Brand Promise vs Tagline [How These Strategic Branding Tools Differ]

stephen harahan here at brownmasteracademy.com and in this video i want to talk to you about brand promise now there is a lot of misinformation out there about what brand promise is what bra promise is not but specifically in this video i want to break down what the brand promise is in relation to and how you can go about communicating your brand promise to your audience [Music] now brand promise is not the most complex topic in the wider spectrum of branding it's one of the easier ones when you step back and look at it logically the

brand promise is the promise that the brand makes to its audience as to what they can expect from the brand so you would think that brand builders and entrepreneurs they'd all be on the same page but they're not and i've experienced this first hand through the experiences that i've had with entrepreneurs business owners and even other brand builders the main cause for confusion here are twofold first of all it's how the promise is delivered and secondly it's what that promise is in relation to so that's what we're gonna dive into in this video so why

don't we start with the definition of a brand promise so the brand promise is the promise that a brand makes to its audience either literal or assumed about the overall experience that they can expect from the brand now before we go on there's a couple of points worth dissecting from this definition so the first is in relation to the promise that is literal or assumed so what's that all about well essentially the promise can be defined by the brand by articulating what their commitment is by articulating what they promise to their audience or the problems

can be assumed if the brand hasn't gone about articulating the promise well then the audience will assume that a promise is being made by the experiences that they've had with the brand whether direct or indirect they'll build an idea of what the brand is promising now the other point in reference to that definition is the experience so the promise being made to the audience whether it's direct or indirect is in relation to the overall experience of the brand yes it can include the differentiation strategy the point of difference the value being offered but it's the

whole experience that the audience can expect so essentially what this means is that every brand makes a promise whether they go out and articulate that promise or not if you're building a brand and you haven't gone out and articulated your promise well then your audience is going to start to build their idea of what you're promising now the reality is that most businesses most brands they do not go out and articulate a brand promise now some do of course some have a brand promise statement some have a promise directly within their tagline but 90 of

brands never actually articulate a promise now because of that there is a lot of confusion around the tagline because some brands go out and put a promise directly in their tagline then most people a lot of people certainly assume that the tagline is actually the brand promise and that's not the case just because some brands have a promise within their tagline it doesn't mean that all taglines are brand promises and i've seen this time and again with articles online giving the best examples of brand promises and just showing a list of taglines assuming that a

brand promise is a tagline because they've seen some promises within tag lines that's not the case the tagline and the brand promise are to completely separate branding elements and they have different jobs to do they have different tasks at hand and they're used differently from a strategic branding point of view the job of the tagline is to help establish the brand in the mind of their audience for the position that that bro brand wants to own in that mind and that position is defined within the positioning strategy if the audience is able to remember the

tagline and that's the job of the tagline to to plant itself in the mind of the audience so that they are able to remember and recall that tag line and associate that tag line with an idea or a value determined within the positioning strategy on the other hand the brand promise has a different task the brand promise is there to set in place the expectation of the overall brand experience and that's in relation to everything not just the position and not just the value offered within the position it's the experience across the board everything from

the communication strategy to the personality to the visual appeal that that brand sets out every single touch point of a brand is part of the overall experience of that brand so that's what the audience can expect that's what the brand promise is in relation to so the tagline and the brand promise are completely separate and they have different tasks now there are a few different ways that you can go about communicating your brand promise but whether you take the time to articulate that promise or not you're only going to have so much control as to

how your audience builds the expectations in their mind because the experience of a brand can either be direct or indirect so we can experience a brand through their direct touch points whether it's their website an email we receive an advertisement that we see or it can be an indirect experience as well so we can talk to our friends and they can say oh you know i've i've picked up this new brand uh you know i love this this and this about it and that will then begin to shape the idea of that brand in our

mind even though we've not had any sort of direct contact with that brand so this just goes to show that of course we can control how our audience and how the wider market sees our brand but at the end of the day it is the audience that will determine what our brand looks like what it feels like to them in their mind and this kind of backs up what marty neumeyer says that your brand is not what you say it is it's what they say it is now there are three types of brand promises so

let's look at the options that you have when it comes to communicating what that promise is and the first one is your tagline you can pop a promise right there within your tagline and the benefit of this is that it doubles down on a commitment and a position that you want to be known for in the market if you're really confident about delivering on that promise then you can articulate that within your tagline but as always your tagline needs to be concise it needs to be clear and it needs to be memorable as well so

don't sacrifice any of those characteristics for getting a promise in there but if you really do want to double down on owning a position in the mind of your audience in relation to the value that you offer from a promise given then that is a very good option to to look at the other way that you can articulate a brand promise is through a brand promise statement so you can take the time to look at your overall brand and the overall experience that you want your audience to understand about your brand what you want your

audience to expect from your brand and you can define that in a brand position statement and that will act as a very good internal document as well for everybody within the brand and you can also go out and communicate that as well directly on your website or through your social channels etc and the third way of course is your indirect promise so essentially you're not articulating a promise as such but what you are doing is you're setting expectations throughout all of your touch points all of your communication strategy wherever your audience will see your brand

and experience your brand then you have some kind of communication in there shaping what they can expect from the brand so they are the three ways they're your tagline your brand positioning statement and of course your indirect promise now in my experience when it comes to this point with clients and i explain this to them that their audience will actually shape their own expectations of their brand they asked me well what's the point in articulating the promise and it is a good question but there are some benefits in articulating the problems yes of course your

audience are going to build their own expectations beyond what you just said in place as a promise but if you do put in place and articulate a promise well then that's gonna narrow their focus and when they think of your brand and think of what to expect from your brand they're gonna recall that so it will shape and narrow their overall expectations and as i said a couple of very good ways to do that is through the tagline and focusing their recollection of your brand in on that difference that you offer and the value of

that difference and the other way is through the brand positioning statement by setting in place a statement and communicating that statement online or through your social presence or using that statement as a guide for all of your external communication what it does is to help it helps to shape the expectations in the mind of your audience so yes they will determine their own expectations and they will create their own ideas of what your brand is but the more refined your communication the more focused and strategic your communication as to what their expectation should be the

better they'll be able to shape your brand in the light that you want your brand to be seen now i've had a few people ask me about how they can go about developing their own brand promise statement so i'm going to do a follow-up video to this and i'll link to it somewhere up here or in the description below but i'd really love to hear from you about your experience around brand promise whether you're building your brand for yourself or you're building a brand for a client how are you going about articulating your promise or

are you articulating your promise at all how are you going about shaping your audience's perceptions around their expectation of the experience that they can expect from your brand so i'd love to hear your perspective on it your thoughts your challenges have you got any challenges around your brand promise or writing a brand promise statement let me know in the comments below if you liked this video if it gave you a fresh perspective if it helped you in any way please give it a thumbs up please hit that subscribe button and the notification bell to let

you know when i release new videos and i will see you in the next one [Music] you