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How To Design A (Brand) Soul

Posted on: 29 jun 2014

"Character is our way of feeling. Personality our way of acting." 
Jose Antonio Marina. Spanish philosopher



How does a soul brand come to life?

"The soul is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing" 

How does a human, philosophical and existencialist issue relates to a…brand?. I can be as philosophical and romantic regarding the beauty of the essence we all treasured and nurtured inside of us, but, when it comes to mixing romanticism and business I'm as pragmatic and concrete as this:

Pragmatic soul-of-your-brand inventory:

  1. A brand soul is the purpose and vision of a brand. In what way can your brand be truly relevant to people? (To know this answer, a brand needs to understand people and their needs in the first place…seems obvious, but it's not I'm afraid). The purpose and vision of a brand should be a shared mantra within the organization. 
  2. A brand soul is also the heart of the organization. The purpose and vision of a brand comes to life by its actions, not by a notorious commercial  that represents the intellectualization of a tactical strategy. How does your brand behaves in all touch points? Everybody is a stakeholder.
  3. Are you delivering soul-products? Are you products a mirror of your brand's soul? 
  4. Do you actually know all channels and touch points in which your brand operates? Do you have a protocol for each one of them? No matter how insignificant you might think it is, all details are extremely important. 
  5. A soul brand communication must be value oriented. In what way does your brand help people? 

Great words versus reality: Getting tangible…getting real

My first step when it comes to designing a brand soul is analyzing how it really operates 360º (not how they say it does): 
A BRAND SOUL IS WHAT ITS DOES AND HOW IT DOES IT. THAT'S YOUR VALUES

…While understanding "how it works", it's when you really get to frame the right issues and opportunities…and you are able to unveiled hidden value and  real problems...
A BRAND SOUL CREATES VALUE FOR PEOPLE: Who is in charge of unveiling value in your company?

The human factor 

Once the process is been initiated within an organization, there is no turning back: We all need a noble, coherent purpose in our everyday work. Then it's when magic happens.

...And then, everything else follows: All the pieces of the puzzle come together.

Designing a brand soul is a resilient, long-run, co-created inside job with the purpose of understanding in order to redesign and build up the organization from the bottom up. You can call it innovation make over; human-centered mindset; value oriented transformation; sense making for change making…as you please…



Good luck and get ready as for a challenging long-distance run.





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