Provide Support for Your Brand

You support your brand by giving reasons why you can claim to provide the benefits to people that you do. Axe beauty products claim they help men attract women because they help to make them smell the way women want and by helping to make them look attractive. Wal-Mart is family oriented because they refuse to sell certain movies and music, and they also provide affordable, family products. As you can see, in many cases brand support isn’t necessarily something that makes you better or even different from your competition. Still, for many companies, certifications, the awards that they’ve won, that their products are natural, or press they’ve received are important parts of their brand.

It’s important to understand, however, that as important as these things might be, your brand is not the awards you’ve won or that your products are all natural or organic. A natural food store isn’t selling organic food. Its selling high-quality, healthy food, aka food that’s high-quality and healthy because it’s organic and natural. If you’ve won an award for your cupcakes, you’re not selling cupcakes. You’re selling super-tasty, high- quality treats that will make people happy which have won major awards for doing so. The goal of brand support isn’t to act as a benefit but to help prod people towards thinking about your benefits while also helping to support your claims.

As an example, while Kashi, an all-natural food company which makes energy bars and cookies from whole grains does state that they are “Seven whole grains on a mission,” they do so in support of activities that are fun or that show that they taste great. Kashi’s ads show people having adventures in exotic locations, little kids sneaking cookies out of cookie jars, etc. People eat Kashi because it helps make them healthier and gives them energy to do the things they want to do, and it tastes great. It does all these things because it’s made of whole grains.

Cheerios has a similar approach except, rather than young people on adventures, they show older people having fun with their grandkids, painting pictures, etc. The message being that Cheerios helps its customers do what they love to do for longer because it’s good for their heart. In both of these cases, the message is that the food helps to empower the person who eats it and helps them live better. It does this because it’s healthy.

Apple used brand support in a very unique way and was able to make itself young and hip while also working to make Microsoft appear stodgy in comparison. This is surprising in a way, after all, because Microsoft is the maker of computer games, Xbox, open technology systems that allow people to use flash games, indie cartoons, and more computer games then you can shake a stick at on their machine, while Apple seeks to make life difficult for these creative media. Apple was able to pull off its creative brand by mentioning reviews in just the right way, highlighting its creative software while highlighting poor reviews of Microsoft in a humorous way.