excerpted from my recent interview with Fabian Geyrhalter. He is a renowned Brand Strategist and the Founder and Principal of FINIEN. He is the author of Bigger Than This. For more info: www.finien.com.
SmallBizlady: HOW DO YOU DEFINE BRAND?
Fabian Geyrhalter: A brand is a company (service, product or person) with soul that is attractive and smart. Soul is key to this. If you are solely selling in order to seize a financial opportunity your company will likely not turn into a brand. Heart and soul creates connection and it’s how you change from transaction to an interaction with your audience. It turns into a relationship. That’s what branding means to me.
SMALLBIZLADY: DOES A BRAND HAVE TO OFFER A RADICALLY NEW AND UNIQUE PRODUCT TO SPARK INTEREST AMONG CONSUMERS?
Fabian Geyrhalter: Given today’s world filled with hot startups that are fueled by tech innovation and are disrupting one segment after the next, the surprising answer is: No
SMALLBIZLADY: HOW IS IT POSSIBLE FOR A COMPANY THAT MANUFACTURES MUNDANE COMMODITY PRODUCTS, LIKE STAPLERS OR SOCKS, TO FEEL “SPECIAL” TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC?
Fabian Geyrhalter: These commodity companies that quickly turn into beloved brands all realized that they need to find a story that is bigger than their offering. In my new book “Bigger Than This” I analyzed that all of these ventures lead with branding rather than product. By using empathy with their audience, they found ways to tell bigger stories that immediately resonated with their new audiences.
SMALLBIZLADY: WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO LAUNCH A BRAND IN TODAY’S AGE? HOW DO YOU TURN ANY VENTURE INTO A BRAND IN 2018?
Fabian Geyrhalter: It takes either disruptive innovation or brilliant brand thinking. If you lack innovation, which many companies do, you have to carefully align your offering with a specific audience and around shared values. The traits are story, belief, cause, heritage, delight, transparency, solidarity and individuality. If one or more of these speak to you and your brand’s story, then wholeheartedly start to act upon it and infuse it into everything you say and do.
SMALLBIZLADY: HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT CREATING A BRAND? HOW IS A NAME AND AN IDENTITY CRAFTED?
Fabian Geyrhalter: It really is half science, half art. And emotional intelligence combined with experience, that obviously helps too. Before I start to even think about a name or a visual design language, I lead an one-day workshop intensive with the company. The AND?DNA is the search for something that is not necessarily inherent in the DNA of their offering but in the DNA of a carefully crafted and authentic brand story, which I derive together with the founders that day. When they introduce their products to consumers, the natural question anyone would ask is, “And?” – as in, “And why should I buy these very basic shoes?” Great brands can answer the “And?” question.
SMALLBIZLADY: WHAT BRANDS CONSISTENTLY IMPRESS YOU THROUGH A BRAND MARKETING LENS?
Fabian Geyrhalter: Planet Fitness for excluding the many to gain the few with their “Judgement Free Zone” fitness centers approx. over 6M members. Fishpeople Seafood for putting “people back in seafood” making the journey of where your food comes from transparent and engaging. Everlane, for their radical transparency going as far as shaving off $25 of their bestselling product overnight, citing lower production costs. These are all remarkable, and consistent, brand moves.
SMALLBIZLADY: YOUR CONSULTANCY’S WORK HAS MAINLY BEEN WITH SILICON VALLEY STARTUPS AND FORTUNE 500S. HOW DID YOU GET FASCINATED WITH STARTUP COMMODITY BRANDS?
Fabian Geyrhalter: Now that is a great question as it really sounds downside up. Well, it is “easy” to craft a brand around an exciting new product or a service that piggy-backs on a Fortune 500’s brand legacy, but one day I realized that some really hot new startup companies, famously TOMs with their 1-for-1-movement, are actually based on complete commodity products, so I set out to find more brands that have mundane products but through great brand strategy launched to near-immediate fame.
It’s fascinating to me, on many levels. If these brands can make it, just imagine how anyone can benefit using their successful brand traits.
SMALLBIZLADY: WHAT IS MORE IMPORTANT, A GREAT PRODUCT OR A GREAT STORY?
Fabian Geyrhalter: A great product. You cannot rise to fame with a sub-par product in 2018, but you can with a normal, mundane product coupled with a great brand story.
SMALLBIZLADY: HOW HAS BRANDING CHANGED OVER THE PAST FEW DECADES? WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?
Fabian Geyrhalter: Branding changed from being advertising-based to being human-based. When I started writing this book on the Saturday before Halloween and it came to me that dressing up for Halloween is a great analogy for how many educated consumers see branding: a fake persona is crafted to evoke emotions from a specific audience in order to achieve a predetermined goal. It sounds as calculated as it in fact can be, but this approach is on its way out. Brands are being forced to leave the costumes to humans during Halloween.
Instead they opt for complete transparency and engaging, open conversations because of the rise of social media and the birth of a generation ready to participate, as long as the brand’s approach is inclusive and amicable. We will see this trend of empathetic branding continue on, and we’ll see Fortune 500s struggle to adapt to that new era.
SMALLBIZLADY: IF AN ENTREPRENEUR PICKS UP YOUR BOOK AND FOLLOWS ITS ADVICE, ARE THEY GUARANTEED TO TURN THEIR BUSINESS INTO A BRAND?
Fabian Geyrhalter: If they have a well manufactured product, or a good service – again, it doesn’t need to be anything innovative – and they are open to transforming into a story-based brand, this book will definitely provide them with all the inspiration necessary to turn into a true brand.
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