The best in public relations know that, if you lose the public trust, it’s hard to earn it back. The same goes with brands and brand consistency. Even one failure to be on brand weakens the impact of your message.
Because people begin to doubt it.
Think about this. Today, “Jeopardy!” announces that Mike Richards, the show’s executive producer and once heir to Alex Trebek’s throne, will immediately exit his position. This, after fans cried foul on naming him host. And The Ringer revealed past offensive comments and behavior from Richards.
Quite the downfall for the once-hot producer, who also execs “Wheel of Fortune.” While The Ringer report proved to be his ultimate downfall. It was a lack of brand consistency that really did it.
Lacking brand consistency is like telling a lie
When your brand promise says one thing and you do another, you are in fact lying. If your brand promise is “We make it simple.” Then you better make sure you make everything simple. Once you become overly complex, you lose the public trust.
Because you lied.
That’s what happened to Richards and “Jeopardy!”. We all thought the entertaining competition to become host was real. We watched Ken Jennings, Aaron Rodgers, LeVar Burton and many others walk onto the stage.
Countless social media posts and entertainment articles promoted the best choice. The shows were delightful.
“Jeopardy!” forgot the fundamental rule of brand. It doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to the customer. It’s the not cowboy who wears the brand – unless something goes horribly wrong. It’s the cow. The cow actually feels it.
There’s even a cost to it
A recent study by Lucidpress, a brand templating platform, demonstrated the bottom line advantage of maintaining brand consistency. More than 65% of professionals said brand consistency contributed between 10-20% of their revenue growth.
Now, I understand the entire study is really about maintaining a constant look on your website. But it’s worth noting.
The best brand promise taps into an emotional want among your target audience. For example, when rebranding medical malpractice insurance giant ProAssurance, the promise was simply stated as “Treated Fairly.” That was a powerful emotional trigger for medical professionals, who didn’t think insurance companies treated them fairly. (Or that anybody treats them fairly, for that matter.)
It became more powerful when introducing a new product (or policy). A workers compensation rollout, for example, should say, “Because we treat you fairly, our worker’s compensation tool, ecovery, breaks through the legacy barriers of claims management.”
It would be less powerful if the brand promise was left off. It becomes less important. Less meaningful. And audiences begin to think the brand promise is just marketing. Not real.
Don’t jeopardize your brand. (Ahem. I’ll walk myself out.)
Now “Jeopardy!” finds itself in crisis control mode. It has lost the public trust by lying to its audience. The show promised one thing, then delivered something else. I never thought Richards was a bad host. But his original appointment as host suggested a rigged game.
And we, the audience (ie., the target audience), were humiliated.
Don’t humiliate those considering you by failing at brand consistency. If your brand promise is powerful, following its lead is all you need to win.