Your brand doesn't matter like you think it does

Sorry! Here's the thing

Hey I’m Matilda Lucy, a London-based Digital Strategist and writer of Broken Growth. I've recently launched a new audit that I'm shouting about from the rooftops because I'm obsessed with how it helps you break free from feeling reliant on socials; the Anti Social Growth Audit. I zoom out on your business goals today and highlight your opportunities to grow online away from social media. You can find out all the deets here.

Hi from me from a rainy London

So here’s the thing; you’re not Nike. Or Coca-Cola. You don’t have a legacy to protect and a huge marketing budget, you have a world to build and endless possibilities to experiment.

When consulting on growth, a frequent push-back I’ve heard from brand marketing leaders is that assets (ad campaigns, website content, email designs etc) are "not on-brand enough”. For example, all text should be in the brand font regardless of platform. The logo should be bigger. We can only use brand colours for buttons. The logo SHOULD BE BIGGER! These kinds of brand applications have an obvious role to play. But they don’t build a brand.

As a small marketing team, having a shared internal understanding of what you do and what you stand for as a brand is vital. However, when you’re strapped for time and resources, enforcing tight guidelines in the name of brand consistency is a surefire way to dampen your creativity and growth.

Trust in brands is waning. As per the Brand Trust in the Age of Information Overload report from Intuit, 32% of consumers trust brands less vs 21% who trust brands more than in 2023.

Instead of hearing from corporate monoliths, people want stories, recommendations and advice from other people as we have been doing and liking for...ever. As we scroll through more and more AI slop every day, it makes sense that behaving less rigidly and more “human-like” helps businesses create more genuine and longer-lasting connections.

Here’s a list of things that don’t matter about your brand today as a small, interesting, exciting business and a list of things that do.

Things about your brand that don’t really matter:

1. Your logo

2. Everything you post online being #aesthetic in branded fonts and colours (see Nutter Butter for the opposite of this)

3. Values plucked from a list that lives in a dusty deck 

4. A generic vision statement that has been forgotten about 

5. The fact that you say you are purpose-driven (share the receipts instead) 

Things about your brand that really do matter:

1. What other people say about you at the pub/park/school gates IRL

2. Constantly creating and building for and with the end user/consumer

3. Prioritising collabs and connections with other brands, creators, and community members that make sense

4. Your tone of voice cuts through

5. Your values being demonstrated through your actions

6. Experimenting consistently with content formats, partnerships, channels, messaging, visuals

7. Giving people a consistent feeling when they interact with you (through your content, purchase process, customer service, events, collabs)

An example of a business nailing this kind of brand building is Nugget Savings. In one year, Nugget, (a bootstrapped team of two) have grown their brand and a community of 200k parents and parents-to-be by constantly iterating on content, being mission-obsessed, and building a recognisable point of view through consistent action. They prioritise substance over aesthetics and have the results to show for it.

@nuggetsavingsWhen did you start saving for your maternity leave? 😩 #maternityleave #babysavings #babysavingmoney #maternitypay

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Last Friday, I was having a wine at the pub with one of the Nugget co-founders, Harriet. The woman on the table next to us leant over and said to Harriet "Hey I recognise you from Nugget and just wanted to say thanks for the impact you've had on mine and my partners' parental leave. We both got longer to spend with the baby than we ever knew we could. I've told all my friends about Nugget." That's a sign that your brand matters in the world.

Speak soon :) 

Matilda