Have you ever had this happen?

You call the customer service for your credit card, bank, phone, utility company. At the end of the call, the rep says, “Have I provided you with exceptional service today?”

“Oh, jeez,” you think, “How lame-o!” (And they are thinking the same thing, no doubt.)  This is a classic case of a company misunderstanding the use of brand attributes.

Here’s what happens: a company, lets call them Minot Ltd., does some branding or a brand audit (for which they use an outside vendor with a world-class reputation and pay a correspondingly world-class price tag). The branding company asks questions, conducts surveys and focus groups, and comes up with, among other things, a list of attributes that represent the brand.

In the case of Minot, Ltd., they might be: Focused, Humorous, Responsive. These are the attributes that distinguish the brand, both internally, among the members of the company, and externally, to the customers and other “stakeholders” or people who interact with the brand (more…)