Archives for posts with tag: Martin Lindstrom

Smashing Your Brand: Service, Traditions, Ritual

January 6, 2012 //
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All week I have been taking at look at some thoughts by Martin Lindstrom, a global branding guru and expert on consumer shopping behavior whose work is in demand by corporations worldwide. In his book Brand Sense, Lindstrom reveals how the world’s most successful companies and products integrate touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound with startling results.

Tapping into the complexity of our senses works in ChurchWorld, too.

An overview of Lindstrom’s Smash Your Brand philosophy was covered in this post. Posts here, here, and here looked at the first nine of these concepts. Today is the final set of three philosophies (out of twelve) and how they might be applied in ChurchWorld.

I will be using generic examples, but where appropriate, I will illustrate specific uses of the Smash Your Brand concepts used by my church – Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC. A disclaimer: though I am involved in a volunteer leadership capacity, these observations are my own and have not been vetted by Elevation Church staff. 

Here’s the final set of three.

Smash Your Service

The easy-return policies of Harrods in London and Nordstrom’s in the US are just one area of services that these retail legends have become justly famous for.  Smashing your service is just as feasible as smashing all the other more tangible components shaping your brand. And since your service component is front-line with your customers, you can get instant feedback on how it is received.

ChurchWorld: But ChurchWorld doesn’t have a produce, you say – there’s no comparison. While ChurchWorld may not have a product to “sell”, it definitely is in the people “business” – with hundreds, if not thousands, of connections made each week. Strangers, friends, family – they are all people whom you come into contact with, and are a ministry opportunity. How you serve them – consistently – is a HUGE part of your brand.

Elevation Church: Relating again to the Code at Elevation (our values), we place a huge emphasis on honor, generosity, and excellence when it comes to serving. And that applies not only to our worship experiences on our campuses; it also applies to our outreach efforts in the community and around the world. One example: we are currently in a Code Orange Initiative establishing strategic relationships to eradicate homelessness in Charlotte; invest in our schools, teachers and students in Mecklenburg County; and improve the quality of life for all people in our city. The Initiative includes a goal of 100,000 hours of volunteer service and contributions of $750,000 to our partners. Service actions speak volumes to a watching world.

 Smash Your Tradition

The stronger a tradition, the more smashable it becomes. In the commercial world, we just completed the Christmas holiday season, the most smashable time of the year. Think of the dozens of traditions associated with Christmas: music, food, celebration, family and friends, gifts, etc. When you interact with any one of them, you automatically connect to the greater whole of Christmas. And that’s just the world’s view of Christmas!

ChurchWorld: Long derided by ChurchWorld for the crass commercialization of Christmas, we nonetheless take part in a similar process. Starting with Thanksgiving, and proceeding through Advent to Christmas and then the New Year, churches of all shapes, sizes, and beliefs appropriate elements of the Christmas tradition for their own use. Music events and special worship experiences probably top the list. Does your church offer an event that represents the season but has come to be synonymous with your church?

Elevation Church: Elevation Church unashamedly takes full advantage of the Christmas season by offering multiple Christmas Eve services (in 2011, a total of 30 over 4 days). Likewise, at Easter, we go all out to celebrate the resurrection. We know that people’s minds and hearts are turned in that direction, and we want to capture the moment. But we also have other traditions (see Service above) that we are known for in our city.

 Smash Your Rituals

Traditions and rituals are connected in some ways – organizations have traditions, and individuals take those traditions, and through their involvement, generate rituals. It’s something that you can’t necessarily plan for, but welcome when it happens. Sports fans have rituals focused on the game – and the commercial enterprises take advantage of it.

 Church World: Rituals in ChurchWorld take on a different meaning most of the time, but the concept of ritual and branding can be applied as well. How often has an event or program been planned that, over time, has taken on a life of its own? That can be a positive or a negative. Can leaders in ChurchWorld easily develop and launch something, and then release it to the congregation to live – or die?

 Elevation Church: As a former pastoral staff member, there is an aspect of Elevation’s ministry that I totally respect and am in awe of: the level of volunteer involvement. From the beginning, the paid staff at Elevation has always been lean, relying on a huge investment of time by volunteers. The excitement and passion of the staff readily transfer to volunteers, and voila: a ritual is born. The various eTeams (volunteers) at Elevation border on fanaticism at times (hopefully in a positive way). In the team I lead, and in other teams I observe, a strong sense of passion, commitment, and service has become a “ritual” that is inspiring not only to we who participate, but to those we service. When that happens, ritual as brand is powerful.

 There you have it – a brief look at the concept of a Smash Your Brand philosophy, espoused by Martin Lindstrom in his book Brand Sense and translated to the possibilities in ChurchWorld.

 Are you willing to give it a shot?

 

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Categories Communication

Smashing Your Brand: Sound, Navigation, Behavior

January 5, 2012 //
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Martin Lindstrom is a global branding guru and expert on consumer shopping behavior whose work is in demand by corporations worldwide. In his book Brand Sense, Lindstrom reveals how the world’s most successful companies and products integrate touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound with startling results.

Tapping into the complexity of our senses works in ChurchWorld, too.

An overview of Lindstrom’s Smash Your Brand philosophy was covered in this post. Today is the third set of three philosophies (out of twelve) and how they might be applied in ChurchWorld.

I will be using generic examples, but where appropriate, I will illustrate specific uses of the Smash Your Brand concepts used in my church – Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC. A disclaimer: though I am involved in a volunteer leadership capacity, these observations are my own and have not been vetted by Elevation Church staff.

Here’s the next set of three.

Smash Your Sound

Brands the world over underestimate the value of sound.  As an example, think about mobile phones and their ring tones. Chances are you have one or more special ring tones to designate your callers. Personally, I have a special different ring tone for my wife and four children. When I hear that tone, no matter what I am doing, I am instantly connected to them even before I answer the phone. Though intended for me, anyone in hearing also is exposed to that brief clip of sound. How could a ring tone be used for branding?

ChurchWorld: The ring tone is just one example of how your brand could be built using sound. Think about sound as a brand element in your facility. Maybe there is a special tune (music and/or vocals) that could be played in your environment that complements your worship service theme? What about music in the parking lot as your guests and attenders are coming in? Then there is recorded music on your website, again themed for whatever event you are promoting.

Elevation Church: Sound is a huge branding element at Elevation. First, we recognize the critical importance of music in our worship experiences. Many of the songs you will hear in a typical worship experience are written by our worship team. They are also available on iTunes for download and listening throughout the week. Our pastor (who is a musician as well) has written and recorded several CDs that were distributed exclusively to volunteers as a token of his appreciation for their service. We have a DJ spinning music as a part of the welcome experience in the corridors of the buildings. External music (themed) is heard at the exterior entrance to the buildings. At the Uptown campus, we utilize a parking garage a block away from the theater, so we try to have music playing there as well.

Smash Your Navigation

Navigation – how you find your way around a website, department store, or any other familiar environment – is entirely smashable. Organizations need a series of consistent links between your website, your mobile phone campaigns, your physical layout, your print materials, and your phone messages because they all link together. Good navigation will cut through the clutter of contemporary noise.

ChurchWorld: For an increasing number of guests, the first door they cross at your organization is a digital one – your website. Is your digital experience consistent with your physical experience? Expectations raised by your website and then dashed by the actual experience are often unrecoverable. Then there is your physical space itself – is it easy to move around in? Are the different elements of what you are doing on campus readily identifiable? Are you using “insider” language that a guest might not understand?

Elevation Church: Surveys have shown that a large number of our guests look at our website before stepping foot on one of our six campuses. To make that transition as seamless as possible, a virtual tour of each campus is available so that a guest will have some familiarity of what to expect. The language of the different elements covered on the website duplicates the actual experience at the campus. Even though the six campuses are very different in terms of physical space, the continuity is reassuring. On our two permanent campuses, we make excellent use of wayfinding principles – color, shape, signage, etc. At the four temporary campuses, we utilize as much of those principles as possible. The critical element at all campuses is the human element – dozens of dedicated volunteers, each serving on a different team to help move the guest from the parking lots to the buildings through the buildings to the worship area.

Smash Your Behavior

How does the behavior of your staff and team contribute to your brand? Disney provides the best example: the cast members serving in specific areas referencing other parts of the world reflect that culture. At Disney World’s Animal Kingdom, cast members in the jungle area next to the tigers speak in a thick Indian accent. Architecture, wayfinding, and even background items like trash cans have all been integrated to match the specific theme inside the park.

ChurchWorld: Your organization may not be able to match the level of Disney in this area, but why not match the spirit? Your organization has cultural values and practices that can be enhanced by the behavior, speech, and appearance of your team members. The consistency of these factors play an important part in reinforcing your brand.

Elevation Church: As previously mentioned, we have a set of values called “The Code.” These values provide a guiding force not only for our volunteer teams, but also for individuals. Special words and phrases have become a part of our vocabulary. Actions consistent with these words are a part of our behavior as well. For example, one of our values is excellence. That translates into how we prepare for the worship experiences each weekend to the over-the-top guest services we provide to the follow-up materials we use to our group experiences during the week. All these contribute to a consistent and integrated addition to our brand.

Tomorrow: the final three – Service, Traditions, and Rituals

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Categories Communication

Smashing Your Brand: Name, Language, Icon

January 4, 2012 //
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Martin Lindstrom is a global branding guru and expert on consumer shopping behavior whose work is in demand by corporations worldwide. In his book Brand Sense, Lindstrom reveals how the world’s most successful companies and products integrate touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound with startling results.

Tapping into the complexity of our senses works in ChurchWorld, too.

An overview of Lindstrom’s Smash Your Brand philosophy was covered in this post. Today is the second set of three philosophies and how they might be applied in ChurchWorld.

I will be using generic examples, but where appropriate, I will illustrate specific uses of the Smash Your Brand concepts used in my church – Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC. A disclaimer: though I am involved in a volunteer leadership capacity, these observations are my own and have not been vetted by Elevation Church staff.

Ready for the next three?

Smash Your Name

McDonald’s uses “Mac” or “Mc” in the naming strategy: Big Macs, McNuggets, McMuffins, McCafe, and McRib. Their naming philosophy is an essential part of their brand. Sub brands become intuitively recognizable and tap into the broad set of values that are already established by the parent brand. Integrated naming strategies reinforce the awareness of the brand’s profile.

ChurchWorld Application: Is there a unique feature of your church’s name that might make it a candidate for use in a naming strategy? Names with place connotations and “First” churches have a lot of possibilities.

Elevation Church: As a multi-site church, Elevation’s campuses are all known by a “place” name, along with Elevation: Elevation Uptown, Elevation Rock Hill, etc. The church also gets a lot of use from the letter “E” as in eKidz (children’s groups),  eGroups (small groups), and eTeams (volunteer teams), just to name a few.

Smash Your Language

The key to forming a smashable language is to integrate it into every single piece of communication that your organization is responsible for, including all internal communication. For example, the word “magic” or “magical” is a part of almost every communication the Disney companies do. The result? A recent study showed that more than 80 percent of respondents directly associate the word “magic” with Disney.

 ChurchWorld Application: Play a word association game with your staff and leadership teams. Is there a consistent word or phrase that is repeated? What about in your community – does your church have a reputation for doing or being something?

Elevation Church: The church has a set of values known as “The Code.” Each value is a short sentence, containing keywords. Those key words often show up in worship experiences (sermon titles, songs, graphics, etc); they are also prominent on the church website. Activities of the church reflect these key words so much that media stories done by others often use them in the headlines – that’s smashing your language!

Smashing Your Icon

Icons or symbols are likely to become one of the most important components in building a smashable brand. Successful icons help companies take their commercial message to new and unexplored terrains. Today’s technology has opened up more opportunities for your message. It’s critical that your icon be graphically sophisticated enough to be equally understood on a billboard, a computer screen, and increasingly, on a mobile phone display.

ChurchWorld Application: Does your church have an icon as part of its brand? Is it time to “freshen” it up or has it stood the test of time? Maybe you are thinking of a total brand overhaul – if so, start with the icon as the foundation of a new brand identity.  Just remember that a truly successful icon is eminently smashable!

Elevation Church: The icon used by Elevation Church is an inverted V standing alone or in a sphere. As discussed in yesterday’s post on Shape, it is used throughout the church. It is always prominent in print pieces, graphics in videos, and in creative elements during worship experiences. One of the most talked about uses is in a simple, old-school bumper sticker, appearing on thousands of cars across the Charlotte area. In short, it’s everywhere – and creating subtle connections all the time.

Tomorrow: Sound, Navigation, Behavior

 

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Categories Communication

Smashing Your Brand: Picture, Color, Shape

January 3, 2012 //
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Martin Lindstrom is a global branding guru and expert on consumer shopping behavior whose work is in demand by corporations worldwide. In his book Brand Sense, Lindstrom reveals how the world’s most successful companies and products integrate touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound with startling results.

Tapping into the complexity of our sense works in ChurchWorld, too.

An overview of Lindstrom’s Smash Your Brand philosophy was covered in this post. Beginning today and continuing for the next four days, I want to take a closer look at how these 12 philosophies might be applied in ChurchWorld.

I will be using generic examples, but where appropriate, I will illustrate specific uses of the Smash Your Brand concepts used in my church – Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC. A disclaimer: though I am involved in a volunteer leadership capacity, these observations are my own and have not been vetted by Elevation Church staff.

Let’s dive into the first three!

Smash Your Picture

Organizations today suffer from fragmentation of brand opportunity. Packaging is done by X, marketing brochures by Y, and publicity by Z. Additionally, organizations recycle images, frequently change designers and photographers, and often utilize different creative groups by different departments.  This lack of integration fragments the message. Worse yet is the use of nonbranded, stereotypical images.

ChurchWorld Application: As much as possible, organize all creative elements in one department: worship planning, staging, print (worship cards, promotion, etc.), marketing, publicity, and internal uses. Using this concept, your church can begin to build brand continuity over a period of years.

Elevation Church: As a multi-site church with six locations, Elevation relies heavily on brand continuity. In order to achieve this, the Creative Department, led by Pastor Larry Hubatka, is the largest in the church both personnel wise (both paid and volunteer). Additionally, a significant percentage of the annual budget is earmarked to make sure our vision – That people far from God be filled with life in Christ – is presented in a consistent manner.

Smash Your Color

Color is essential to brands as it is the most visible (and obvious) first point of communication. School buses, police cars, and fire trucks first and foremost distinguish themselves by their color. Want a cab? Your first thought is probably Yellow Cab. Looking for the mail? You are watching out for a white vehicle with red and blue trim. The use of a color in a logo, and then sporadically splashing it across print materials, websites, and in your facility will not automatically build brand awareness. However, colors create clear associations in our minds, and these same associations can’t help but benefit your brand.

ChurchWorld Application: Color selections are very subjective, and you definitely don’t want to leave this to a committee choice, not matter how well-intentioned! Consult with a marketing/branding firm that can help you develop a palette of colors for use in all your platforms: print, digital, signage, and facility. The results will be a solid investment for your future.

Elevation Church: In a word, Orange. From the very beginning of the church in 2006, Pastor Steven Furtick chose orange as the dominant color for all things Elevation. Six years later, the color has been woven into every imaginable use: print materials, staging, makeup, T-shirts by the thousands – even orange makeup for a special black-light stage concept.

Smash Your Shape

Shape is one of the most overlooked branding components, even though certain shapes clearly announce the brand in question. Particular shapes have become synonymous with certain brands: Coke and its bottle or McDonald’s Golden Arches.

ChurchWorld Application: Do you use a unique shape in your logo? Is there a unique part of your campus facility that could be considered for use? It doesn’t need to dominate, but become a subtle part of a unified whole.

Elevation Church: Again, a simple shape has defined Elevation from the beginning: a sphere with an inverted V (orange, of course). The use of the inverted V has taken all forms: from set backdrops to print backgrounds and even as keyboard stands. It has been used as shown here; it also appears as the inverted V as a stand alone.

 

Tomorrow: Name, Language, Icon

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Categories Communication, Uncategorized

A Smashing Process

January 2, 2012 //
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Brand expert and consumer consultant Martin Lindstrom poses an interesting question: Eliminate a logo, and what’s left of your brand? 

In his book Brand Sense, Lindstrom develops this question into a full-blown treatise on the importance of utilizing all five senses when it comes to branding. He calls it Smash the Brand. 

The Smash the Brand philosophy considers every possible way a consumer interacts with a product with a view to building or maintaining the image of the brand. The images, the sounds, the tactile feelings, even the text on the product all need to become fully integrated components of the brand itself.  

This is not just for businesses - leaders in ChurchWorld need to understand the importance of branding.

Lindstrom developed 12 different ways to Smash the Brand into many different pieces. Each piece should work independently of the others, although each is still essential in the process of establishing and maintaining a truly smashable brand. Read the highlights below, and then pick up your own copy of Brand Sense - because it will change the way you think about your “brand”.

  • Smash Your Picture: Picture this – a face with a white mustache. What do you have? Only the instantly recognizable “Got Milk” campaign, where everyone who’s anyone has contributed their face to the healthy practice of drinking milk – which, coincidently, increases the profits of the milk industry.
  • Smash Your Color: color is essential to brands as it’s the most visible and obvious first point of communication. Colors create clear associations in our minds, and these same associations can’t help but benefit brands.
  • Smash Your Shape: Shape is one of the most overlooked branding components, even though certain shapes clearly announce the brand in question. The contours of the Coke bottle, the graceful lines of Apple products, the Golden Arches of McDonald’s – each element that creates these products is fully integrated into their overall design, making the shape distinctly their own.
  • Smash Your Name: Integrated naming strategies reinforce the awareness of the brand’s profile. The Mac-ization of the language was formally recognized when Merriam-Webster added “McJob” to their collegiate dictionary. Apple practically owns the letter “i” – iPod, iPhone, iPad.
  • Smash Your Language: Effective messages begin their life at the same time the product or brand itself is born. As they are embraced and passed on from one generation to the next, the result is almost universal recognition. Case in point? The word magic is “owned” by Disney – which comes as no surprise to someone encountering a Disney cast member encouraging guests to “Have a magical day!” The key to forming a smashable language is to integrate it into every single piece of communication that your organization is responsible for, including all internal communications.
  • Smash Your Icon: Icons or symbols are likely to become one of the most important components in rebuilding your smashed brand. Truly successful icons are also eminently smashable.
  • Smash Your Sound: Brands the world over underestimate the value of sound – not the sound that we take for granted on radio or television commercials, but more like the background music that plays on websites, in stores, on hold buttons, or even as ringtones.
  • Smash Your Navigation: Navigation – the way you find your way around a website, a department store, a supermarket, or any other familiar retail environment – is entirely smashable. There needs to be a series of consistent links between your website, your cell phone campaigns, your physical layout, your print materials, and your automated phone system because they all link together.
  • Smash Your Behavior:  Behaviors throughout your organization should be integrated to match the brand. Again to Disney: Cast members from the region being represented, design and decoration of the space, and total service integration are hallmarks of how Disney delivers an experience that transports you to another place and time.
  • Smash Your Service: Smashing your service is as feasible as smashing all the other more tangible components shaping your brand. Ritz Carlton’s front line empowerment authorizing staff great leeway in accommodating – no, exceeding, guest expectations comes to mind. Then there’s Nordstrom’s Employee Handbook, consisting of one rule: Use good judgment in all situations.
  • Smash Your Tradition: We’ve just left behind the Christmas season – one of the most tradition-linked times of the year. Along with these traditions come a swath of memories, and brands are often linked to the memories of traditional moments. The stronger the tradition, the more smashable it becomes.
  • Smash Your Rituals: Most rituals are generated by consumers. To date, few brands have seen the value in supporting consumer-generated rituals despite the enormous bonding that they can give rise to. This is beginning to change, thought, with the increasing rise of social media usage by consumers and the eventual adoption by organizations.

There you have it – a dozen Smash Your Brand philosophy statements. The question is, What are you going to do about it?

 Branding is a critically important part of ChurchWorld.  The Smash Your Brand philosophy considers every possible consumer touch point with a view to creating or maintaining the image of the brand. The images, the sounds, the touch, the text – they all need to become fully integrated components of the product itself.

The rest of this week: A closer look at how the Smash Your Brand Philosophy might be applied to ChurchWorld.

 

 

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Categories Communication, Guest Services

Out of Site, Out of Mind

December 20, 2011 //
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It only takes a few seconds for a guest to your website to decide to leave – or stay.

Guest Services in your church is more than just a friendly face greeting everyone who comes onto your property – because increasingly, your Guests have “visited” your website before coming to your church facility. Mark MacDonald, a close friend and founder and Creative Director of Pinpoint Creative Group, recently had this to say: 

 85% of people visit a website before visiting a church. If your church doesn’t “feel” like your web; most of them will never return.

You can read the full article here, but note the close relationship between the digital and the physical: your digital “doorway” must match your physical doorway – at least in “feel.”

While you’re pondering that nugget, add this to the mix:  Evidence points to information from trusted sources getting a better hold on our brains than the noise from everything else.

Martin Lindstrom, consumer advocate consultant and best-selling author, recently elaborated on this topic in a Fast Company online column:

Let’s say that not that long ago you came across a fascinating article. But when you later try to verify some of the facts, you just can’t pinpoint exactly where you first read it. What you do recall is that the source was reliable and you trusted the message. This is a situation I find myself in quite regularly. So much so, that I’ve pondered the conundrum and come up with a theory: we store information according to how trustworthy we deem the source of the message to be.

I make no claims to being a marketing expert (see Mark if you need one) or to being a student of what consumers – including church consumers – are looking for (read more of Lindstrom’s work here).

But when I connect all of the above, it boggles my mind. If you are a leader in ChurchWorld, it ought to do the same to you.

Here’s the summary:

  • An overwhelming majority of Guests coming to your church have visited your website first
  • Your digital doorway must match the physical doorway or your Guests will feel a major disconnect
  • Brands (and that includes your church) that are trusted have a better chance of staying top-of-mind

What are you going to do about it?

 

 

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Categories Communication, Guest Services
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