Don’t Fall Off Your Brand Messaging Platform

As we approach election season, we’re already starting to hear a lot about the individual campaign platforms of the candidates (or suspected candidates!). Traditionally, we think of platforms as the unique values and beliefs that a candidate or party supports – the individual “planks” that together form the figurative platform on which they stand, linked historically to the literal stage on which campaigning took place.

But politicians aren’t the only brands that need a platform. Telling consistent brand stories is a challenge in an environment where content is distributed through a variety of formats (websites! print collateral! digital ads!), across multiple digital platforms (Twitter! Instagram! Blogs! eblasts!) and by numerous teams. How do we ensure that our Facebook ads tell the same story we’re pitching to media, writing on a brand’s website or promoting on Twitter? Or that the story we’re telling on these mediums is consistent with how the CEO, CMO or even developers describe their brand? In a word(s): messaging platforms.

Messaging platforms are — to again take inspiration from the physical origins of the word — the solid foundation on which integrated brand strategies are based. Key messages (or, in the political world, “planks”) are the individual elements, which together form a complete brand narrative and serve as a blueprint for consistent brand communication and a roadmap for copywriting and content development.

Typically, this narrative includes the basic key message (who/what), the vision statement (why? What’s the bigger purpose?), the mission statement (how are you working toward the vision?), the positioning statement (why you? What’s the truly unique benefit you offer the target audience that competitors do not?) and the value propositions (why does this matter to each of your target audiences?). Proof points are the fact-based data points that back up these claims, while the brand promise sets expectations and tells you what all this should feel like. Tying everything into a neat little bow: the tagline (the distilled, “essence” of the platform) and the about statement, which tells the full story from beginning to end.

While messaging platforms need to be short and concise, the process to develop them is thorough. It requires competitive research to inform positioning and significant stakeholder research to identify sentiment and perceptions as well as themes and patterns around which an entire company can rally. I sometimes like to compare the messaging development process to undergoing psychotherapy: In both cases, you embark on a quest to find out more about who you are, what you want, what drives the way you behave, and what you’d like to change in order to be the best you. While this is an important process with amazing results, some clients can find it uncomfortable to declare a position or make a strong statement. I get it. But, returning to the metaphor of platform as physical stage, I also know you need a strong one to be effective.

Let’s take a cue from Nike’s messaging platform: Just do it.

(Image: “Spotlight on Obama (Commentary)” by Flickr user Steve Jurvetson via Attribution 2.0 license)