Brand Promise Integration

Your product is your brand. And your brand is your promise. So why are your product and brand teams still working on different planets?Every week I speak to founders, CMOs, product leads: brilliant people building brilliant things. But here’s what blows my mind: In 9 out of 10 tech companies, the brand team has zero interaction with the product team. No sync. No collaboration. No feedback loop.Which is crazy. Because here’s the truth:The moment a user opens your product, your brand comes to life. Not on the billboard. Not in your tagline.But in the UI, the flow, the copy, the micro-interactions.That’s the brand. That’s the promise delivered. So if you care about trust, perception, emotional connection — stop treating brand like lipstick and product like the engine. They’re the same machine. And they should be built by the same hands. Merge your brand and product teams. Make them sit at the same table. You’ll ship better. You’ll grow faster. You’ll matter more.

In marketing, we love bold promises…….but what if I told you that there is an invisible equation behind every successful brand. We write headlines that promise transformation, taglines that spark desire, and ads that make products look like life upgrades. And that’s fine, storytelling is part of our job. But storytelling without structure is just theatre. Eventually, the curtain falls, and what the customer is left with is reality. Every brand lives or dies by a simple, often invisible equation: Brand Promise + Customer Expectation ≠ Reality → Disappointment Brand Promise + Customer Expectation = Reality → Trust Reality > Expectation → Advocacy This is the tightrope every brand walks. A great brand isn’t just known, it’s trusted. And trust is built when what we say, what the customer believes, and what we actually deliver live in the same orbit. Imagine a billboard showing the juiciest, most mouthwatering burger you’ve ever seen. You walk into the outlet, order it, wait eagerly… and the actual burger looks like a tired cousin of the one on the billboard. Technically, it’s still the same product. But emotionally? You’ve just been betrayed. It’s not the taste alone that affects your experience, it’s the gap between what you expected and what you received. That’s the trust delta. And once that gap opens, it’s hard to close. We sometimes get so good at selling the dream, we forget to check whether the systems, people, and delivery channels can support that dream. We focus on visibility and ignore viability. We build campaigns with beautiful promises… but the real brand experience can’t keep up. This is how brands become loud, but forgettable. Known, but not preferred. Prominent, but not profitable. So, how do we keep the balance? • Audit your brand promise, Is it aspirational and achievable? • Understand your customers’ expectations, What are they bringing into the experience? What have you taught them to believe? • Relentlessly align delivery, Your product, service, and people must reflect your marketing. Every single time. Marketing should not be an act of seduction. It should be an act of consistency. For example: Nike sells performance, and delivers it from product quality to app experience to athlete endorsements. Zara promises fast fashion, and delivers runway styles at scale, weekly. Toyota doesn’t overhype , it promises reliability, and it over-delivers in lifetime value. These brands understand the game: Not to make the loudest promise, but the clearest, most repeatable one. Because in the end, marketing isn’t just about what people think before they buy. It’s about how they feel after they experience. That feelin of “this is exactly what I expected” or even better, “this is more than I hoped for”, is where real brand power lives. Not in the billboard. Not in the post. But in the alignment. Keep your equation tight. Say it, mean it, deliver it….every time.😉

Starting with the end in mind is standard advice in business. The end often gets fuzzy when connecting your brand strategy to your BHAG and goals. In financials, brand value even lives in "intangible assets."  It's often pushed downstream as a marketing activity. But a brand is your company's DNA. It can't be confined to downstream management alone. The entire company must improve its brand and marketing literacy to make better strategic decisions. While marketing may own branding, it requires unified leadership to direct the cultural compasses, ensuring the brand promise resonates across all aspects of the brand experience: product, employee, customer, and community. Great experiences create the connection you need to compel people to share, which drives demand and growth. Although most organizations acknowledge the importance of a strong brand for securing a competitive edge, few effectively integrate the brand into cross-functional strategic priorities. Recently, I visited the World Of Coca-Cola Museum. Touring exhibits, I started thinking about how the experience was like reverse engineering a brand from the end. Coke has built one of the most valuable global brands. Their museum immerses visitors in experiences and reminds consumers of their emotional connections worth sharing, driving generations of demand.    Visitors taste beverages from around the world, feel the fizz on their tongues, smell the ingredients, and watch heartwarming movies of people enjoying Coke products, tapping nostalgia and triggering emotional connections. This symbolizes the pinnacle brands aspire toward. I thought about how effective it would be as a leadership exercise in enhancing brand literacy within an organization. Leaders across the company could reverse engineer the brand as a brand museum. What would make the brand museum-worthy? What would make people want to pay to attend and stand in long lines? How would you showcase how customers interact with your products or services? How would you tell the story?  How would you draw back the curtain into how the sausage is made?  What senses or behavior connections could you use to trigger connections to the brand? The answers can create a valuable shared consensus that avoids downstream siloed brand efforts. This also begins to outline a roadmap for organizational improvements. My intuition tells me that getting groups to visualize their brand museums will make creating a great brand more tangible. Teams would start to see and feel the brand objectives that can defend against disruption.  Give it a try. Does envisioning your brand museum reveal gaps between the ideal and current state of your overall brand experience, including customer, employee, and community experiences? Take an assessment of where your brand needs to improve for key stakeholders. You may find improvement opportunities to get you closer to that end goal. #brand #strategy #marketing #culture

I've spent over 2 decades studying brand promises. (And the brutal disconnect that kills customer trust) Let me share something I've noticed working with brands: Most companies spend thousands on crafting the perfect message. Beautiful websites. Compelling ads. Powerful positioning. But when a customer actually experiences the brand? That's when the promises quietly fall apart. It happens in subtle ways: • The boutique hotel that promises luxury but has outdated rooms • The healthcare provider that promises care but keeps you waiting • The SaaS platform that promises simplicity but requires 7 emails to cancel Each touchpoint is a moment of truth. When your operations don't match your marketing, customers feel it. They might not say it to your face, but they'll tell everyone else. This is exactly why we developed the WOOO framework. It's about Winning Others Over and Over by: 1. Mapping every operational touchpoint against your brand promise 2. Finding the gaps where reality doesn't match expectations 3. Building systems that consistently deliver what you promise The strongest brands aren't the ones with the best taglines. They're the ones where customer experience and brand promise are perfectly aligned. Where words and actions tell the same story. If your customers could see behind the scenes of your operation, would it strengthen their trust in your brand—or shatter it? PS: When was the last time you experienced a company where reality exceeded the promise? I'd love to hear about it.

This is one of my favorite quotes. That may be surprising coming from a marketing guy. This is a wake-up call that it's not enough for your marketing team or agency to embrace your brand promise. If your whole company does not buy into it, you will fail to deliver. The hallmark of strong brands is consistency. They are consistent in how they deliver on their brand promise at every touchpoint. So whether someone visits your website, reads a press release, uses your product, walks into your store, sits down with one of your salespeople, calls your customer service number, or reads a social media post, everything feels like it's coming from the same place. Because like it or not, EVERYTHING either strengthens or weakens your brand. So how do you achieve this consistency? Get your entire ELT involved in crafting your brand strategy, then workshop it with the entire company. Daunting task, for sure, but the returns are immense. Branding is not just a marketing task. It’s a company-wide mission. Everyone must understand and support the brand. This unity leads to a consistent brand experience across all touchpoints. Here are 10 ways to ensure your entire team buys into the brand promise: 1. Share the brand story with everyone in the company. 2. Train all employees on brand values and mission. 3. Encourage employees to live the brand values daily. 4. Recognize and reward those who embody the brand. 5. Create a culture of open communication about the brand. 6. Involve employees in brand strategy discussions. 7. Use brand visuals and language in all internal materials. 8. Provide resources for employees to understand the brand better. 9. Gather feedback from employees on brand perception. 10. Celebrate brand successes together as a team. The best brands are built from the inside out. When everyone is aligned, the brand shines through. Your brand is your promise to the world. Make sure everyone is on board. If you'd like to know more about how I've done it before, comment below. BTW, does anyone know who said that quote? I always thought it was a Toyota CEO, but I'd love to know! #brand #strategy #collaboration #changemanagement

🤝 Brand Management & Customer Experience: Two Sides of the Same Coin 🤝 What does CX have to do with brand management? As it turns out, everything. Brand management and CX often operate in silos, yet they are inextricably linked. When misaligned, the results are fragmented strategies, miscommunication, and eroded trust—internally and with customers. CX isn’t just about service metrics or satisfaction scores—it’s the delivery of the promises made by your brand. A 2021 Qualtrics study found that only 28% of marketing and CX leaders have processes that allow brand strategy to feed into CX design and delivery. This disconnect often stems from a common misconception: * Brand Management is viewed as a marketing function—a profit center. * CX is relegated to a tactical role—a cost center. But here’s the truth: A brand is an experience, living at the intersection of promise and expectation. CX is where that promise is either fulfilled—or broken. To align brand management and CX, organizations must adopt a holistic approach. Here’s how: 1️⃣ Break Down Silos: Facilitate cross-functional collaboration to ensure alignment across departments. 2️⃣ Engage the Entire Organization: Involve both Experience Creators (customer-facing roles) and Experience Enablers (support roles). 3️⃣ Reinforce Through Communication: Ensure everyone understands the brand promise and their role in delivering it. 4️⃣ Empower Teams: Provide the tools, authority, and governance needed to build trust and accountability. 5️⃣ Measure What Matters: Focus on KPIs like retention, loyalty, and customer lifetime value, not just surface-level metrics. When brand management and CX are aligned, organizations deliver consistent, authentic customer experiences that build loyalty, drive innovation, and generate business growth. The CX industry is evolving, but the opportunity for strategic transformation lies in connecting the dots between what your brand promises and how your customers experience it. Are you ready to break down silos and align your brand management with CX? Let’s start the conversation! 👉 Share your thoughts in the comments. How is your organization aligning brand and CX? 👉 Learn more about my work at ImprintCX. Together, we can redefine customer experience.