Brand-New(s)

Brand Strategy - Peartree Brand Strategy - Is this where you work?

Is this where you work?

Sometimes when you change your logo you need to think about changing your furniture as well.

One of the most important yet commonly overlooked aspects of your brand is your premises, and how you present yourself to your customers and your staff.

Funky companies don’t have Chesterfield lounges, no matter how comfortable and attractive they are, just as businesses trying to portray established authority don’t shop at Ikea.

And no organisation can afford to look like nothing has changed since the ‘80s. You don’t need to be extravagant – in fact, if price is one of your promotional angles you can’t afford to be. But you do have to express your brand through the way you “live”.

That applies to back office areas as well. You can’t really sell a brand if your staff aren’t a part of it; if they perceive a great difference between the external façade and the internal reality they might see you as duplicitous, no matter how many other benefits you provide.

What is the real brand? The advertising face or the space we actually sit in each day?

Think about the picture a potential client or employee might get after looking at your website then consider the impact when they walk through your doors. If it’s negative – or even just confusing – the money spent on that website and other marketing activities might have been wasted.

If you’re serious about changing your strategy, you might want to think about where your offices are based, as well as how they look. Many people don’t realise that one of the cues buyers use to work out if you are trustworthy – or simply the right choice for them – is your location.

Accounting firms with a business rather than family focus are based in the CBD or wherever their competitors are based, not in the suburbs (even if that’s where their roots are).

Of course, moving is not an option for everyone, particularly if they own their site and the infrastructure is well established, but it can be worth the effort for a lot more businesses than bother to consider it.

I’ve never known a client to regret it!

The bottom line is that when developing then striving to maximise the value of your brand, you need to get all the touch points right.