How does a Brand achieve sustainable success? First and foremost, you need structure to support any model you may wish to use.
Pythian Quest has developed an ideology that acts as a structure of developing sustainable Branding by creating healthy cultures of people around the Brand. Our ideology is divided in 3 Pillars:
The Brand
The first pillar is basically the Brand itself. It is the core & essence of what the company stands for, which is why it needs to be alive, authentic and not just a superficial name.
Since the Brand is the soul of the company, we need to ensure that it is well developed and thoroughly thought out. This way we are be able to develop our Company and Consumer Cultures later on.
If we want to achieve sustainable success – both financially and in terms of positive impact to people – it requires 2 essential elements:
Brand Purpose & Brand Philosophy
Brand Purpose
The purpose of our Brand is essentially why it exists.
In order to achieve sustainable success, people need to emotionally connect with the Brand and in order to do so they need to first relate to the Brand’s Purpose. Therefore, the purpose has to be more meaningful than just making a profit.
While making a profit is essential for a company to exist, function and succeed (both in the short-term & long-term), if the Brand’s Purpose is merely making as much money as possible, then we eliminate the possibility of people becoming loyal to the Brand.
For people to be supportive and loyal to a Brand, it needs to have a higher purpose than just making money. It needs to allow people to admire & relate to it so that they can emotionally connect with it.
Brand Philosophy
Our Brand’s philosophy is how it behaves.
It is the Brand’s particular set of values, principles and beliefs. It is how the Brand thinks and, by extent, how the Brand acts & operates.
People relate more to a Brand that has human traits and behaviour, rather than inanimate and lifeless ones.
It is virtually impossible for everyone to relate to your Brand’s Philosophy, because different people have different principles.
However, if you do not implement a Brand Philosophy at all in an attempt to gain as large an audience as possible, you render it impossible to relate to the Brand – leading to a lack of emotional connection and loyalty.
People Focused
For both Company & Consumer Cultures, we implement the ideology of a people-focused approach in order to achieve a healthy & long-term growth of our Brand. We do not just concentrate on customers in an attempt to increase sales, but we focus instead on all people involved with our Brand – mainly including consumers, employees & associates.
Company Culture
Company Culture is the culture that is created internally.
People working with the Brand are a major asset for sustainable success. If we do not intently & consciously create a Company Culture that is aligned with our Brand, then employees are incapable of performing well.
Conversely, people that become emotionally attached and loyal to the Brand, will develop the energy and skills to lift our Brand to its full potential.
Creating a healthy & sustainable employee culture by re-evaluating operations & procedures to be aligned with our Brand Purpose & Philosophy will add value to our Brand both financially and in terms of the impact it will have on consumers.
Consumer Culture
Consumer Culture is the culture that is created externally.
Since consumers are people who use our Brand, irrespective of whether they buy the products themselves or not, we not only need to be vigilant about how impactful our products are to their lives, but also how the culture between consumers is forming.
If we allow consumers to organically and spontaneously develop a culture of shared behaviour & ideals, it will naturally deviate from the culture we ideally desire to create that is aligned with our Brand.
Therefore, we need to manage the development of the consumer habits & ideals in order to create a healthy & sustainable Consumer Culture; as it is far more valuable for our business in the long-term than focusing on maximising sales from customers in the short-term.
Alignment
The alignment of these 3 Pillars is as significant as each Pillar itself. Since our aim is to achieve consistency & sustainable success, any crack in the chain connecting the pillars will lead to a leak in the value of the Brand itself as well as to the cultures developed around it.
Consequently, we need to ensure that our cultures are formed around our Brand, its Purpose, Philosophy, Vision & Mission in order to consciously improve & optimise our Brand. This way we ultimately nurture and prepare it to achieve sustainable success.
