ZeBrand's Brand Core - Handy Tips

Brand Core (Time required - 30min with a team)

This exercise allows you to define a clear direction for your brand by setting its vision, values and personality.

What you get by filling out this board

・Setting a clear vision helps your team unite their efforts.

・Clear values set day-to-day guidelines for making critical decisions.

・A unique personality helps create compelling communications and impactful brand identity.

Use this fill-in-the-blank form to help you respond to the questions asked in the Strategy board. Of course, you can do it your way without using this format, but this can be a useful guide.

BRAND NAME

The first space is for your BRAND NAME - please fill in your brand/business name. If you do not have a brand name yet, we suggest you move on to the other boards first and then come back to this at the end. However, you can refer to our blog on naming for some inspiration.

For example: ZeBrand, ELUMENA

VISION

Describe your brand purpose and the difference you want to make in the world in one bold statement.

Here are a few tips for writing a good vision statement:

1 ) Begin with a verb. This makes your vision actionable. (“To enable”, “To inspire”, etc.)

2 ) Focus on the “why”, not the “how”. The “why” is your purpose that drives and motivates change. The “how” gets in the weeds of business specifics that may change overtime. Keep it high-level and don’t get too granular here.

3 ) Find the sweet spot. Strike the balance between being inspirational and practical. You need both to sound compelling.

・To (verb-based phrase to describe what you will do) so that (the effect or outcome).

For example:
To help people find opportunities for self-reflection so they can bring more light to their everyday life.

VALUES

What principles will help guide your team towards achieving their goals day-to-day?

・Values are the rules and guidelines that help your team make decisions about your brand and business.

・Go beyond one word values like ‘innovation’ to achieve extra clarity and reduce ambiguity.

・Ensure that the values you create have implications for everything from your business culture and product development to your brand marketing.

・Use a rule-based statement

For example:

・Spread the word
・Make it effortless
・Be transparent
・Speed up the process

PERSONALITY

What adjectives would you use to describe your brand and the way it looks and feels?

・(If your brand was a person, how would you describe them?)

For example:

・Restorative Calm & Assuring
・Enlightening
・Quick & Immediate

BRAND DNA

Your Brand DNA is that one idea that summarizes everything you stand for. If you were to summarize your vision, values and personality in a few words what would they be?

・(Use two to five words).

For example: Light to Life

Next up, find out more about how you can fill out ZeBrand's Business Idea Board to consider what makes your business unique.