Find Your Brand Heart

Your Brand Heart influences everything your brand does, from how you present yourself to the world to how you treat your customers and employees. In this simple guide, we’ll show you how to articulate your Brand Heart (purpose, vision, mission, and values) so you can build a brand that’s aligned to your core beliefs.

But first, let’s talk about why finding your Brand Heart matters.What Is a Brand?

Often, when people talk about a “brand,” they’re referring to the physical mark (or logo) imprinted on something to identify the business that manufactured it. But a brand is more than a physical mark. It’s an emotional mark—more specifically, an emotional experience, strengthened or weakened through every interaction with that business.

We define brand as what people think, feel, and say about your business. (This differs from marketing, which is what you say about your business.)

Your brand is what other people say about you when you're not in the room."

The Secret to a Strong Brand,to build a strong brand, you have to deliver a positive and consistent emotional experience. The more you do this, the more people come to rely on you and, most importantly, trust you. That trust is why we all return to our favourite brands over and over. We crave that familiar feeling, whether it’s the spark of joy that comes from unboxing a new pair of Warbly Parkers, or the comfort of donning a Patagonia jacket.

In today’s landscape, cultivating this emotional connection is the key to your brand’s survival. It’s what compels people to choose you over your competitors. But how do you cultivate this connection?

The truth is you can’t force people to trust you. Their feelings will be based on their perceptions and judgments of your brand’s most basic attributes:

What you stand for: Your purpose, vision, mission, values.How you communicate: Your voice, personality, messaging, etc. What your brand’s products, services, and content look like: Your logo, colours, fonts, etc.Although you can’t control how people perceive you, you can represent yourself authentically and consistently in each of these areas. The better you do this, the more likely they are to understand you, and the easier it will be for them to trust you.

Unfortunately, this is exactly why many businesses struggle. So many organizations are full of people who know what they’re doing (e.g., selling organic sheets, security software, or lipstick), but they don’t really know who they collectively are or why their brand exists. Therefore, they can’t communicate authentically in marketing or act consistently throughout the customer journey. It’s no surprise, then, that their brand experience is subpar.So how can you avoid this? How do you align your beliefs and actions to create a cohesive brand experience? With a brand strategy.