Build Mode™

A monthly update with brand insights

and how they apply for the development of your practice and projects.

To operate in ‘build mode’ is to be in a state of creation and growth. Ambitious, with the mindset, resources, and conditions to build. To build environments. To build your company. To build and enhance your reputation. Through a deep dive into a brand principle once a month, I hope to help you on your path of growth.

Plus things I'm reading, thinking, learning, designing, and more.

Unsubscribe if you ever feel the updates aren't valuable for you. No hard feelings. :-)

DROPPING ON THE FIRST OF THE MONTH

Past issues of Build Mode

Kenny Isidoro 2/1/25 Kenny Isidoro 2/1/25

Perception is reality

Focusing on what you can control influences the perception of your brand.

Build Mode™ Issue 02.2025

Hello and welcome to the one-year anniversary issue of Build Mode, a monthly update with brand insights to help you level up your business. When I started writing these articles, I told myself I would do it for at least a year, and now that we’re here, I have no plans of slowing down. So, thanks for joining. We have an ambitious group of professionals working in real estate, architecture, engineering, construction, marketing, design, and development, and you all inspire me to keep sharing.

Haven’t subscribed yet? Consider joining us below and get the next issue delivered straight to your inbox on the first of the month.

Over the course of a year, I’ve written about a lot of things: brand ownership, brand touchpoints, brand messaging, marketing framework, brand guidelines, brand effectiveness, brand innovation, brand personality, naming, brand resonance, brand positioning, and brand architecture.

There’s no shortage of things to write about! As I was thinking about what to write next, I went back to my definition of branding, which is…

Branding is the process of defining the internal principles and external expressions of an organization to shape perception

… and I realized many of the articles linked above go deep on either internal principles or external expression, but this last part, shaping perception, I haven’t touched upon yet, so, let’s go there.

As I left employment in spring 2022 and went all-in on building MUDEO, there was a period of time that was… let’s say, uncharacteristic. My website was out of shape – I had project case studies, but no real value proposition. My content was uninspiring – I lacked an understanding of what to share and why. But the worst part (and this might sound trivial to you), I was using my personal email address instead of a business address for correspondence.

Why should anyone care what email address I’m using?!

Well, to me, this tiny brand touchpoint was a signal. The wrong signal. After a few months, I finally upgraded from a personal email to a business email, and in doing so, I was presenting myself as a professional, with credibility and legitimacy, and aiming to earn the trust of others. Without it, I was worried my brand perception wasn’t what I truly intended it to be.

Your email address, and about a million other brand touchpoints, are all within your control. Brand perception, however, is not. By focusing on what you can control, you can influence the perception of your brand in a meaningful way.

What is brand perception?

Brand perception is the way people feel about your brand. Their impression of your brand is influenced by everything (and I mean, everything) from your visual identity, to the words you use, to interactions with personnel, to testimonials and reviews, past experiences with you, and yes, your email address.

Ev-er-y-thing.

And most importantly, perception is shaped through your actions, not your words. You can’t just tell people your brand is innovative, trustworthy, or premium and they’ll take your word for it. You have to be those things for them to perceive you as such.

Let’s look at a couple examples at how a brand’s actions shape people’s perception:

Apple iPhone.
If you’re an iPhone user, you’ve likely experienced the unboxing of a new phone. The pristine white, minimalist box with crisp corners. The slow sliding of the box top to reveal the product in dramatic fashion. The perfectly housed phone and accessories in a molded tray. The attention to detail is second to none.
How does their brand packaging shape perception? Well, beyond the product itself, every detail of the packaging and unboxing experience reinforces their exceptionally high perceived quality, their meticulous attention to detail, their superb taste and minimalist aesthetic, and their customer care with an optimal user experience. (Yeah, all that, just with a box).
Next, UPPAbaby.
At some point around the mid-2010’s, baby gear brands like UPPAbaby, Bugaboo, and Nuna started developing handles with genuine leather handlebar grips. At first, this kind of feature came with an upcharge, but it has since become a staple with premium baby gear brands.
How does this one product feature shape perception? Leather handles make a stroller feel significantly more premium than standard foam padding. It simulates the experience of driving a luxury car, or carrying a designer handbag. It signals craftsmanship and sophistication, and makes parents feel they’ve invested in something special for the child they love.

Your brand perception is shaped by countless touchpoints, including the way you package your product or service (like Apple), or how the secondary features of your product enhance the value of the primary offering (like UPPAbaby), especially key touchpoints like these.

Why does brand perception matter?

People’s perception of your brand directly influences how they engage with your business. And if your brand isn’t leveraging your business, well, sorry to say, you’re doing it wrong.

Here’s why all this really matters:

Brand perception shapes trust and loyalty

A strong, positive perception builds trust and keeps people coming back. People will talk about the brands they love, and that love will spread to others and bring in more business.

Brand perception affirms price premiums

If someone perceives your brand as premium, they’re more likely to justify paying a higher price. If they see you as generic, they’ll compare based on cost alone, putting you in commodity territory. Buyers will either accurately perceive your value and buy, or perceive a disconnect between value and cost and pass on the offer.

Brand perception elevates your authority

Even if what you offer is actually better than others in the market, it won’t matter if others don’t perceive it as so. A weak brand perception will hold you back. A strong brand perception will propel you forward.

Side note:
Let’s not get confused. We’re not talking about the actual quality of your product or service (I’m assuming you’ve got that part covered). We’re talking about matching, or exceeding, the actual quality of your offering with the perceived quality of your promise and delivery. Perception is the only way others will interpret quality. (Again, not through your words, but through your actions).

Brand perception isn’t what you offer; it’s about how people feel about it.

What you can do you next

Now that you know what brand perception is, and why it matters in your business, if you want to shape how people perceive your brand, focus on what you can control.

A few ways to create positive brand perception:

Performance: Ensure the ‘main thing’ you do meets or exceeds expectations
Features: Enhance the value of your offering with elements that provide additional benefits
Reliability: Consistently deliver on your promises, ie. do what you say you’re going to do
Packaging: Wrap your offer in a way that conveys your value and expertise
Communciation: Communicate responsively, clearly, and proactively

If we determine that it’s important to align our intention with others’ perception (it is), consider a mapping exercise in which you create direct ties from brand actions to the resulting brand perceptions, and vice versa. You can jot this down in a two-column layout, or in an A-B-A-B pattern like below.

To demonstrate what I mean, here are a few examples:

Brand action:
Designing a well-considered residential entry, with painted door in brand color, lighting with aesthetic quality that matches the architectural style, a beautiful, accessible address number in a distinct typeface, and a custom door knocker with personality that makes guests smile.

Brand perception:
To the prospective buyer of this residence, this demonstrates thoughtfulness, creativity, cohesiveness, consistency, and an overall quality that assures dependability in other aspects of their experience.

Brand action:
Coordinating a trade show booth design with high-quality images and graphics on premium printed banners, durable marketing collateral, compelling messaging, and personable interactions with personnel.

Brand perception:
To a prospect meeting an exhibiting firm, this demonstrates they are consistent, reliable, and deliver a premium level of finish in their product and service delivery.

Now let’s take it in reverse with a negative brand perception and brand action to fix it.

Brand action:
A property management firm just received feedback from a prospect and they’ve decided to rent with a community across the street. They mentioned slow response times, AI chat that wasn’t helpful, and difficulty in scheduling a tour.

Brand perception:
The property management firm should consider adjusting their communications and marketing systems by conducting an analysis of the prospective resident’s journey to find gaps in their experience. Then, streamline systems to make sure they’re working together and train teams to follow up quickly and personally.

Where there are unknowns, discover them by listening to feedback. Where there are misalignments, fix them by analyzing deficiencies. Bring these two elements — the actions you control and the perceptions you can’t control — closer and closer together.

When your actions reinforce your desired perception, your brand becomes stronger, more trusted, and ultimately, more successful.

That’s all for this edition of Build Mode! If this resonated with you and you think it might help others, feel free to share it with a colleague. And if you want to discuss how your brand perception is shaping your business, just get in touch — I’d love to hear from you.

Best.
Kenny Isidoro

See my latest on Instagram, LinkedIn, or feel free to book a call.

Beauty is in the eye of the holder

Work zone

Some other things I've been up to

Watching:

Surprisingly, after a hiatus of not watching much television, I’ve had a few moments to catch up on a couple of my favorite shows this month. Made it through the second season of Squid Games and couldn’t believe it ended after only seven episodes! I’m also keeping up with Severance. Things are getting even weirder! What are you watching?

Naming:

Just recently, we’ve arrived at a new name for a restaurant expanding into a new concept. I probably brainstormed about 200 names, and when I was almost done writing for the day, there it was, the winning name penned. It was so much fun I laughed out loud. The client loved it too. Brand identity coming next.

Standardizing:

After a rebrand, whether big or small, a critical piece of its success is the implementation across the organization. At the moment, I’m supporting an architectural firm with brand implementation across templates, presentations, documents, social media assets, you name it. (Consistent action shapes a perception of reliability.)

If and when you're ready to build your brand, there are three ways I can help.

Brand audit

A free analysis of your brand, plus other industry players, with recommendations for increasing its effectiveness in your business. Get your free audit.

Brand partnership

A new, subscription-based service model to support your firm's practice and build its reputation through branding and marketing. Register your interest.

Custom-built brand

A core service guiding business leaders through a linear process of defining or redefining your brand in four phases: discover, define, develop, and deliver. Discuss your project.

Subscribe to Build Mode™

a monthly update with brand insights and how they can apply to your practice and your projects. Issues drop on the first of each month. Feel free to unsubscribe if the updates aren't valuable for you. No hard feelings.

Kenny Isidoro 1/1/25 Kenny Isidoro 1/1/25

Your brand isn’t yours until you make it yours

How to take ownership of your brand

Build Mode™ Issue 01.2025

Welcome to this issue of Build Mode, a monthly update with brand insights to help you level up your business. Thanks for being here. We have an ambitious group of professionals working in real estate, architecture, engineering, construction, marketing, design, and development. Today’s issue is about taking ownership of your brand.

Haven’t subscribed yet? Consider joining us below and get the next issue delivered straight to your inbox on the first of the month.

The day after Christmas was probably my laziest yet most productive day of the year. ‘Lazy’ in that we moved slowly from one moment to the next. ‘Productive’ in that we bonded as a family in a way we hadn’t recently. We slept in, ate every meal together, built LEGO sets, played board games and video games, watched movies, and stayed in pajamas all day long. It’s also the day I got the idea for this month’s issue of Build Mode.

At one point during the day, all my children were building the LEGO sets they were just gifted. We opened the boxes together, each bag labeled with numbers so we knew where to start, and we followed the instructions step-by-step. Soon, the structure started to take shape. A sense of connection between us and the thing we were building was forming. While we might have started with a collection of random bricks of various shapes and colors, we completed a mini-masterpiece through a meditative and methodical process.

While its name comes from a different brand, this feeling — this psychological effect we were experiencing — has been coined the ‘IKEA effect.’ It applies to assembling IKEA furniture. It applies to building LEGO sets. It applies to customizing the colors on a pair of Nike By You sneakers. It even applies to the tiny toy inside a KINDER JOY egg. And in this issue, I’d like to share how it serves as a powerful lesson for building your brand too.

What is the IKEA effect?

The IKEA effect is the psychological effect of valuing something more because we’ve invested our own effort into creating it. In a Harvard Business School report published by professors Michael I. Norton, Daniel Mochon, and Dan Ariely, after running a series of studies, concluded that people who built their own products (in this case, IKEA furniture) were more likely to have an increased perceived value of that product.

Building or assembling your own product, like IKEA furniture or a LEGO build, provides a sense of accomplishment and achievement, and enhances your emotional connection to the product. The labor and time you put into it make it uniquely yours, because it was built differently: by you.

Developing your brand is similar. While you might consult with a brand partner, your active involvement in the brand-building process creates a necessary sense of ownership in the results. When it’s all said and done, your brand is yours to own and to manage.

Why does the IKEA effect matter to brand-building?

The most important takeaway from the IKEA effect is this:

To own your brand, you need to be actively involved in building your brand.

That doesn’t mean a do-it-yourself kind of process.
But it does mean being engaged in the process.

I was speaking to a couple business leaders the other day who had gone through a rebrand that was never fully adopted. The identity felt disconnected from their values, disconnected from what people truly loved about the brand, and disconnected from the owners who’ve never felt a sense of true ownership. Can you imagine?!... business owners not feeling ownership of their brand?

On the flip side, when you’re an active participant in building your brand, and invite a broad leadership team, everyone feels a sense of authorship. Being engaged — workshopping through exercises, clarifying your vision, providing input on design iterations — is more than just time spent. Every input is a LEGO brick added, coming together to create your own set. You’ll feel a deeper connection to your brand when you’ve actively contributed to its creation. And it becomes a valuable asset in your business, one that can be expressed in the market with confidence and clarity.

Don’t expect to outsource a project and get stellar results that hit the mark. Don’t expect to sit back and await brilliance to magically appear. ‘I’ll know it when I see it’ isn’t a brand strategy. Your brand strategy must come from within — from the inputs, the insights, the values, the foundation, and the customers that make up who you are. Your input isn’t just valuable. It’s essential.

What you can do you next

Whether you’re establishing a brand, refreshing a brand, or going through a brand initiative of any kind, to make the most of it, start by asking yourself…

‘Am I actively involved in shaping my brand?’
‘Do I feel connected and invested in my brand strategy and identity?’
‘Does my company’s leadership team have a shared sense of ownership in the brand?’

If not, maybe it’s time to consider how you and your organization can engage more deeply with your brand.

When you design systems of collaboration, you enable meaningful contributions. And when everyone contributes, it leads to better adoption, ambassadorship, and amplification of your brand. A structured approach to team involvement ensures that diverse perspectives are factored.

To get organizational contribution, here’s how you can structure your team for an effective, brand-building process:

Core Team:

These are the day-to-day decision-makers and key contributors driving the project forward. For a small firm, the core team might just be the founding partners. In larger organizations, the core team could include founding partners, principals of the firm, plus an operations or marketing lead or manager. If you have a brand partner, this is the team that should be actively involved with them, providing thoughtful input, responding to questions, providing resources, reviewing iterations, asking questions, and challenging assumptions to push the envelope.

Extended Team:

For medium to large firms, with sizable executive teams, consider forming an extension of the core team. This would include the core team, plus executives, department heads, or C-suite leaders. They may be less actively involved in an initiative but still have influence and provide strategic direction while trusting the core team to make tactical decisions.

(Note: some decision-makers like to hang out here, on the periphery, throwing the core team for a loop with off-the-cuff remarks. But, if you want to make decisions, you need to be a part of the core team.)

Specialized Groups:

While your core team and extended teams have visibility and influence within the organization as a whole, it’s equally important to tap into specific segments of your business for specialized insights. For example, a national architecture firm with multiple offices might have a group of studio directors. Or a real estate firm might have different teams for investments, development, management, or construction. Or a contractor with vast levels of experience might have an emerging leaders group, affinity groups, on-site teams, and corporate office teams. Each of these specialized groups bring a unique point of view of the organization that are important to acknowledge and factor into your brand strategy.

Whole Organization:

Outside of these formalized groups, it’s possible to solicit input from your company as a whole. Using structured questionnaires to gather diverse perspectives – without conducting focus groups or individual meetings – is an effective way to gather input at scale, and with data analytics and AI tools, analysis of large amounts of data is manageable.

(For even more brand insights from outside your organization, consider how to gather quantitative and qualitative data from external partners like past clients, prospective clients, collaborators, or a panel of subject matter experts. A topic for another day...)

By designing a collaborative process and inviting meaningful contributions, you foster a sense of authorship and responsibility across your organization. This not only strengthens internal alignment but also positions your brand with higher perceived value, resonating more with the people you reach. Communication then doesn’t just come from the brand but from all of the brand ambassadors within your company. Each one with hands-on involvement in building your brand, your masterpiece.

That’s all for this edition of Build Mode! Thanks for being here.

Hopefully you’ve gotten something useful from this breakdown and learned how critical your contributions are to building your own brand. Did it resonate? Let me know, and if you need help designing the systems for effective collaboration, this is an area where I can support you. As always, feel free to get in touch.

Best.
Kenny Isidoro

See my latest on Instagram, LinkedIn, or feel free to book a call.

Responsibility equals accountability equals ownership. And a sense of ownership is the most powerful weapon a team or organization can have.

— Pat Summitt

Work zone

Some other things I've been up to

Listening:

The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trial into Triumph by Ryan Holiday is a book I’ve been listening to lately that’s really resonating. I seem to share many of the same beliefs as the Stoics did and this book is all about how we can find solutions to our modern-day problems by learning from Ancient Greek philosophies.

Eating:

Tacos. And burritos. And sipping on margaritas! I’m excited about a new project I’ve just started to position a beloved restaurant for a new era (thanks to a referral from a good friend!). Watch this space for updates.

Thanking:

To my clients, collaborators, and connections, thank you for your partnership and support this past year. I posted a short recap of the year on LinkedIn. Among the things I set out to do at the start of the year was to launch this email series. I’ve now written 12 editions and plan to continue. I’m not sure how or if it’ll evolve just yet, but when it does, you’ll be the first to know!

If and when you're ready to build your brand, there are three ways I can help.

Brand audit

A free analysis of your brand, plus other industry players, with recommendations for increasing its effectiveness in your business. Get your free audit.

Brand partnership

A new, subscription-based service model to support your firm's practice and build its reputation through branding and marketing. Register your interest.

Custom-built brand

A core service guiding business leaders through a linear process of defining or redefining your brand in four phases: discover, define, develop, and deliver. Discuss your project.

Subscribe to Build Mode™

Kenny Isidoro 12/1/24 Kenny Isidoro 12/1/24

Small moments, big impact

How to turn brand touchpoints, the everyday interactions with your brand, into brand-building moments

Build Mode™ Issue 12.2024

How to turn everyday interactions into brand-building moments

So you check out a new restaurant that everyone in town has been raving about. The photo gallery on their website shows an ambiance that is right up your alley and your favorite dish is on the menu. You’re excited and arrive with high expectations.

But when you walk in, the host barely acknowledges you. As you’re seated, you notice your table is off-balance so you add a napkin under the leg. The menus are smudged. The server insists on memorizing your order instead of writing it down and they forget your special request. Once corrected, the food is phenomenal. After dinner, the check comes as a folded paper face down and a Bic pen clipped on top. There’s an automatic gratuity added. As you leave, the host says nothing, just a quick head nod.

How are you feeling after all this?

Even if the food was amazing, I’m guessing your overall experience is tainted by the accumulation of the little moments that fell short of your expectations. That’s the influence of brand touchpoints.

A restaurant experience is not unlike other professions. Your brand has touchpoints everywhere. They shape the perception of your projects, your firm, and your values. The question is: are you using them strategically?

What are brand touchpoints?

Brand touchpoints are all the interactions people have with your brand, big or small, direct or indirect.

That seems like a lot (because it is)! Brand touchpoints are not just your brand assets, like your logo, or website, or business card, they are cumulative moments that make up your clients’ experience with you, and your prospects’ impression of you, from the sign on the door to your phone greeting.

Think about where your brand interacts with your audience. Every touchpoint is an opportunity to make an impression and build a trusting relationship. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but here’s one way to break down the many ways your brand comes into contact with the people you’re trying to reach.

Physical (interactions in the real world):

Environments
Experiences
Signage
Physical products
Brochures
Stationery

Digital (interactions online and on our phone):

Website
Emails
Social media posts
Videos
Apps

Human (person-to-person connections):

Phone calls
Meetings
Networking

Indirect (connection to your brand from others):

Word of mouth
Partnerships
Public relations and media

From physical interactions to digital experiences, human connections, and even the intangibles you have no control over, each one contributes to how your brand is understood and remembered.

Why do brand touchpoints matter?

When it comes to the built environment and industries built on relationships, trust is everything. Because you’re selling more than a product, you’re selling the experience of working with you. This is why your brand touchpoints matter — they create connections, build trust, and shape your reputation.

Think of it like this…

Imagine your reputation as a bucket you want to fill up. Each touchpoint that leaves a positive impression is a single drop in the bucket. Little by little, drip by drip, it’ll take time, but eventually it fills up.

However, each touchpoint that leaves a negative impression is like spilling the bucket. Maybe just a splash for the small slip-ups, or a huge spill for the massive flubs. Once the bucket empties, you’ll need to replenish what you’ve lost plus fill it up again, one drop at a time.

Every. Impression. Matters.

The challenge is that many firms think the deliverable, the final outcome, is what matters most. They overlook the moments between the moments. The truth is your touchpoints speak louder than your product. Consider:

The snappy email response when something goes wrong
The weathered and torn construction sign that’s been neglected
The flimsy and folded business card with denim stains
The presentation that was hastily prepared with typos on pages 3, 11, 17, and 23
The webpage with technical errors and text too tiny to read

These are the kinds of touchpoints that chip away at your reputation, rather than build it up.

Flip it and reverse it.

Use these moments as opportunities to strengthen your reputation and others’ confidence in your brand.

A composed message that demonstrates steady leadership amidst challenging times
A consistent brand presence from your project site to your website
The premium business card that aligns with the premium quality of your own service
The well-crafted presentation with clear message demonstrating a purpose-driven firm
The website with leading edge technology that demonstrates innovation and intuition

At each touchpoint, your brand has an opportunity to either strengthen or weaken its relationship with your audience. It’s your choice to fill your bucket, or let it spill.

What you can do next with touchpoints

Now that you know the importance of touchpoints big and small, how do you ensure each one is working for you, not against you?

Here are a few things you can do.

List existing touchpoints

Take inventory of every interaction your company has with others. Where do they hear your name? Where do they encounter your brand? Use the categorization format above (physical, digital, human, and indirect) to catalog them all.

Audit the experience

Once you have your list, evaluate each touchpoint for consistency with your brand values, alignment with your brand identity, and its value to your audience. How might they be feeling at this point in their experience of getting to know you or working with you? The answers may reveal gaps and opportunities.

Design the journey

We can’t talk about touchpoints without talking about customer journey. Consider how your audience moves sequentially and seamlessly from one to the next.

Before people start working with you, how do your actions build awareness of your brand and lead them to choose you over others?
During the experience of working with you, how do your actions deliver a premium experience?
After people work with you, how do your actions ensure they work with you again and advocate for you in the future?

Optimize for impact

Back to our bucket of water metaphor…

Where you find leaks, fill them.
Where you find the water source, open the valve.

In other words, fix the touchpoints that are inconsistent with your brand and where you’re losing connection with your audience, and enhance the touchpoints that are already working well.

Experiment to start

It’ll be impossible to tackle everything everywhere all at once. Choose just one touchpoint, one where you’ll have the most impact, to focus on improving this month. Even small adjustments can have a big impact.

At the extreme end, brand touchpoints are moments that can make or break your reputation. More realistically though, they are moments – that when taken cumulatively – will deepen relationships, communicate your values, and differentiate your brand in your industry. With the primer above, you can now turn interactions into meaningful moments that build trust and build your reputation.

That’s all for the December issue of Build Mode! Thanks again for being here.

Hopefully you’ve gotten something useful from this breakdown on brand touchpoints. Did it resonate with you? If you need help mapping or enhancing any of your brand touchpoints, this is an area where I can support you. As always, feel free to get in touch.

Talk soon!

Best.
Kenny Isidoro

See my latest on Instagram, LinkedIn, or feel free to book a call.

How you do anything is how you do everything.

Subscribe to Build Mode™

Kenny Isidoro 11/1/24 Kenny Isidoro 11/1/24

Building a brand language that sticks

The core messages that articulate who you are, who you’re for, and what you stand for

Build Mode™ Issue 11.2024

Most brands make a critical mistake when communicating with prospects and their audience: they reinvent themselves with every conversation.

When their prospect wants innovation,
The brand pitches itself as visionary.

The next prospect values trust,
so they become the safe, reliable option.

The next wants a tried-and-true expert,
so they become an authority in the field.

The next wants an outsider’s perspective,
so they downplay experience and highlight their out-of-the-box thinking.

While adaptability and responsiveness are essential, it’s risky taking it too far and shape-shifting to appease the recipient of your message. Molding your message to what you think each prospect wants to hear is confusing, inconsistent, and ultimately, weakens your brand.

The solution?

Establishing your core messaging.

What is a brand’s core messaging?

Core messages are the foundational statements of your brand that articulate who you are, what you stand for, and the unique value you bring to the table. These messages are meant to be evergreen, meaning, they should exist as long as your mission, vision, values, and positioning remain intact. When your entire team needs to communicate on behalf of the brand (and with every interaction, phone call, email, meeting… they do), these messages help convey a unified brand voice. Whether you’re an architecture firm with junior and senior staff, or a real estate investment firm working across development and management, or a contractor working in the field or in the office, core messaging helps your diverse stakeholders become aligned brand ambassadors.

Among the many types of brand messages that exist, there are just a handful of core messages:

One-liner

A punchy phrase that captures your brand essence in just a few words. It should describe who you are or what you do and your key benefit in a creative and memorable way. Note: this is different from a tagline, which doesn’t say much of anything related to the brand or product. The one-liner needs to allude to more.

Put it on your Instagram bio.

And it to your LinkedIn headline.

Or use it as the first thing you say to the question, ‘so what do you do?’

For example, an architectural firm focused on social and environmental impact might say, ‘Designing with purpose for people and the planet’
Or a multifamily community in a forested setting away from the city might say, ‘A breath of fresh air in your life.’
Or an investment firm that acts on data and intuition might say, ‘Fueling growth with insight, steering with confidence.’

Each is creatively written, and is also suggestive of the business and service.

Elevator pitch

A concise and compelling 100-word summary of who you are, who you’re for, and the value you offer. When you have more room than just one line, but not a ton of attention span from the reader, this is your go-to option to make a great first impression.

Pro tip: don’t take the term ‘elevator pitch’ literally. In fact, you should rarely ‘pitch’ someone in a real-life conversation. No one likes to be pitched. Instead, when you’re face-to-face with someone, consider how your paragraph of written text in your elevator pitch can actually turn into a dialogue if broken up into segments.

About us

A more detailed narrative that says who you are, who you’re for, and delves deeper into your brand’s differentiated factors and your value propositions. This statement gives readers a reason to trust in what you do, with reference to some social proof. At about 250-300 words, it should take someone about a minute to read through, so consider places where people will have the time to engage with it.

Put it on the ‘about’ section of your website.

Or as an overview in a qualifications submission.

If using an ‘about us’ narrative to describe the brand as a flagship product (like a real estate asset, or a place brand), consider how it could be broken down into smaller chunks to describe key benefits while still maintaining cohesiveness as a whole statement.

Firm profile

At 500-ish words, this is probably the longest description you’ll need to describe your brand. It should be a detailed and descriptive overview of all of the contents from the about us description (who you are, who you’re value, your differentiation, and your benefits), plus more. Other evergreen brand messages might include the founding story, specific experience and accolades, or other proof points. This is your place to name drop a few reputable clients or recognizable partners that you’ve worked with.

When someone gets to the end, there should be absolute clarity on your brand, your values, your beliefs, and whether the reader wants to work with you.

With these core messages in place – the one-liner, elevator pitch, about us, and firm profile – your team can confidently communicate with clarity and consistency. Each message serves a distinct purpose, yet they work together to reinforce your brand identity in a variety of contexts.

There are still loads of other brand messaging too…

Brand manifesto
Taglines
Headlines
Origin story
Features
Benefits
Audience messaging
Project descriptions
Product descriptions
And literally anything and everything in your digital, analog, and physical (and virtual?) experiences

Oh, and let's not forget…

A tone of voice that makes it all sound like it’s coming from a single persona

(Might be topics for another article)

Why brand messaging matters

We’ve previously talked about leveraging the effectiveness of your brand for your business — which is the need to be contrasting, consistent, clear, and compelling. The words you use, where you use them, how you use them, have a direct correlation on your ability to come across effectively to your intended audience.

Consistency builds trust 
When your team uses consistent core messages, it’s a sign of dependability. It’s unwavering (unlike the brand that shape-shifts, leading to confusion and a lack of trust). When a brand is firm in their messaging, it signals trust, laying the foundation for solid relationships.

Compel through story
The more creative and compelling the narrative, the more memorable the message becomes. Whether someone visits your ‘about’ page or is in conversation through your elevator pitch, they should get the same, unmistakable impression of your brand.

Contrast to build brand equity
Over time, the more people hear your message, the more they will come to understand what you’re about. Your core messages need to communicate your value and positioning so you become so well known for that one thing you want to build a strong reputation around.

Clarity boosts confidence from all sides
Not sure who said it first, but, clear writing is clear thinking. With complex messaging, you may struggle to resonate with your audience. They’re confused, and likely, your internal team is confused too. With clear messages, everyone has a reliable reference point, and they can communicate naturally and confidently.

Especially in relationship-driven fields, a cohesive brand message that everyone can adopt will give your organization confidence, build trust, and set you up for business success.

What you can do next

How to get started with brand messaging

Your core messages are the external expressions of your brand, the things people read about you. In order to externally express yourself, you’ve got to know yourself internally.

So, first things first… look at your brand strategy. Your positioning, personality, people, and purpose, along with business statements like mission, vision, and values, should all be reflected in your external communications.

Next, define your one-liner. Despite being just a handful of words, it might be the most difficult of the set. Each word is critically important so start with one or two key words that are absolute musts and build out a creatively written statement from there.

Then, continue to build upon each core message with additional context.

For the elevator pitch, expand your one-liner into 100 words that covers your firm’s core purpose, target audience, and unique value.
For the about us narrative, provide greater depth into your value propositions and social proof that demonstrates how you deliver on your promise.
For the firm profile, build on the about us narrative and provide specific examples, projects, partners, and proof points that showcase your capabilities and communicate your brand with compelling clarity.

And finally, once you’ve developed your core messages, put them where the entire company can access them, much like your brand guidelines. Better yet, as part of your brand guidelines. And hold a training session that communicates the importance of using these core messages and respond to questions that your team might have to ensure they understand their usage.

If your brand and business maintain their identity, these evergreen core messages should also remain true. As your brand evolves though, so too should your messaging. Once or twice a year, check in with the leaders in your business and ensure they accurately reflect your brand.

In the end, core messages are meant to provide the clarity and consistency you need to reach your people. They help everyone in your organization embody the brand, become ambassadors, and lead every interaction with confidence to ensure your brand’s value resonates across all touchpoints.

That’s all for the November issue of Build Mode! Thanks again for being here.

Hopefully you’ve gotten something useful from this breakdown of brand messaging. Does it resonate with you? If your organization needs help to write (or rewrite) your brand's core messaging with better clarity and greater creativity, this is an area where I can support you. As always, feel free to get in touch.

Best,
Kenny Isidoro

See my latest on Instagram, LinkedIn, or feel free to book a call.

Words are the only things that last forever.

-Winston Churchill

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Marketing is trust building

A marketing framework with six methods for reaching your audience

Build Mode™ Issue 10.2024

Why does marketing feel so complicated?

It’s like there are a million things to do:

Write blog posts
Produce content for social media
Submit projects for awards
Sponsor a charity tournament
Prepare presentations for interviews
Produce collateral to leave with prospects
Host events
Send holiday cards
Respond to RFPs
Speak at an industry conference
Write press releases
Advertise in local and industry publications
Maintain and optimize your website
Arrange photo shoots of your projects
Sponsor a business event
Write an email newsletter

(...ok, maybe not a million, but I could keep going with this list.)

The job of marketing is not easy.

But it doesn’t have to be overwhelming.

While there are many ways people define marketing, and what’s under the umbrella of marketing (by the way, don’t you dare put branding under the umbrella of marketing!), here’s my simple definition:

Marketing is building trust with an audience by delivering value.

Yup. That’s it.

Now let’s get into the strategy to learn how to do that.

What is a marketing strategy?

People do business with people they know, like, and trust (trite but true).

So, the goal of a marketing strategy is to turn people into clients through the process of building trust.

First, they need to become aware of you and know you,
Then, they need to build interest in you and like you and your work,
Next, they need to have a desire for your services through the trust you’ve built,
And finally, they will take action and make a deal.

How do you build trust?
Know who your audience is and consistently give them value.

What’s of value?
It’s up to you to discover what is valuable to your connections and prospects.

Might they value a connection to a potential partner?
Might they value an industry update on the latest trends or benchmarks?
Might they value your mentorship or advice?

The marketing strategy framework I’ve drafted details six primary methods to reach people to increase brand awareness, generate leads, and grow your business. It was inspired by several sources, plus my own practical experience of marketing in the architectural industry for over a decade. It not only applies to architecture and design, but any profession that offers expert services. By sorting the endless list of marketing activities into these six categories, you can determine which methods are most effective for reaching people.

Marketing strategy

Six methods for reaching your audience

Take a look at the framework above. These six touchpoints are methods of reaching your audience, a spectrum from warm connections to cold, from personal to scalable.

Above the line are methods of reaching people one-to-one: networking, referrals, and outreach.
Below the line are methods of reaching people at scale, one-to-many: content, sponsorships, and advertising.
On the left side of the line are methods of reaching people you know by delivering value (inbound marketing), through networking and content.
In the center of the line are methods of reaching people by association, through referrals and sponsorships.
On the right side of the line are methods of reaching people that don’t know you (outbound marketing), through outreach and advertising.

Let’s go over each one briefly.

1:1

Networking

Love it or hate it, networking is an essential way to strengthen connections with the people you already know, and the new people you’ll meet. Don’t think of networking as just going to events, dinners, and golf outings… consider how you can network online too, and share your insights, connections, and personal stories with others to build better relationships and maintain a healthy business.

Referrals

Referrals sit in between networking and outreaching, the connection point between someone you know, and someone you don’t. Having a proactive strategy for requesting new connections with a warm introduction is advantageous to build your network. You’re leveraging the positive experiences you’ve offered your existing connections to build new ones.

Outreach

Direct outreach is a method of making connections with a potential prospect even though they don’t know you yet (otherwise known as ‘cold calling’ or ‘cold emailing’). Direct outreach gets a bad rap, but it shouldn’t be counted out. There’s a possibility that you reach someone, with the right message, at the right time, who needs your services. And even if they don’t need you at the moment, you’ve at least made yourself known to them with just a bit of research and effort.

1:many

Content

Content marketing is a strategy to deliver value through your writing, your speaking, and your ability to maintain a strong digital presence on your website and social media channels. When you share your knowledge with people who value learning from you, and have a repository of work to back up your expertise, you’re building trust and credibility over time so that one day they may raise their hand and ask to work with you.

Sponsorship

Sponsorship is a strategy that many sources have completely neglected but it’s valuable for service professionals. It’s like advertising in that there’s a cost, but unlike advertising, a sponsorship creates promotional opportunities through an association with another organization or event to reach new audiences. For example, if you’re a firm that specializes in a particular industry, you may consider sponsoring a conference that allows you to exhibit at a conference, or host a presentation with your ideal prospects. Association with the event puts you in a position of influence through your presence and participation, and ability to deliver value to a large audience that otherwise wouldn’t have been available without sponsorship.

Advertising

Paid advertising is a method of outbound marketing that pushes your message outward to the masses. It might be a method of creating some level of brand awareness (if the ad is memorable), but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that advertising for service professionals is generally ineffective. Products? That’s a different story. I’d love to be proven wrong though! Let me know about a time you clicked an advertisement and hired a builder, photographer, tax consultant, real estate agent, or any other professional in the service industry.

Now that you’ve read through the six methods to reach your audience, I bet you’re wondering where all the other parts of ‘marketing’ are. How do award submissions fit into this? Where are the proposals? Where's the public relations? And you’re right to ask. While there are many aspects of marketing, in my opinion, these six methods of directly reaching your audience are the ones that move the needle for your business.

What you can do next

How to start a marketing strategy

The marketing strategy you put in place becomes an intentional framework for attaining qualified leads and growing your business. You’re probably doing a lot of marketing already, but to turn your marketing activities into a comprehensive strategy, consider how you can categorize each activity into one of the six methods as described in the framework above.

Are you reaching people one-to-one through networking, referrals, and outreach?
Log all your one-to-one activities to keep track of the connections your nurturing and the effectiveness of your outreach efforts

Are you reaching people one-to-many through content, sponsorship, or advertising?
Analyze your content to identify which types resonate most with your audience and which have compelled people to show interest in your organization and services.

Evaluate your paid sponsorships and determine how effective they’ve been in moving the needle forward for your business.

What are your other marketing efforts and how are they contributing to your organization’s brand reputation?
For any initiative that requires internal resources, find its place within an overall strategy, analyze its effectiveness, and adapt as needed.

Hopefully you’ve gotten something useful from this breakdown of marketing strategy and the six methods of reaching your audience. Does it resonate with you? Does it make the insanely long laundry list of marketing items easier to grasp? Curious to hear your thoughts.

And if your organization needs to find better clarity with your marketing efforts, and you’re ready to reach your audience more effectively, this is an area where I can support you. Feel free to get in touch.

That’s all for the October issue of Build Mode! Thanks again for being here.

Let’s talk soon!

Best.
Kenny Isidoro

See my latest on Instagram, LinkedIn, or feel free to book a call.

The best way to find yourself
is to lose yourself in the service of others.

-Gandhi

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Can you send me the latest version of our logo?

A comprehensive breakdown on the content of brand guidelines

Build Mode™ Issue 09.2024

Tell me if this conversation sounds familiar…

Can you send me the latest version of our logo?

Sure. Which one?
The bright one, the one we tweaked for that proposal.
OK, the one with the slighter taller letters?
Yeah, the one that we rotated so it’d look better next to the client’s logo.
Oh, gotcha… I know the one!
[receives logo]
Ugh, no, this isn’t the right one!

Treating your logo, or any brand asset, as malleable material that can twist, stretch, and pull like Silly Putty isn’t doing your brand any favors. Conversations like this happen every day in organizations that haven’t established brand standards. To establish standards in your branding, what you need are brand guidelines.

What are brand guidelines?

There’s a misconception that brand guidelines are rules. They’re not.

Brand guidelines is a comprehensive resource that outlines components of the brand to communicate their reasoning and empower their execution.

It’s not a rulebook, with prescriptive instructions to be followed.

It’s a playbook, with strategies and methods that empower individuals to act on the brand’s behalf.

No matter the medium, or the audience, brand guidelines is a reference tool that everyone in your organization can access to maintain consistency and enhance the brand’s reputation and brand’s equity.

The brand guidelines I create typically have four sections:

Brand strategy – the internal principles of a brand
Brand identity – the visual expression of a brand
Brand messaging – the verbal expression of a brand
Brand applications – the touchpoints where strategy, identity, and messaging come together to deliver value to an audience

Let’s take a closer look into each section and see some examples down below.

Part 1: Brand strategy

The brand strategy section of a brand guidelines document details the four components of a strategy. For my projects, those are the purpose (the reason a brand exists), people (the audience), positioning (the differentiating factor), and personality (the characteristics of the brand). We begin the guidelines with strategy because it’s important that everyone in an organization, and even external collaborators, use the strategy as the core “why” behind their applications. By understanding the reasoning for why the brand is designed in such a way, all stakeholders can utilize the guidelines to execute on any brand touchpoint and communicate on behalf of the brand more effectively.

Part 2: Brand identity

The second part of the brand guidelines is all about the brand’s visual identity, which breaks down into the following components.

Logo:

The core of a brand identity is the logo. While the scenario in the introduction described one company’s logo going through several iterations willy-nilly, there should be one, primary logo. That’s not to say you can’t have variations on the logo for different contexts, a horizontal version, a vertical version, isolated wordmark, isolated symbol, color variations, black and white, and specifications on placement and sizing. The goal for this section is to define the conditions for logo usage so individuals understand which version to use and how to maintain its consistency for increased brand recognition.

Color Palette:

Your brand will have a color palette, designed to convey emotion, or set a particular mood, and expand your identity beyond its name and symbol, into an identifiable color or set of colors. Guidelines often include a primary color palette, secondary colors, and guidance on how to use a broader range of colors for specific needs, like charts or diagrams. You’ll ensure consistency in color usage by using color specifications. For example, RGB for digital interfaces, CMYK for printed materials, HEX for websites, and Pantone to match color across mediums.

Typography:

Type is the visual voice of your brand – it’s what your communication looks like. By limiting the number of typefaces you use – likely just two or three – you can establish a consistent communication style that your audience will recognize and remember. Your brand guidelines will detail which fonts to use for headlines, body text, and any special cases, as well as how typography should appear across different platforms. For example, consider which platforms you’ll be executing the brand on, and ensure you can match your printed and digital fonts to your website’s fonts (or find close alternatives).

Imagery:

The imagery section of your brand guidelines helps to establish a unique look and feel. This could include curated lifestyle photography, commissioned product photography, custom illustrations, iconography, patterns, textures, or any other visual element. The goal is to make your brand recognizable through imagery, even without a logo. For example, when it comes to photography, an architect might desire a certain lighting quality with stark contrast between lights and darks. A furniture designer might prefer their pieces on a neutral background with soft shadows. A real estate developer might want to have aerial photos of all their developments to show the scale of their assets. Whatever the approach, by defining how you approach imagery, you’ll establish predictability and recognition.

Part 3: Brand messaging

This section defines how a brand speaks to its audience. It includes tone of voice, key messages, and persona development, which can help guide communication across different contexts. For instance, a brand with an ‘adventure guide’ as a persona might adopt a tone that’s motivating, clear, and encouraging. Your guidelines also include evergreen messaging—those key phrases and statements that remain consistent over time, such as your brand’s elevator pitch, mission statement, or value propositions.

Part 4: Brand applications

The last section of the brand guidelines document is brand applications, where all of the elements come together – the strategy, the identity, and the messaging – to express the brand to others through touchpoints. You might have samples of applications like:

Stationery set
Pamphlets
Brochures
Proposals
Posters
Advertisements
Website pages
Social media posts
Promotional items

… basically, any application that serves as a vehicle to deliver value to your client or customer, and any potential future communication that might be required. Applications and examples of the brand in use across multiple contexts is important to illustrate so an internal team and external collaborators can effectively design and communicate for the brand.

Here are a few brand guidelines I've created at MUDEO and in past positions, where you can see representations of each of these parts and the contents within them.

Why are brand guidelines important?

Without them, your brand’s communication becomes inconsistent, leading to mixed messages, confused prospects, and potentially, lost opportunities.

With brand guidelines, you achieve consistency (one of the 4C’s of brand effectiveness), the key to building a strong, recognizable brand. When your visual and verbal identity are used consistently across all platforms and touchpoints, it reinforces your brand identity in the minds of your audience. Over time, they form an impression of your brand that helps build trust and credibility.

With brand guidelines, you’re giving designers and marketers on your team flexibility to create and the structure to succeed. Remember, it’s a playbook, not a rulebook. By setting clear guard rails, brand applications can meet the criteria for being ‘on-brand’ while also allowing teams the freedom to adapt to new contexts.

With brand guidelines, you’ll never start with a blank canvas again. There’s nothing worse than staring at a blank page. Alongside your brand guidelines, your brand should have a toolkit, equipped with all of the assets within your guidelines that can be easily imported into the application you’re creating. This streamlines the creative process and reduces the potential for any ‘rogue’ brand executions.

What you can do next

How to get up to speed on brand guidelines

Here are a few steps you can take to ensure your brand guidelines are up-to-date and effectively supporting your brand:

First:

Do you have brand guidelines?

If not, get started! Create a document with the sections listed above and start to standardize your brand’s core components.

Second:

Do you have all the essential elements within your set of brand guidelines?

If not, fill in any blanks with the elements you don’t have yet. Make sure to describe your strategy, document your identity, craft your messaging, and showcase the best applications.

Third:

Do you have your guidelines in an easily accessible location?

If not, ensure your brand guidelines are accessible to everyone in your organization and can be distributed to external collaborators. Your guidelines could be a digital document on a shared drive, uploaded to an online platform, or accessible within your company’s knowledge center. Most importantly, it should be easy to access, so it’s actually utilized as a daily resource.

Finally:
While brand guidelines are often considered a finished deliverable, consider them instead as a living document that evolves with your brand. (Not evolved so much that you never establish consistency, but evolving to respond to new applications, new products, or new markets that you enter). Use it. Review it. Refresh it as needed to ensure it remains relevant and resonates with your audience over the long-term.

I hope you’ll use some of these insights in your own organization to standardize your brand and drive greater brand equity.

And if you ever need it, this is an area where I can support you.

Maybe you need help establishing your first set of brand guidelines, or maybe you’ve strayed too far away from your existing guidelines, or maybe your organization has gone through change and they’re no longer serving your needs… whatever it may be, when you’re ready, feel free to get in touch.

That’s all for the September issue of Build Mode!
Thanks again for being here.

If you have any ideas to share, or questions to ask, reach out. I’m open to hearing your thoughts and making this most useful message in your inbox this week. If you think this might help a friend, feel free to forward it to them and encourage them to join us.

With summer behind us, it’s time to kick it back into gear. Let’s go!

Hope to talk soon!

Best.
Kenny Isidoro

See my latest on Instagram, LinkedIn, or feel free to book a call.

Rules were meant to be broken.

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The 4C’s of brand effectiveness

How to evaluate your branding and leverage your brand for your business

Build Mode™ Issue 08.2024

Welcome to this issue of Build Mode, where I share brand insights to help you level up your business. Thanks for being here. We have an ambitious group of professionals working in real estate, architecture, engineering, construction, marketing, design, and development.

Haven’t subscribed yet? Consider joining us below and get the next issue delivered straight to your inbox on the first of the month.

When I'm deep in research and auditing a client’s brand and other industry brands, I’m looking for anything I can get my hands on. A brand audit is an in-depth review and comprehensive analysis of a brand through all of its touchpoints. I’m analyzing everything… from a strategic perspective, like reading into the mission and vision; from an identity perspective, identifying the logo and messaging; and from an experiential perspective, like visiting a place in real life and comparing the visit to the digital experience. And I’m making conclusions on the brand’s internal intentions based on their external expression.

All of this research and analysis is informative, but even after doing this dozens of times, it was cumbersome to translate these insights into clear recommendations.

The reasons you should conduct an audit in the first place are to:

Gain an understanding of your current position
Get clear on challenges from an objective perspective
Learn from other industry players and leaders
Identify areas of improvement
Make informed decisions to enhance brand effectiveness

During a recent brand audit, this last part is what I realized is most important in a brand audit and the key to unlocking clear insights and recommendations: brand effectiveness.

What is brand effectiveness?

Brand effectiveness is the degree to which your brand is successful in achieving your business objectives.

An effective brand is one that is leveraged to its maximum potential, to increase the value and impact of your business. This is what all branding should be measured by! I’m a big proponent of making brands work for business. Otherwise, what’s the point in the investment?

To judge the effectiveness of a brand, I’ve discovered it comes down to four criteria. This is my new framework, tentatively named the 4C's of brand effectiveness:

Contrast
Consistency
Clarity
Compelling

Let’s dive into each one and how you can apply them in your own brand’s effectiveness.

Contrast

The state of being strikingly different
Ask yourself, ‘does our brand stand out?’

When it comes to branding, you know that being different is better than being better. Better will always be subjective, and there will always be someone else claiming to be better. From a strategic perspective, consider how your brand is positioned. Differentiation is a key driver of brand equity. The way to stand out is to shine a spotlight on your differences and claim a spot in the market that only you can deliver on. From a design perspective, identify how your visual and verbal identity contrasts with other players in your industry. ‘When the world zigs, zag.’

[For more on positioning, check out the Build Mode™ issue called Forget competition – you win when you play your own game]

Consistency

The adherence to the same principles
Ask yourself, ‘do people know what to expect from us?’

Brands need to communicate in many different places—your website, social channels, internal communications, external communications. And you’ll surely have a lot of people communicating on behalf of your brand: principals, business development professionals, marketing managers… basically everyone is a brand ambassador. When communicating for the brand, you need to remain consistent in your approach. That doesn’t mean being the same, or repetitive, or restricted, but it does mean adhering to the same principles, like following a brand guidelines document for communicating, designing collateral, and writing content. Being consistent with your tone, your rhythm, and your regularity will help build brand equity and create a reliable and predictable experience for your audience.

Clarity

The quality of being easy to understand
Ask yourself, ‘do people understand what we offer?’

Clarity is not only essential for effective brand communication – it’s also essential for effective sales. A clear product or service offering is one that connects with a client’s needs, that addresses their pain points, and one where they can imagine themselves using your product, or enlisting your services. Tactically, your offering should be organized and navigable so clients can understand how they can engage with you. Communication like a ‘process’ section on your website, or a list of FAQs, or behind-the-scenes photos of collaborative work sessions with partners are indicators of transparency and clarity.

Compelling

The power of having an irresistible effect
Ask yourself, ‘are people inspired enough to choose us?’

Consider the brands you crave…

Maybe you’re a builder and the only boots you’ll wear are Red Wing.
Or you’re a designer and you’ll only sketch in a Moleskine.
Or you’re in finance and your go-to outerwear is Patagonia.
Or you’re a coffee aficionado and you can’t start your day without Starbucks.

These kinds of brands are irresistible. They have a powerful effect on us, not just through their product – which of course is of the highest quality – but because of their lasting impression on us through their values, their mission, their identity… so we’ve said, ‘take my money!’ Brands that elicit strong positive emotions, through their storytelling, design, and experience, will build strong relationships and effectively drive business objectives.

[For more on appealing to people’s emotions, check out the Build Mode™ issue called Branding that resonates]

What you can do next

How to create an effective brand

First, evaluate the effectiveness of your own brand with a brand audit. Think about all the touchpoints where your brand reaches out to its audience and analyze them – the strategic components, the visual and verbal identity, and the experiential aspects.

Then, use the 4C framework and the questions to ask yourself above to evaluate your brand on the four criteria: contrast, consistency, clarity, and how compelling it is to your ideal clients. Identify the gaps between where you stand and where you need to go.

Contrast
‘Does our brand stand out?’
If not, how might you adjust your strategy or identity to further separate yourself from others?
Consistency
‘Do people know what to expect from us?’
If not, how might you show up more consistently so you build brand equity with your audience?
Clarity
‘Do people understand what we offer?’
If not, how might you make your products and services clearer and easier to buy?
Compelling
‘Are people inspired enough to choose us?’
If not, how might you build more desire through emotion, storytelling, design, and experience?

Answer these questions and you’ve got a roadmap for developing a more effective brand and leveraging it to maximize value in your business. If you go through this process yourself, I’d love to hear about it and what results you’ve come up with.

And if you need help auditing your own brand and other players in your industry, let me know. I’ve refined this framework with a couple organizations and will be offering a limited number of audits through the form below.

Submit a brand audit request

That’s all for this issue of Build Mode! Thanks again for being here. If this resonated with you and you think it might help others, feel free to share it with a colleague. And if you want to discuss how your own brand, just get in touch — I’d love to hear from you.

Best.
Kenny Isidoro

See my latest on Instagram, LinkedIn, or feel free to book a call.

Efficiency is doing things right.
Effectiveness is doing the right things.
— Peter Drucker

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Comfort zone is a brand trap

How to innovate by pushing your brand outside its comfort zone

Build Mode™ Issue 07.2024

I’ve noticed a shift.

On a drive with my family to the South Coast of Massachusetts where I grew up, we often pass through Fall River and right by this enormous, wavy, concrete monument sign that reads ‘Fall River Industrial Park’ in pushed-in letterforms with a high contrast serif typeface painted green. Each time we pass, I think, 'hmm… industrial park? Now that’s an outdated term.'

The latest developers think so too. As the industrial park has grown, they’ve added a new roadway called Innovation Way with new development sites called The Campus at Innovation Way. The naming reflects changes in business from primarily manufacturing and heavy industry to knowledge-based and technology-driven.

Over the past 20 years, we’ve seen this change all around us. Kendall Square went from an industrial area to now the ‘the most innovative square mile on the planet.’ The Boston Design Center was repositioned as the Innovation and Design Building to attract progressive, technological, creative firms and startups. And every new development looking to attract and cultivate top-tier talent puts innovation front and center. The new Bolling Building in Roxbury houses the Roxbury Innovation Center, providing innovation and entrepreneurship resources in state-of-the-art offices. And the new Assembly Innovation Park in Somerville is pitching to bring the most progressive companies in life science to the area.

These examples are just in Massachusetts but this is surely happening everywhere.

Business has rebranded. The shift from ‘industrial’ to ‘innovation’ reflects a broad cultural shift towards valuing creativity, technology, and forward-thinking businesses.

Out with industry. In with innovation.

What is brand innovation?

It's clear. Innovation is a priority for nearly every modern organization. To evolve with the times, you must adapt (or plan to be a relic of the past). However, to continue to be successful in your business, you not only need to innovate, but to make your innovation visible.

Ask yourself, ‘is my company innovative?’
You’d probably say, ‘yeah, of course!’
What if we asked your customers?... ‘is this company innovative?’
How would they answer?
‘Umm, maybe?’
‘Not sure. We only use them for X.’
‘Possibly, but I don’t know. I haven’t seen it.’

There’s a likelihood that the stakeholders inside a company – leadership, management, employees – are working incredibly hard on new initiatives, new processes, and they all have the sense that innovation is exuding from deep within their soul!

But, if their innovation efforts aren’t communicated effectively… they’re missing out. There’s a mile-wide communication gap between what a company and its staff feel internally, versus what clients and prospects experience and perceive externally.

Brand innovation is the process of developing new and creative ideas that create leverage for your business.

These creative pursuits enhance your brand’s identity and perception in the market. Through strategic differentiation, unique products or services, proprietary systems, or deep resonance with your target audience, you reflect the innovation that exists within your organization to the external world.

If your brand fails to effectively market and communicate its innovation efforts, your clients will continue to remain unaware of your amazing feats and struggle to evolve their perception of your efforts.

It’s time to bridge the gap.

You are now entering the ‘zone’

My oldest daughter plays the bass, and has been for a couple years. She can play just about any genre of music given to her and participates in her school’s orchestra, jazz band, and even set up a rock band with a friend.

She’s quite used to playing music by the book.
Keep your eyes on the chart.
Play what’s written.
Stay in time with the conductor.
Hit every note.

Jazz combos, however, are entirely different.

Last week, she attended a week-long jazz improvisation workshop and was challenged to improvise a solo while playing a classic jazz chart with her combo. There were no charts. Music was learned by ear. And the students were taught approaches to feel the music and improvise within the parameters of the chart.

She stepped outside of her comfort zone and stretched her skills to improvise with creativity and innovation.

There’s a model for the kind of learning that pushes us beyond what we think we’re capable of.

It’s a psychological framework called the Learning Zone model and it contains three distinct areas: Comfort Zone, Stretch Zone, and Panic Zone. While the model is primarily used in educational settings – like a school classroom or a jazz improvisation camp – to encourage individuals to step outside their ‘comfort zone’ and into a growth mindset, I’d like to use this model as a framework for brand innovation. Let’s look into each zone.

Comfort Zone (ie. Status Quo)

In personal development, the comfort zone represents a place where things feel safe and familiar (like reading music that’s been rehearsed), avoiding risks and challenges. It fosters stability but limits personal development.

In brand innovation, the comfort zone is equal to keeping the status quo. It reflects a brand's tendency to stick to the familiar – the same products, strategies, and market segments. The comfort zone is secure and safe for the brand because it’s staying within known parameters and operational efficiencies. The downside is, that while it provides stability and efficiency, it can also lead to complacency and missed opportunities for growth.

Stretch Zone (ie. Innovation)

The stretch zone is where individuals push beyond their comfort zone, taking on new challenges and learning opportunities. It involves moderate levels of discomfort (like taking an improvisational jazz solo) and fosters growth, resilience, and skill development.

In brand innovation, the stretch zone involves exploring new ideas, technologies, and market opportunities that go beyond the brand's current practices. It encourages creativity, experimentation, and adaptation to changing consumer preferences and competitive landscapes. Brands in the stretch zone actively seek to differentiate themselves with a willingness to take calculated risks.

Panic Zone (ie. Risk)

Danger! Danger! We’ve entered the panic zone! The panic zone occurs when individuals face challenges or situations that are overwhelming. It leads to high levels of stress and anxiety. When you reach this level of challenge, you’ve hindered any potential learning and will need to step back to regain your footing.

In brand innovation, the panic zone is where things go wrong. It’s when brands venture too far beyond their capabilities – they take on too much, or go too fast, and lose sight of their objectives toward innovation. When brands get overzealous and enter into the panic zone, new ideas can fail, clients might feel alienated, or operations may go haywire, causing a need to reassess, pivot, or scale back their plans. In the process, brands may damage their brand equity.

Enter the panic zone and you’re entering business risk, susceptible to poorly aligned strategies, ineffective marketing, alienating your customers, or negatively impacting the perception of your brand.
Stay in your comfort zone, and you risk stagnation that limits your opportunities. Without an eye on continuous improvement and innovation, you may lose relevance with your clients and prospects.
Aim to operate in the stretch zone of innovation, exploring new ideas, processes, products, and market opportunities that align with your core values and strategic objectives.

What you can do next to innovate

The problem with most brands is that they don’t recognize the stretch zone, the zone where innovation happens. They think any amount of change is risky, so they operate in a continual state of comfort, making small, incremental, safe changes without ever exiting their comfort zone and pushing the envelope.

Now that you know about it, use it. Find areas where you can stretch outside of your comfort zone, into your stretch zone (but not the panic zone), to achieve brand innovation.

Identify the areas where your internal values are expressed externally. Areas like:

Brand identity
Brand messaging
Digital presence
Product and service packaging
Marketing
Experiences
Partnerships
Customer service
Events
Employee engagements and office culture
Project delivery

Are any of these areas sitting complacent in the comfort zone? Are there opportunities to innovate – to push the envelope by exploring new ideas and opportunities with creativity, and a moderate level of risk and discomfort?

Here are some tangible examples:

How could you be more innovative with brand identity?
Instead of following design trends, develop a unique identity that reflects the brand’s innovative spirit. Focus on originality and develop a look and feel that is a radical departure from other industry players.

How could you be more innovative with product and service packaging?
Use your service offer as a differentiating factor through innovative models, like bespoke services for a more personalized approach, or subscription services for long-term partnerships, or strategic alliances to offer cross-functional benefits, or experiential events to provide additional value and engagement.

How could you be more innovative with brand messaging?
The stuff you find boring in your own organization is probably fascinating to your ideal customer (with the right storytelling). Use compelling narratives to highlight successes, share behind-the-scenes at your operations and teams, and ensure your messaging consistently reflects your values.

Once you take a crack at finding one area of potential innovation, let me know what you’ve come up with and how you imagine taking your business to the next level. I’d be excited to hear where you go from here!

That’s all for the July issue of Build Mode!
Thanks again for being here.

Wishing you a wonderful month ahead. Hope to talk soon!

Best.
Kenny Isidoro

See my latest on Instagram, LinkedIn, or feel free to book a call.

Do one thing every day that scares you.
— Eleanor Roosevelt

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Kenny Isidoro 6/1/24 Kenny Isidoro 6/1/24

Your corporate values don't define your brand

Finding your brand’s personality and using it to express yourself

Build Mode™ Issue 06.2024

It’s the fifth issue of Build Mode (and the first weekend edition!) where I share brand insights to help you level up your business. Thanks for being here. We have an ambitious group of professionals working in real estate, architecture, engineering, construction, marketing, design, and development. Welcome all!

Today’s issue is all about brand personality. Every brand has a personality – even if that personality is a corporate copycat full of industry jargon (sorry, too harsh?) – which is often the case with corporate communication.

Corporate values might initially seem like a set of personality traits. You know the ones…

Integrity
Innovation
Dedication
Collaboration
Respect

But unlike personality traits, company values are the core principles and beliefs that guide a company’s internal operations. Whether true and unique, or generic and plastered on your office walls, values like these are how a company conducts business and interacts with stakeholders.

Yes, they are important, for hiring, for managing projects, for client and stakeholder relationships, for employee actions, for strategic planning. They serve as the company’s internal compass to maintain ethical and operational standards, but they don't define how your brand behaves.

What brand personality is:

Brand personality, unlike company values, is a set of human characteristics and attributes that a brand embodies internally and expresses externally. It differentiates the brand in the market and helps establish a connection with the brand’s audience.

Brand personality shapes how the brand communicates and interacts with its audience. It influences marketing, design, and customer interactions, ensuring the brand's perception aligns with its identity and appeals to its target audience.

While company values and brand personality share similarities in providing guidance and creating consistency, they serve different purposes.

→ Values are internally focused, guiding company culture
→ Personality traits are externally focused, shaping brand perception

→ Values influence internal governance and operations
→ Personality traits inspire branding, marketing, and customer experiences

→ Values are abstract principles
→ Personality traits are tangible characteristics with visual and verbal implications

→ Values are how a company operates
→ Personality is how a brand communicates

Why brand personality matters:

A set of traits that are well-defined creates a brand personality that can show up as itself. The most intriguing personality is also one that is well-rounded, with traits that can dial up or down depending on the context, whether you’re communicating on social media or in an annual report. Think of it like a sound mixer. Sometimes you want to be bolder, sometimes need to be empathetic. There’s a time and place for both. Your audience will get to know you, and will know what to expect from you, so you can continue to be relevant and resonate with them.

There are many ways to establish a set of personality traits, and maybe you’ve come across a few brand exercises as you’ve developed your own brand. But the one question that I’ve found to be most effective in establish a well-defined and well-rounded set of characteristics is this:

If you could choose a celebrity spokesperson, a brand ambassador, who would you choose and why? What qualities do they have that you associate with your brand?

For almost every brand project I’ve been a part of, this question (which is usually a pre-work assignment before a strategy session), has been the most revealing, influential, insightful bit of input from the project team. Below are a few project examples of how the answer to this question inspired a set of personality traits, and the outward expression of the brand: how it looks, sounds, and acts.

Topograph

Topograph, the new multifamily development in Auburn, has a set of traits that inspired its outdoor and adventurous spirit. We were inspired by well-known personalities like Ryan Reynolds, Bear Grylls, Reese Witherspoon, Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Lawrence, and rock climber Alex Honnold. This combination inspired our set of four personality traits:

→ Natural
→ Invigorating
→ Real
→ Daring

How do those personality traits show up in the brand?
Natural means the brand has style that is casual, effortless and simple. You won’t find urbanites in suits here! The brand makes it easy to feel relaxed, and they balance comfort with a sense of taste and timelessness. Invigorating means the brand is also energetic and full of vitality. They can inspire others with a focus on health and wellness, and match their audience’s ambition with a lively spirit. Real is a quality that keeps the brand grounded and down-to-earth. The energetic traits are balanced with this this sense of warmth and approachability. And finally, daring means they brand can be bold, brave, and adventurous. Like the development team behind the project, the brand can also take some risks and operate outside of its comfort zone, because they’re optimistic the process is worthwhile and rewarding.

See more about Topograph

Forte

Forte, a repositioned community in Brookline, has a completely different set of traits, because it’s a completely different type of community for a completely different target audience. Not every apartment community is for the same, stereotypical emerging professional, growing family, and empty nester! The project team came up with some fascinating responses for our brand ambassadors. There was Jimmy Fallon, Millie Bobby Brown, Harry Styles, Lady Gaga, Lenny Kravitz, Robert Downey, Jr., Ben Affleck, and the cast from Grey’s Anatomy. This group of personalities, let us to our personality traits:

→ Unmistakable
→ Young at heart / Wise beyond our years
→ Genuine
→ Reliable
→ Creatively upbeat

How do those personality traits show up in the brand?
Unmistakable means that the brand has a sense of class and charm, without the stuffiness. Young at heart was a unique trait we arrived at because of the repositioning of the property. Despite a well-established presence in the neighborhood, we still wanted the brand to be lively to appeal to a younger demographic and signal a newly energized community. Genuine is the quality of just being plain nice, like you want to hold the elevator door open for your neighbor and not slam the ‘close door’ button to avoid them. (Can a brand personality influence whether a resident holds the elevator door open? I hope so!) Creatively upbeat means the brand conveys an optimistic and inspiring tone through expressive visual and verbal language.

See more on Forte

Cambridge Community Housing

My latest project (and newest case study), Cambridge Community Housing is a scattered site portfolio in the Cambridge area with a brand presence for not just one community, but an asset collection of over 700 units in 65 buildings. Working with a core team, we arrived at celebrities like Jon Bon Jovi for his generational versatility and philanthropic community outreach, Selena Gomez for her influential presence across diverse populations, and one of the most unique responses… a drum circle! We imagined a celebratory event with residents participating in a drum circle, which led to a discussion about inclusivity and participatory events for the community. Answers like these are why I love this question! These responses led to our personality traits:

→ Empathetic
→ Dependable
→ Inclusive
→ Pragmatic
→ Dynamic

How do those personality traits show up in the brand?
Empathetic and dependable are related to how the management firm cares for its community, showing understanding, and providing reassurance even in unpredictable times. We represent inclusive through the design of the symbol, segmented elements coming together to form a singular icon. Pragmatic means its rational and designed from simple shapes, geometric principles to for a timeless symbol. And dynamic comes through with the bright and energetic blue and movement within the logo. When defining strong brand characteristics, it becomes easier to translate these into tangible expressions, ensuring consistency across all touchpoints, from marketing materials to customer interactions.

See more on Cambridge Community Housing

What you can next:

Just as I’ve worked with client teams on these projects to establish their ‘celebrity spokespeople’ and the personality traits that define the brands, you too can think of who your celebrity spokesperson or brand ambassador would be.

Who would you choose and why?
What qualities do they have that you associate with your brand?

Have fun with it!

Once you do, let me know who your celebrity spokesperson is. I'd be interested to hear about it!

That’s all for the June issue of Build Mode!
Thanks again for being here.

Wishing you a wonderful month of June and hope to talk soon!

Best.
Kenny Isidoro

See my latest on Instagram, LinkedIn, or feel free to book a call.

Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Kenny Isidoro 5/1/24 Kenny Isidoro 5/1/24

The sweetest sound in any language

Everything you need to know about what makes a great brand name

Build Mode™ Issue 05.2024

Thanks for being a part of the fourth issue of Build Mode! We have an ambitious group of professionals working in real estate, architecture, engineering, construction, marketing, design, and development. Welcome all!

Today’s issue is all about naming, whether it’s a property brand for a place, or your professional services company, or your service offering. Whatever it is, naming requires a deliberate process to get to an effective result. The common misconception is that anyone can do it.

Jot a few words down.
Open a thesaurus.
Eureka moment.
Land the name!

But that’s rarely the case, especially in a modern age when hundreds of thousands of companies have registered literally MILLIONS of trademarked brand names.

Any name you come up with needs to be property vetted.

Without the proper vetting, an environmental consulting business might end up sharing the same name as an oil distribution company (whoops!).

Without further ado, let’s get into it.

What makes a good name?

A good name is more than just creative. It needs to strike a balance between being creative, strategic, and technical. (that’s according to Rob Meyerson, author of the book Brand Naming, and I agree).

Good brand names are creative, strategy, and technical

Strategic

Much like its counterpart of brand strategy, a brand name must be unique in the market, different from other industry players. It needs to be distinctive in how it helps position the brand. If you follow naming trends, you’re taking a big risk… more on that below.

Creative

Now from a creative standpoint, it needs to be memorable, sound good, and look good. Yeah, even before it becomes a logo, it needs to look good.

For a recent naming project I led, we were down to two names on the shortlist:
Topograph and Interridge, both were favored by the project team almost equally.
Both names had really great meaning connected to the value propositions of the community, adaptability to exist beyond the development, and distinctiveness in the market. They also sounded good. They were both quite memorable, and yet, as a team, we just couldn’t get over the fact that these two R’s in the middle of Interridge just looked weird. For that reason, we took it out of contention, which made it easier for us to select the name that fit all our criteria: Topograph. (did you catch the case study?)

Technical

And finally, it needs to be technical, meaning it needs to be legally available without trademark infringement, linguistically viable without major conflict in other languages, plus easy to spell and pronounce.

The combination of these three major criteria are what make up a good name.

Just creative and strategic, without technical, it will invite a cease and desist letter
Just strategic and technical, without creative, it’ll feel bland and forgettable
Just technical and creative, without strategic, it won’t be able to grow with you

Types of names

There are lots of different ways to categorize names – founders’ names, coined words, historical references, compound words, Latin origins, acronyms, portmanteaus, and more – but the way I see it, you can put all of these into three major groupings, ranging from descriptive to suggestive to abstract.

Descriptive

Descriptive names clearly convey information about the brand. For example, Joe’s Northeast Plumbing Service is a descriptive name.These are less creative but most informational. These names usually include founders’ names or initials, the location of the business, or a descriptor of the service or product offering. The more descriptive the name, the less adaptable it becomes to evolving partners, geographic market areas, or service offering.

Suggestive

Suggestive names can offer a subtle clue as to what distinguishes the brand. As a consumer brand example, you’ve got Away, a brand that sells luggage with a name suggestive of travel. Or, Grubhub, a digital platform to get some ‘grub’ (slang for food, but you knew that). Sometimes, what makes these names more descriptive is when they’re paired with a modifier that establishes some sense of information.

Abstract

And finally, abstract names convey an intangible quality without any practical description of what the brand is or what the brand does. Many popular brands choose this category for its adaptability and memorability. For example:

Starbucks has nothing to do with the first mate in the novel Moby Dick
Apple has nothing to do with the fruit
Everlane has nothing to do with infinite roads
Avalon (the property brand) has nothing to do with the mythical island it’s named after

These names dismiss being descriptive in favor of being creative and memorable (and trademark-able)

For those familiar with the real estate and architecture scene in the Boston area, here’s a sampling of how some names would shake out within each category.

Why choosing the right name matters

Because it needs to be adaptable
If you’re a professional services firm, looking at ownership transitions, or expanded service offerings, and you’ve got a name in the descriptive category, you’ve got to be really strategic. Does the firm name change with a new partner? Does it rebrand? Will it lead to loss of brand recall and brand equity? If so, all of a sudden your name has become a business problem. It’s a safer bet for the long-term growth of a firm to adopt a name that empowers everyone within it. It has to be strategic to adapt to the firm’s growth. And it has to be creative to stand out and be memorable. Firms need to think far into the future when considering a name, even if they’re just getting started.

Because it needs to be available
In the worst case scenario, the wrong name will cost you money, or worse, your reputation. Take this example…

Adding -ify or -ly had been a popular trend in naming. It seemed to be an easy way to turn any word into a coined name.

Bitly, the URL shortener
Optimizely, the digital marketing platform
Insightly, the CRM tool
Tattly, the temporary tattoo brand
Spotify, the digital music service
Shopify, the e-commerce platform
Propify, a property technology company... or rather, two property technology companies

Propify is a property management software built for single family rental homes. It was also, at one point, a technology company that built an API to allow for the integration of multiple property management systems.

Different companies. Similar products. Same name. That’s a problem!

Both entered the market around the same time too, around 2020. But with Propify filing a trademark for the name in 2022, the integration tool had to back out of the name they had been using for years and made the switch to Propexo. One can assume using ‘Prop-’ in the name retained some of their brand equity, but the change of the suffix still didn’t do much to differentiate the brand in the proptech space.

This is a lesson in ensuring your name is distinct by avoiding trends, doing your due diligence, and seeking uncommon language to stand out.

Because it needs to be creative
Names are a vessel for a brand. They carry meaning with them. Consider how some brands carry certain perceptions based on the industry they exist in.

Especially in residential communities, consider how descriptive names like these carry a certain perception.

Chestnut Village
Glen Meadow Farms
Oak Hill Apartments
Colonial Village

Without even knowing them (I actually just made these up), you probably have an idea in your head on what these places might look like.

Compare those to more suggestive and abstract names like the ones below, which carry emotive and visual opportunities for their brand identities:

Rivermark
Ink Block
Avenir
The Brynx

When naming a property brand, not only are you looking for a name that is creative and memorable, but you’ll also want to consider how the perception of your name fits within (or stands out from) the context.

What you can do next:

If your organization is going through transition and thinking about your name, your offerings, consider embarking on a strategy and naming process with me. It’s a comprehensive process and there won’t be any eureka moments when you’ll just know you’ve landed on ‘the one.’ We’ll work through naming criteria, a long list, a short list, and due diligence to ensure we get to a great name.

If you’re a developer or know a developer who thinks a building address is a ‘brand,’ steer your ship in the right direction! and get started with branding and naming. Hopefully from the insights shared above, you see the importance of naming in the context of real estate.

If you’re embarking on a naming process on your own or with another partner, keep an open mind. The name is just one part of the brand. It will be surrounded by context. It can’t, won’t, and shouldn’t say everything you need to convey about your brand within the name. It’s just one piece of an entire brand system.

Naming is a challenging yet exciting part of branding.

It’s an imaginative leap into the unknown, an incredible moment in a brand’s journey to envision what might become before it fully exists.

That’s all for the May issue of Build Mode!
Thanks again for being here.

Wishing you a wonderful month of May and hope to talk soon!

Best.
Kenny Isidoro

See my latest on Instagram, LinkedIn, or feel free to book a call.

Work zone

Some other things I’ve been up to this past month

Designing:

I’ve just wrapped up a project with Cambridge Community Housing, the scattered site portfolio owned by HRI and managed by Wingate Companies. It’s a timeless brand identity that captures the energetic spirit of the community with the professional rigor of the team’s operations. Can’t wait to share the case study soon!

Collaborating:

As a multidisciplinary practitioner, I’ve been stacking skills on skills over the past several years, but there’s a limit to what I can do. That’s why I’m excited to be collaborating with interior architects, render studios, and signage manufacturers on some current projects and partnerships.

Losing:

I’m coaching my two oldest kids’ soccer teams this spring, 6th grade girls and 4th grade boys, and both teams have suffered losses the last couple of weeks. I love winning, but I hate losing even more, so I’m motivated to get to work each week with young athletes and strive for progress.

Remember that a person’s name is to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

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Kenny Isidoro 4/1/24 Kenny Isidoro 4/1/24

Branding that resonates

Understanding your intended audience so you can bring them value

Build Mode™ Issue 04.2024

It’s the third issue of Build Mode! Thanks for being here. We have an ambitious bunch made up of professionals working in real estate, architecture, engineering, construction, marketing, design, and development. Welcome all!

In today’s update, I’ll share how you can reach and resonate with those that truly value what you do.

Let’s go!

Your company can’t possibly appeal to anyone and everyone. It’d be a mistake to try. If your branding tries to appeal to everyone, it’ll end up so broad and generic that no one would bother to notice it.

By identifying a specific market and ideal client, you’ll be able to understand their unique needs and desires, appeal to them through your brand, and empower your business to grow.

Who are your people?

An intended audience (sometimes called a target audience, but that feels sort of ‘combative’ to me) is a segment of the population that would benefit from what you offer and whose values align with your own. They are usually individuals or companies with common characteristics, like demographics, or industry, or interests, or a combination of these.

Put simply, it’s the people you’re trying to reach.

And it doesn’t need to be limited to just one segment. There may be a small handful of segments with slight differences.

For example, a real estate investment firm might have different types of investors and affiliates they want to appeal to for a newly established fund. All with the shared common industry of real estate investment, but with unique traits.

One segment might be data-driven. More discerning than the average investor, these individuals would meticulously evaluate investment options. They prioritize understanding a firm’s track record and expertise.

Another might be more instinctual. They know what they’re looking for and a firm would serve them well by listening to their needs and guiding them accordingly. Their decision-making relies on chemistry and relationships, making trust easier to earn through rapport-building.

And yet another might not be an investor at all, but the conduit to investors. While prioritizing their role as responsible fiduciaries for their clients' investments, they are also driven by their own incentives. Clear and memorable information would be essential for them to deliver trustworthy advice and instill confidence in their clients.

So while an investment firm has an intended broader audience of ‘real estate investors’, understanding the specific traits of different segments within it helps identify what they care about most and how to appeal to their needs. If you’re writing and speaking to them, you’ll want messaging that is tailored, relevant, and brings them the highest value.

Why this matters:

Setting intentions on who your audience is helps you focus your branding and marketing efforts. Remember, we said we can’t possibly appeal to anyone and everyone. You can’t expect to be able to broadcast a message to reach millions of people and get prospects knocking down your door.

Your branding and marketing is most effective when it reaches those that are most likely to be interested in what you offer. Identifying and focusing on ideal clients allows you to appeal to your intended audience, maximize your effectiveness, and build stronger and more fulfilling client relationships.

So how can you be most ‘appealing’ to your intended audience?

Appealing isn’t just about being attractive (of course a brand that looks good is important – but beauty is only skin deep).

It’s resonance too.

Resonance is the sense of deep connection to one another on something that feels true.

To be truly resonant with those you serve, your brand needs to appeal to their psychological needs, their subjective desires and aspirations. Clients often make purchasing decisions based not on the rational benefits of a product, but rather, on how a product satisfies their emotional needs and resonates with their identity and values.

There’s a psychological theory, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, that reminds us that human motivation is driven by a hierarchical arrangement of needs, ranging from the most basic to the highest aspirations.

Let's break it down:

→ At the base of Maslow's pyramid, we have physiological – the need for food, water, shelter, and sleep. Products that fulfill our physiological needs are often commoditized. The brands that elevate their messaging to higher level needs become more appealing to prospects (think Casper for the mattress industry, or Liquid Death in the packaged water category).
→ Moving up the pyramid, we encounter safety – the need for security, stability, and protection from harm. How can our offering provide peace of mind and assurance to our audience? You see marketing messaging for security from brands like Ring, Volvo, and Norton Antivirus, which appeal primarily for our need for safety.
→ Next up, we have love and belonging – the need for social connection, relationships, and a sense of community. Humans are social creatures by nature. How can we foster a sense of belonging and camaraderie within our community of customers? For multifamily developers, think about what a common amenity space is really for and how to clearly message the benefits of connection and building a sense of community with our human need for love and belonging.
→ As we ascend the pyramid, we reach esteem – the need for recognition, respect, and self-esteem. How can we empower them to achieve their goals and aspirations, bolstering their self-confidence along the way? Many luxury brands play in this space, knowing that carrying their logo – whether it’s Louis Vuitton, Mercedes-Benz, or Rolex – is reflecting a self-image that commands recognition.

Finally, at the pinnacle of Maslow's pyramid, we have self-actualization – the need for personal growth, fulfillment, and realizing one's full potential. I’m not sure about you, but my social feed has been flooded with personal development coaches pitching their courses, with a key message that speaks to our innate desire to see the best version of ourselves actualized.

What you can do right now:

Now that you know about intended audience and how to speak to their emotional needs, let’s look at how you can effectively identify your ideal client and deliver a brand that resonates.

Develop an ideal client profile(s)

For each of your intended audience segments, develop a profile for them. There might be only one, or there might be five, but usually no more than that. If you find yourself writing for more than five, there’s a likelihood that some of your segments might be similar enough that they can be consolidated. Like the real estate investment firm examples above, develop multiple personas to represent different segments of your market, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of your audience.

The profiles I develop have four parts:

1. Write a description of who they are and what they value

What are their pain points, desires, fears, and aspirations? The insights here come from knowing your current clients, former clients, and conversations with prospective clients. What do they prioritize in life, and what principles guide their decision-making process?

2. Identify their functional needs

What do clients get when they work with you? Literally - what’s the deliverable? Functional needs pertain to the practical, tangible requirements that clients seek to fulfill through a product or service. They are the product, the features, the solutions.

3. Identify their emotional needs

How do clients feels when they work with you? What are their emotional needs and how they fit into the levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (physiological, security, belonging, esteem, and achievement)?

4. Develop value proposition(s)

With the insights on their functional and emotional needs, and how your product can deliver on those needs, articulate how your product or service addresses their pain points, fulfills their desires, and aligns with their core values. Where their pain points and your offer overlap lies your unique value proposition. This unique value proposition, along with the benefits you offer, further separates you from other industry players.

And finally, put yourself in their shoes. With every word you write, every graphic you create, every brand touchpoint with them… make sure it appeals to them, but more importantly, make sure it resonates.

That’s a wrap for the April issue of Build Mode!

If you have any ideas to share, or questions to ask, reach out. I’m open to hearing your thoughts and making this most useful message in your inbox this week. If you think this might help a friend, feel free to forward it to them and encourage them to join us.

Wishing you a wonderful month of April. Talk soon!

Best.
Kenny Isidoro

See my latest at MUDEO, Instagram, LinkedIn,
or book a call through Calendly.

Work zone

Some other things I’ve been up to this past month

Launching:

The case study for Topograph is live! It's been fun to collaborate with Eastland Partners and Wingate Companies on this one. Through an in-depth brand strategy, we identified the qualities that could make this place special, and then we went all-in on bringing this breath of fresh air to Auburn, MA. Check it out → Topograph.

Mentoring:

Last week was the kickoff for AIGA Boston's mentorship program and I'm thrilled to be matched up with a young designer fresh out of school and exploring what's next for him. The program is a great way to stay connected to the organization and help guide professionals to the next version of their professional selves.

Archiving:

If you weren’t here for last month’s issue of Build Mode on brand positioning, you can find it at mudeo.ck.page (for now). I’m still working on finding the right place for past issues and whether they stay on a separate site, on my own website as blog posts, or just as emails.

Experimenting:

I’m considering putting together a subscription service model. On-demand branding and marketing services for business leaders in build mode. Interested? If your organization would like to take part in a pilot program (aka be a guinea pig), give me a ring!

If you want to find the secrets of the universe,
think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration.

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Kenny Isidoro 3/1/24 Kenny Isidoro 3/1/24

Forget competition - you win when you play your own game

How to define your brand position

Build Mode™ Issue 03.2024

Welcome to this issue of Build Mode! I’m so glad you’ve joined us. We have an ambitious bunch here made up of professionals working in real estate, architecture, engineering, construction, marketing, design, and development. Welcome all!

In today’s update I’ll share what brand positioning is, why it matters, and how you can put it into practice.

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Ever find yourself competing with other companies? Or worse, competing with other companies on price? Ugh. Multiple players in the mix. All with a similar offering, a similar message, a similar approach?

Especially in markets that are perceived as commodities, (yeah, sometimes that includes architecture and construction) focusing on what makes you different is the secret to unleashing your brand's potential and standing out among the crowd.

Brand positioning is the process of getting there.

What’s brand positioning?

Positioning is one of the core components of brand strategy (arguably the most important, from a business perspective, among the four components – purpose, people, position, personality).

Brand positioning is the act of intentionally choosing your place in the market, one where no one else occupies, or can occupy.

It’s not only your space in the market, but also the space you take up in the mind of your audience.

How do you get to a brand position? The simplest way is to answer the question: ‘what makes you different?’ but there’s more to it than just that.

Being different makes you stand out.
Standing out makes you more memorable.
Memorability makes you more likely to attract and appeal to your ideal audience, whether it’s your next prospect or talent in your organization.

Brand position often exists in the form of a statement that indicates what makes you different, as well as the set of attributes that define what you offer, what market you’re in, and how your value is different from what others can offer.

Brand position can also exist as literal position or placement on a map of your industry. To evaluate potential gaps in the market, brands are often plotted onto an industry landscape with two axes. You can define the values and attributes of your axes to your liking. For example, one axis might be a range of price points from ‘economy’ to ‘premium’ while the other might be a personality trait like ‘corporate and stiff’ to ‘casual and friendly.’ By mapping brands to coordinates based on secondary research and gut instinct, you can reveal insights in your market, and potential areas to position your brand.

Why does it matter?

If you don’t define who you are, others will do it for you. Meaning, without a brand position that you define yourself, you’ll be categorized next to every other firm just like yours, and continue to compete for market share.

To separate yourself from the market, you need to show up and present your position in a way that speaks to your audience's needs, and expresses it through your message, identity, and offering.

There’s a survey question that is often asked in market research and consumer reports… it goes something like “within the category of X, which brands do you know of?” For example, which coffee brands come to mind? Someone might respond with Starbucks, Dunkin’, Peet’s, Blue Bottle, Caffe Nero, La Colombe… and then trail off. You want to achieve unaided brand awareness, also known as brand recall. It’s when customers can remember your business and know what it’s about because you’ve shown up in the market and made that distinction clear. Simply being known is the first step. Being known for what you intend is next level. The aim is to reduce the perception gap between what you say you are and what your audience thinks you are.

Here’s what you can do next

To define your own brand position, you need to define how you’re different. Here are five steps to get you there.

Step 1: Identify other industry players

(side note: I’m not using the word ‘competitors’, and that’s on purpose. There’s a train of thought in business that to ‘win’ you need to increase market share by obliterating the competition. But an increase in market share doesn’t necessarily mean an increase in business if the market size remains status quo. An increase in market share is dependent on the size of the market. I’m not a fan of this ‘competitive’ approach to business.)

The way I see it, the market is full of players in the game of business. Many players will compete against each other, trying to one-up each other with the next feature, monitoring their every move, claiming to be better, or the first, or the fastest, or the biggest.

There’s a better game to play.

The best game to play is one where you define your own rules. Know what others are doing so you can separate yourself into an open segment of the market.

Other industry players are the ones that are already on your radar. You run into them frequently. They are the firms on the same shortlist. They’re the existing providers you’re trying to dethrone. They are the contractors you’re bidding against. They are the ones you admire and also, the ones you despise!

Step 2: Research those industry players

Unless we have access to their internal brand strategy, the only way to understand how other industry players are positioning themselves is through their messaging. By reading and extrapolating what they say, we can interpret what they intend.

Visit the website of each industry player and look for these things:

What is their primary message? You’ll likely find this at the top of the home page or about page. Their primary message might be an indicator of their positioning.
What are their top three features and benefits? You might find this within their approach, services, or features page. Identify what benefits they are offering and to who
What is their visual identity? You’ve read into their messaging, now look at how they visually express themselves and what kind of personality they portray.

Step 3: Identify your differentiating factors

Through your industry audit, you’ll have found the positioning, values, and visual identity that other industry players offer. Now let’s focus on your unique set of attributes.

A good way to start is to list out every possible attribute that defines your brand.

Every.
Single.
One.

You should have a list of at least 50 attributes (even if, at first, they are similar to other industry players.) Once you have a large list of attributes that define your brand, compare them to the benefits of other industry players you developed. Which of these are unique to you, and you only? Choose a handful. These are your unique value propositions - the factors and values that customers can only get from you. As you go through these attributes, pay close attention to ones that get you excited and stand out among the rest. This may be your 'big idea.' See next step.

Step 4: Write a position statement

If you look up what’s included in a positioning statement, you may find templated statements with fill-in-the-blanks for target audience, category, key customer benefits, and alternatives.

Bleh. There are multiple problems with position statement templates. One, they're usually a mouthful. Two, they're uninspiring. Three, to suggest a brand position can be completed with a fill-in-the-blank is just plain wrong. Positioning isn’t Mad Libs.

When writing your position statement, don’t follow a template. What’s most important in your position statement is that you identify one big idea that makes you different from all other brands. This idea could come from the unique attributes you found in the previous step. Whatever the idea is, whether it’s the type of people you serve, or your unique approach, or your unique qualifications, or something else. Lean into the one thing that makes you the only one in a category that can deliver on this promise.

Some examples of brand positions:

For my brand agency MUDEO, I’ve defined my position as “Branding for business leaders in build mode.” It clearly identifies what I do and the unique group I’m focused on supporting – those who are ambitious and operating in the built environment through design, construction, real estate, or management.
For a new residential community coming soon to Auburn, MA, the core position is “a breath of fresh air” – highlighting refreshingly new housing stock and appealing to those who want to get outside the city and into nature.
For a popular brand like Warby Parker, their mission is “to inspire and impact the world with vision, purpose, and style” which could also be interpreted as their positioning. The inclusion of ‘impact the world’ is a clear reference to their unique Buy a Pair, Give a Pair program where they donate pairs of glasses to people in need around the world.

Step 5: Keep positioning at the center of everything you do

Positioning isn’t just a part of a brand strategy, it’s the key driver for your business. Every marketing initiative, every business decision, every bit of communication should reinforce your position.

It’s how you stand out
It’s how you’re remembered
It’s what you stand for
It’s what people love about you
It’s what keeps them coming back again and again

TL;DR

Forget competition. Use brand positioning to define what makes you different, setting you apart and occupying space that no one else can. Be aware of what other industry players are up to, then define your own space. Be a category of one to eliminate competition and stand out in the minds of your ideal audience.

That’s a wrap for this issue of Build Mode! Thanks again for being here.

If you have any ideas to share, or questions to ask, reach out. I’m open to hearing your thoughts and making this most useful message in your inbox this week. If you think this might help a friend, feel free to forward it to them and encourage them to join us.

Wishing you a wonderful month of March and hope to talk soon!

Best.
Kenny Isidoro

See my latest at MUDEO, Instagram, LinkedIn,
or book a call through Calendly.

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Some other things I’ve been up to this past month

Learning:

I’ve recently completed a couple more courses through Section on storytelling and data to earn certificates in strategic communication and leadership. My membership in the program recently expired and I’m considering new learning opportunities. Where and how do you learn.

Designing:

Over the past few months, I’ve been working with Eastland Partners, a real estate developer based in Worcester, and property management firm Wingate Companies, to develop the brand for Topograph, a new residential community in Auburn. Keep an eye out for a case study coming soon!

Experimenting:

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

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Kenny Isidoro 2/1/24 Kenny Isidoro 2/1/24

Setting the foundation for brand architecture

The four types of company structures and how to find yours

Build Mode™ Issue 02.2024

There’s been some chatter in the architecture industry lately (or maybe it’s always been there and continually resurfacing) about how the terms ‘architect’ and ‘architecture’ have been co-opted, or rather hijacked, by lots of different industries, especially the tech industry. We now have data architects, information architects, enterprise architects, solutions architects, and many more.

I get it. And it makes sense. Architecture, beyond the practice of designing and constructing buildings, is a really useful term to describe the intentional planning and structuring of, well, anything. And that includes brand architecture, the topic for today.

Just as architecture is the combination and integration of forms and materials, establishing the foundation for occupants to inhabit, so too does brand architecture establish the setting for a brand through its intentional relationships.

What is brand architecture?

At its most basic level, brand architecture is the organizational structure and perceptual relationships between a parent brand and its sub-brands, products, and services.

Brands are complex things. They serve different markets. They have different products. They have different value segments. They have partnerships, affiliations, and endorsements. And there’s a lot of messiness and complexity within their business. Brand architecture is the process that organizes the chaos into a structure that makes it easy to understand. Whether the brand is a real estate developer, or an international design agency, or a car manufacturer, organizing the brand portfolio for clarity and leverage of the parent brand is paramount.

Let’s look at an example of how a customer navigates through brand architecture and understanding of structural relationships in a real world scenario.

Say you’re in the market for a new vehicle. You were initially researching differences between Kia, Honda, and Toyota and you decided on a Kia. That’s the top level of the structure: the brand.

Now you’re walking around the dealership, avoiding the sales associate because “you’re just looking” and you’re figuring out whether you prefer a crossover, an SUV, or an MPV (apparently that’s the new nickname for minivans now), because you know a sedan will be too small for you. Oh, there’s also a whole range of EVs too, but you decide on a standard SUV. These are examples of product types and the next level of your structure. It’s one way to create classification through brand groupings.

Now that you know you want an SUV, you’ve got size options with different models at each scale. On the larger end is the Telluride, and on the compact side is the Seltos, with Sportage and Sorento in the middle. Let’s go with the Telluride. All of these vehicle models are product brands, or sub-brands.

Think we’re done going down the rabbit hole of brand architecture hierarchy yet? Think again. Within the Telluride brand, there are even more options. Each of the trims are indicators of quality, from a basic model LX starting at $36,190 through all the options in between, S, EX, EX X-Line, SX, SX X-Line, SX X-Pro, SX Prestige, EX Prestige X-Line, and at the highest tier, the SX Prestige X-Pro starting at $53,385 (by the way, who named these?). The trim options create a vertical pricing structure that gives you the option to choose on level of quality.

Through the buying process illustrated above, you can see how a car manufacturer has structured their offering in a clear way (despite the trim names), so customers know exactly what options are offered.

The four basic models of brand architecture

There are four types of brand architecture models: branded house, sub-branded, endorsed, and house of brands.

Branded house

The first brand architectural model is a branded house. Brands in this model go to market with a single name, single brand mark, and generally, operate within a single category. They are incredibly focused. All of the products and services drive value to the parent brand.

UPS operates as a single brand name and brand mark with one primary service of delivering items worldwide. All of the products and services fit the same category, whether they are shipping goods by ground or air or freight, or helping customers ship their goods through physical retail locations.

In the design field, there are companies like Gensler, one name, one brand mark, yet working across dozens of markets through the service offering of architecture, design, and planning. Even upon acquisition of firms, targeted firms integrate swiftly within the branded house model to leverage Gensler’s international reputation. For example, when Gensler acquired Boston-based brand agency Korn Design in 2018, their strategy was to consolidate and integrate their team into Gensler’s Boston office and expand their capabilities as a lifestyle branding studio.

Sub-branded

Our next brand architecture model is sub-branded. The Kia example from above fits here. The Telluride is a sub-brand to Kia, just as the Wrangler is a sub-brand to Jeep, and the Mustang is a sub-brand to Ford. This is true for most car manufacturers. Sub-brands are brands that sit a level below the parent brand and retain association with the parent for enhanced benefit and leveraged equity.

In the building industry, many firms create sub-brands by categorizing their services. See Gilbane as an example. Since the late 1990s, Gilbane, Inc. has been the holding company for two sub-brands: Gilbane Building Company, their construction and facilities brand, and Gilbane Development Company, their real estate development, investment, and management brand. Since they offer an entirely different set of services, they adopted this sub-branded model. Through both entity’s association with Gilbane, both strengthen the name.

In real estate, Millcreek Residential has given names to their asset categories to create sub-brands. Within their portfolio is Amavi, single-family rental communities; Beckett, well-crafted apartment homes; Modera for a ‘new standard’ in apartment living, and Alister, apartment homes at great value. Their product brands, one level deeper, are modified with locations, so their local assets become Alister Quincy, Alister Oak Hill, Alister Baco Raton, which adds consistency and efficiency with brand management and setting customer expectations across the category.

A word of caution with sub-brands in real estate – if the property changes ownership or management, yet the building name remains the same, it’s possible that it becomes mistakenly associated with the original ownership and management firm, thus leaving a former owner susceptible to negative impacts on their brand equity.

Endorsed

The third example for a brand architecture model is endorsed. Endorsed brands are independent brands with a noticeable but minor affiliation with a parent brand or holding company. In practice, an endorsement might appear as a tagline added to the name and logo. An endorsement from a brand with greater brand equity gives the customer more assurance on the quality of the product.

3M has many products within its portfolio, including popular brands like Scotch tape, Post-It notes, and Command strips. Each of the brands are strong on their own but with the backing of 3M (and a logo on the packaging) they receive a brand equity boost because of their affiliation with a higher level, reputable parent brand.

When global firm PA Consulting acquired Boston-based innovation design studio Essential Design in 2018, they adopted for an endorsed approach with “part of PA Consulting” as a tagline in their name. The endorsement started a transitional phase. While Essential’s clients began to recognize the resources available through their association with PA Consulting, Essential Design brought new expertise in-house and expanded PA’s service offering and geographic reach across the globe. They have since fully integrated and become a branded house.

House of brands

The fourth type of brand architecture is a house of brands. House of brands are brands that exist across multiple categories and across multiple value propositions. They are independently branded with little to no connection to the parent brand. Sometimes, there’s an intentional disassociation from the parent brand.

Does Boston Beer Company make beer? Technically, yes, but it’s not a beer brand. They’re a holding company for many brands, or in other words, a house of brands. In their brand portfolio are drink brands across multiple categories: Samuel Adams, Truly Hard Seltzer, Twisted Tea, Angry Orchard, Dogfish Head, and new innovations like Teapot, the cannabis-infused tea. Each of their portfolio brands has strong brand equity and doesn’t leverage the parent brand.

Just as there are holding companies for consumer brands, there are also holding companies for design agencies. Look to kyu, a collective of creative organizations that form partnerships to move the needle on the economy and society. You may recognize some of the names in their portfolio like IDEO, Sid Lee, SYPartners, Godfrey Dadich, and Upstatement, the digital design studio founded in Boston. Within kyu’s brand portfolio, they each maintain their own identity while leveraging the resources of the collective and work together toward one mission.

So these are the four main models of brand architecture: branded house, sub-branded, endorsed, and house of brands. In reality, most firms use a hybrid model with two of these structures to better support the firm’s business objectives.

What’s most important to understand is how each of the brands in the portfolio all play a part in reinforcing the growth of the parent brand or holding company.

Here’s what you can do next

If you’re leading a company or managing its brand reputation (yes, even if you’re an employee, you’re part of that brand’s reputation), it’s essential to see the big picture of how an entire portfolio of brands work together. It’s also a good idea to take an audit of how your business is positioned today to identify any gaps or inefficiencies in how the portfolio is structured.

With the insights above, you now know how to break down the components of a brand architecture, from the top-level holding company and flagship brand, into groups of categories with sub-brands, and tiered quality levels. You also know the four different models of brand architecture and the benefits of each.

So, which model is right for your own brand portfolio? Every brand has a brand portfolio and a brand architecture, even if you don’t have any sub-brands. You still have a set of products, services, or affiliations that need to be intentionally positioned for clarity and leverage.

When considering the brand architecture of your company, ask yourself these questions. This is by no means an exhaustive list of questions you need answered, but it’s a start to get your foundation right.

Current structure

What are all the brands, sub-brands, products, and services that compose your brand portfolio?
How is the portfolio organized and categorized?
What brand architecture model are you currently utilizing?
Is this model clear to everyone – internal, customers, future prospects – in the same way?
Is this model best for the strength of the parent brand and all sub-brands?
Is this model intentional and purposeful?

Portfolio performance

Which areas of the portfolio are driving the strongest growth right now?
Which areas of the portfolio might drive the strongest growth in the future?
How connected and related are the portfolio brands, if at all?
Might there be any associations to create stronger leverage across all segments of the portfolio? (for branded house)
Might there be any disassociation to create separation from conflicting areas of business? (for house of brands)

Future structures

Is the brand architecture adaptable to change?
Are there any new partnerships, affiliations, or services in the pipeline?
What’s the process for adapting the brand architecture with new brand extensions?
How will the brand architecture be represented and updated?

The objectives of an effective brand architecture

Ultimately, the goals for crafting a brand architecture come down to this:

To increase brand value

The composition of the brand portfolio, sub-brands, products, services, and extensions should all be positioned to increase the value of the brand. While your own biases may lead you to focus on a particular sector, your ultimate goal is to drive increased value for the entire portfolio.

To create synergy

Like neuron connections and communications through synapses in our brains, the individual nodes of the brand portfolio should connect and collaborate with one another. Through reinforced association and collaborative efficiencies, each of them become elevated and work harder than on their own.

To clarify the offer

There should be no doubt of what you can offer. Both customers and internal stakeholders should easily understand the structure of the business, navigate it intuitively, and ease into the buying process without friction. Intuitive structure. Clear naming. Easy selling.

To enable future growth

Brand architecture is more about looking ahead than looking back. and creating a framework that allows growth opportunities to occur within the established framework, for new products, new strategic acquisitions, or new markets or categories.

With an effective brand architecture, you’ll set the foundation for a brand to inhabit and for the entire portfolio to propel forward and thrive.

Thanks for reading the inaugural issue of Build Mode!

If you have any feedback on this update, or ideas to share, or questions to ask, reach out. I’m open to hearing your thoughts and making this most useful message for you this week.

Wishing you a wonderful month of February and hope to talk soon!

Best.
Kenny Isidoro

See my latest at MUDEO, Instagram, LinkedIn,
or book a call through Calendly.

Work zone

Some other things I’ve been up to this past month

Reading:

Key Person of Influence by Daniel Priestley. I’ve taken a different approach to reading lately. Rather than read written word (which I still enjoy), I’ve been listening to audiobooks and taking notes in the process. Spotify has tons of books available on their premium plan. I find it helps me remember more and take action on the things I’ve learned.

Learning:

I just wrapped up a course from Section called Proving Business Value with Nicole Alexander, former global head of marketing at Meta. It focused on how to write a business case from end-to-end, while also diving into the most critical financial metrics used to demonstrate financial impact.

Adventuring:

Will I have to update my passport? Not sure yet, but I recently nominated myself to speak at The Design Conference in Brisbane, Australia with a keynote that encourages designers to experiment, learn, and master multiple skills through their career roles. By doing so, they’re stacking a unique combination of skill sets to create a unicorn version of themselves in the market. Fingers crossed!

Build Mode™

A monthly update with brand insights

What is brand perception?

Why does brand perception matter?

Brand perception shapes trust and loyalty

Brand perception affirms price premiums

Brand perception elevates your authority

What you can do you next

Beauty is in the eye of the holder

Work zone

Watching:

​Naming:

Standardizing:

​​Brand audit​

​​Brand partnership​

​Custom-built brand​

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What is the IKEA effect?

Why does the IKEA effect matter to brand-building?

To own your brand, you need to be actively involved in building your brand.

What you can do you next

Core Team:​

Extended Team:​

Specialized Groups:​

Whole Organization:​

Responsibility equals accountability equals ownership. And a sense of ownership is the most powerful weapon a team or organization can have.

Work zone

Listening:

​Eating:

Thanking:

​​Brand audit​

​​Brand partnership​

​Custom-built brand​

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How to turn everyday interactions into brand-building moments

What are brand touchpoints?

Physical (interactions in the real world):

Digital (interactions online and on our phone):

Human (person-to-person connections):

Indirect (connection to your brand from others):

Why do brand touchpoints matter?

What you can do next with touchpoints

List existing touchpoints

Audit the experience

Design the journey

Optimize for impact

Experiment to start

How you do anything is how you do everything.

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What is a brand’s core messaging?

One-liner

Elevator pitch

About us

Firm profile

Why brand messaging matters

How to get started with brand messaging

Words are the only things that last forever.

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Marketing is building trust with an audience by delivering value.

What is a marketing strategy?

Six methods for reaching your audience

Networking

Referrals

Outreach

Content

Sponsorship

Advertising

How to start a marketing strategy

The best way to find yourselfis to lose yourself in the service of others.

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What are brand guidelines?

Brand guidelines is a comprehensive resource that outlines components of the brand to communicate their reasoning and empower their execution.

Part 1: Brand strategy

Part 2: Brand identity

Logo:​

Color Palette:​

Typography:​

Imagery:

Part 3: Brand messaging

Part 4: Brand applications

Naming:

Brand audit

Brand partnership

Custom-built brand

Core Team:

Extended Team:

Specialized Groups:

Whole Organization:

Eating:

Brand audit

Brand partnership

Custom-built brand

The best way to find yourself
is to lose yourself in the service of others.

Logo:

Color Palette:

Typography:

Do you have brand guidelines?

Efficiency is doing things right.
Effectiveness is doing the right things.
— Peter Drucker

Do one thing every day that scares you.
— Eleanor Roosevelt

Who would you choose and why?
What qualities do they have that you associate with your brand?

Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald

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