The dark arts of branding received an illumination when
“You're in a relationship from the moment a customer isaware of you,” says Brant.
“By putting off branding, you're alreadybranding, and affecting that relationship.”
Alongwith Jeremiah Gardner, Brant's writing a new book, 'The Lean Brand' . The pair crowd funded its publishing, with 441 pre-orders,obtaining $23,020 from a target of $12,500.
Brant says the MadisonAvenue types of branding consultants and experts traditionally concentrate on the artifacts of abrand, such as a logo, tagline and mission statement.
Where brand meetslean is working out what elements of your brand are needed to create value for your customer. Thisis done through validated learning – moving unknowns to knowns as is carried out for productdevelopment.
More so says Brant because initially, startups don't knowthe value they're creating, or for who they're creating it. With customers comes the opportunity tolearn what aspects of brand you should be concentrating on.
Ultimately,Brant says a business is after passionate customers. The aspirations that a business shares with acustomer are its brand.
All this is encompassed in a story hesays.
This startup story starts with questions such as:
A brand can grow out of answering these questions, as a startupbuild, measures and learns, and uncovers the elements that provide an emotional resonance with acustomer. In other words, experiment to discovering the emotional value of a startup product –hypothesis testing to validate learning.
Brant says startups should owntheir own brand design and not send this side of the business out to an agency.
“Entrepreneurs can and should own their brand creation,”he says.
“A brand development is not a black box to be owned byothers.”
This self-effacing American, who gotplenty of laughs during his presentation, will be doing no great favours for branding experts whenThe Lean Brand Book is published.
But, since under lean, brand is muchmore than its logo, such disruptive thinking will mean startups start branding right from the getgo.