Great Branding is Like Wearing a Bespoke Suit

“I like to think of great branding like this… It’s like wearing a bespoke suit that is perfectly tailored to you. It feels good, it presents you well, and it’s super comfortable. The second you put it on, your confidence rises. That’s how your branding should feel.”

Over a long career, I’ve heard hundreds of people define branding before. But, when Veronica Williams from Authentic Brand shared this in a recent client meeting, this description was one of the best definitions I’ve ever heard. Your branding should fit you well. No, it should fit you perfectly. It should be tailored and impeccable. When you look in the mirror wearing it, it should make you say, “Wow.”

Too often, clients come to us wearing someone else’s suit. Their branding is off the rack, designed to fit someone’s generic body but not theirs. Their messaging and design fit funny – or not at all – and aren’t doing anything to boost their confidence. They barely want to leave the house in it. We hear the stories all of the time…

“I don’t send people to our website. It doesn’t capture who we are.”

“We had someone help us with our messaging, but it never felt like us or our personality.”

“The last agency never asked us any questions. Instead, they just told us what to do.”

Too often, the suits we’re sending our brands out into the world wearing don’t fit. When we “wear” our brands, we can feel this, and when customers and prospects meet us, they can feel it well. The only way to fix this is to take a bespoke approach to creating our branding.

What do we mean by “bespoke”? I grabbed this definition from Wikipedia:

With a bespoke suit, a pattern is designed and made from scratch based on the client’s measurements, often from 20+ measurements involving multiple fittings, and takes considerably longer to produce than a made-to-measure garment. This ensures a precise fit, particularly in the shoulders as well as the posture areas. This custom fit is most suited for clients with short or long necks, high or low shoulders, high hips, large or flat seats, and more. Made-to-measure cannot adjust for these shapes and slopes.

Stop for a moment and ask yourself, “What if our branding felt like this?” What if your agency asked you the curious questions that would help them measure you? What if your website, messaging, social, and print were made-to-measure with a custom fit?

Sure, it would take longer and cost a little bit more, but in the end, it would accentuate all of your brand’s shapes and slopes. It would feel good… or even better, great. You’d be proud to send people to your website because you’d know it looked dynamite, and the words were yours – and yours alone. You’d share your brand with more confidence and, maybe, just a little swagger. Add this all up at the end of the day, and you will win more.

Call-to-Action

The point of this message is simple: Stop settling. Custom bespoke branding, the kind that fits, isn’t just for massive companies with big budgets. It can also be for you, and frankly, your brand deserves it. Your employees deserve to work for a brand that cares enough to make this kind of work a priority. And, at the end of the day, so do you.