Is Your Brand “Alive”? Why a Successful Business Needs a Human Heartbeat? Copy

Imagine your brand being deeply connected to its customers, offering top-tier products or services and first-class visual design. A dedicated team that cares about the company’s interest as much as you. What would that look like? Like a dream, right? But, what happens if I told you that all it takes is adjusting a few things to transform your brand into a huge success, while actually working fewer hours each day.

Over the course of ten years designing brands, I have frequently encountered one question, How can I create a massively successful brand?. While there are some specific and strategic techniques that you can use, it is more sustainable to identify and refine core elements before trying to make your brand stand out.

In my view, a brand–whether big or small–is not that different from the work of an artist, a musician, an actor or a filmmaker. It is always about human expressions; it’s just that in branding you express yourself through a customer experience for your product or service. If you look closely, every brand carries the specific signature of its founder–the person who said ‘Let’s do this.’ All human expression reflects who we are and how we see the world: through our virtues, mistakes, imperfections, goals, and frustrations.

This is where I’ve found another common element in the vast majority of cases I’ve observed. The brands are often created aspirationally, focused on the competition, the industry leader and world-class benchmark. There is nothing bad in that; in fact, tools like benchmark and moodboard are essential. It is helpful being inspired and fueled by places, projects, persons or ideas.

However, before prioritizing those external references, there is one place we must see first: within ourselves. If our way to perceiving, feeling and moving through the world isn’t aligned with the references we used, the ‘short circuit’ will appear someday. A sustainable and successful brand is one that grows at its own pace and rhythm, adding and removing elements based on its own journey. If a brand learns, this means the humans behind it have learned. If the humans behind the brand grow, the project will inevitably grow with them.

But, what happens if the way how I perceive the world doesn’t seem appealing, or if I think it won’t sell? Well, everyone has a ‘unique touch’. Trust me, the world needs your voice and life to be heard out there. Very few people are brave enough to put a megaphone to their lives; but when you make that decision, and you do it honestly, the world responds putting people who resonate with your being and your creation. Yes, they are called your clients, and fans.

If we build every brand this way, with an inspiration as unique as your own life, the competition suddenly disappears. And you know why? Who is better at being you than you are? Well, it is the same with your brand. In this exploration of your rhythms, tastes, languages, and interest, thousands of elements will emerge, small as they may seem, that will build the experience your customer feels, brick by brick.

Finally, think your brand as a selection finely curated elements from your personal diary, shared with the world through your product or service. Here is an important warning, it takes a big deal of courage to show ourselves as we truly are. That is why they say the world belongs to the brave.

As a brand builder, you are facing a major challenge: getting to know deeper about yourself. As brand designers, we have a task that is just as important: guiding you toward a path that redefines brand honesty, which, in the end, is a reflection of the human who had the idea to create it. That is a why a brand is not just a logo; it’s a complex, living system. It is as alive as you are.

Do you want your brand to be that magical element that people choose because it is a success? The first step is to be brave enough to show yourself to the world like you really are while. The rest, as if by magic, will appear along the way to fuel your purpose of enjoying every day doing what you truly love. This is Slow Branding.