Make contact

Lesson 01 · 9 minutes

Identity or brand.
You control one of them.

The two words get used for each other, and the confusion costs money. One idea, and the rest of the course rests on it.

Begin All nine lessons

You can buy an identity.
Other people decide the brand.

  1. 01The one word you control, and the one you never will.So the next logo, palette or rename is bought for the right reason.
  2. 02The formula for earning one.Four terms. Every brand decision you make from here on changes one of them.
  3. 03Where the money goes for weeks, and where it goes for years.The mistake this lesson prevents is spending on one while expecting the other.

Two words

A founder who thinks a new logo changes the brand buys the logo, and waits for the change.

It does not come.

Identity

The kit and the tone. You control it.

The logo, the colors, the typefaces, the voice. It is the only part of the brand you can edit.

Brand

The reputation and the feeling. Other people decide it.

What a customer says about the company to other people. You cannot edit it. You can only influence it.

What’s the difference between
IDENTITY & BRAND?

IDENTITYKit and tone. We control that.Identity changes fast (logo, fonts, colors and voice).
BRANDReputation and feelings. Other people decide that.Brand changes slowly (we earn TRUST over time).
Slide 01The two words, and who owns each one.
IdentityChanges fast.A decision ships in a few weeks.
BrandChanges slowly.Each consistent contact adds a little trust.

So the question to ask is “what do we ship, every time, so that people arrive at the brand we want?”

The formula

If brand is decided by other people, the founder’s job is influence.

Influence has 3 parts that multiply, and a fourth that divides.

Story

The one idea you want repeated.

If a customer can remember one sentence about you, this is the sentence.

Proof

The fact that backs it up.

A number, a name, a result someone else can check.

Experience

How it feels to deal with you.

The site, the product, the reply to the email, the box it arrives in.

Inconsistency

Every place the three disagree.

It divides the other three. It is the part design can remove.

How can we create that influence?

BRAND= STORY × PROOF × EXPERIENCEINCONSISTENCY
  • STORY: the one idea you want repeated.
  • PROOF: facts and third-party signals that back it up.
  • EXPERIENCE: how people feel dealing with you.
  • INCONSISTENCY kills trust; we must reduce it everywhere.
Slide 02The formula, and the four terms.

Worked

Apple, October 2001. Five words, and a product that did what they said.

iPod.1,000 songs in your pocket.

  • Story“1,000 songs in your pocket”
  • Proof5 GB ≈ 1,000 MP3s
  • ExperienceScroll, click, music plays, fits in your pocket
  • ConsistentSame story everywhere
Story

One idea, 5 words.

The line named the songs and where they go, and left out the drive, the wheel and the battery.

Proof

A 5 GB drive holds about 1,000 MP3s.

The story is a fact you could check on the spec sheet.

Experience

Scroll, click, the music plays.

And the thing fits in the pocket the story named.

Consistent

The same 5 words on the ad, the box and the site.

No place where the story disagrees.

Consistency

Every time a person meets the company, they check it against the last time.

When it matches, trust goes up a little. When it does not, trust goes down more than it went up.

  1. Identity systemthe kit, the rules, one place
  2. Consistencythe same thing, every contact
  3. Trustearned, slowly, by other people
  4. Brandthe reputation you wanted

A unified identity system is the device that makes it match, without anyone having to remember to.

A unified IDENTITY system creates CONSISTENCY, building TRUST & setting the BRAND up for success.

Slide 04The chain from identity system to brand.

On Monday

You can change the identity this quarter.

Logo, color, type and voice take a decision and a few weeks. If it is wrong, it is fixable, and the fix ships.

You cannot change the brand this quarter.

A rebrand does not reset a reputation. Budget the identity for weeks and the brand for years.

Every inconsistency loses some trust.

A deck ships in the old colors, or the site says one thing and a sales call says another. A unified identity system stops them.

Recap

  1. 01You control the identity. Other people decide the brand.Identity is the kit and the tone. Brand is the reputation and the feeling.
  2. 02Brand = story × proof × experience, divided by inconsistency.Design’s job is the denominator.
  3. 03An identity takes weeks to build and a brand takes years.A unified identity system is how the two stay in step without anyone remembering to.

Next

Lesson two takes the formula apart.

It covers story, proof and experience one at a time, and where inconsistency gets in. Lesson three then covers the twelve characters a story can be told by.

StoryProofExperience
0210 minStory, proof, experience. Divided by inconsistency.

The formula from lesson one, a term at a time. It covers one sentence a customer can repeat, a fact a stranger can check, the 4 places a customer meets the company, and where inconsistency gets in.

Open the lesson
0314 minTwelve characters. Your company is one of them.

The archetypes, each with its promise and the brand that carries it. Clear, match, resonate.

Open the lesson

Start here

Ask about the lesson, or tell me about the company.

A question about a lesson gets an answer. A company gets the questionnaire.

  1. 01You write.A few lines on the company and what you need.
  2. 02We talk.Thirty minutes, on a call, within 1 business day.
  3. 03You leave with a plan.What happens first, who it needs, and a date.
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