Bad branding happens when there are no “lines on the tennis court”
Robert Frost famously said writing free verse poetry is like “playing tennis without a net.” Bad branding is like playing tennis without any lines on the court. How do you ever know if a shot is in or out?
Most marketing teams don't struggle because they lack ideas. They struggle because nobody knows which ideas are right. One stakeholder wants to talk about innovation. Another wants to emphasize service. A third wants to chase the latest trend. Somebody wants it to be funny, someone else wants to move people. Before long, every decision becomes a debate. That's what happens when your brand has no lines on the tennis court.
To create a strong brand, you must have parameters, defining characteristics that are non-negotiable. Strategic and executional guidelines. These are the lines on the tennis court. Now, when any piece of communication gets offered up to the CD, account team, brand team, everyone has criteria to help them decide if the “shot” is in or out, on brand or off. Without these lines, shots fly all over the place, it becomes solely based on personal taste and whim and devolves into a sad game of highest title wins. We have all sat in many meetings going over work where choices were driven by opinion, ego, baggage, “not invented here,” all because the team lacked any guidelines to help them make the decision. Some marketers even consciously avoid parameters because that holds them to a set of principles and stops them from acting capriciously.
This is how marketers end up with messages in multiple, often conflicting directions. Versus building a brand one shot at a time.
Lines on the tennis court also expedite the entire process
These lines help guide and expedite every decision going forward. Is this idea “in?” Is this typeface or music right for us? Who should we partner with? Is this influencer on brand for us or not? Hold each up against the lines on the court and it becomes clear quickly if it’s in or out. Or maybe with a small adaptation, out can become in. It all gets much easier and faster to decide. And this level of speed is critical today.
Okay, line haters…
Let’s acknowledge all line haters out there. “They handcuff me, restrict creativity, limit the imagination. We need to think outside of the box, not inside of it. The truth is that constraints don't kill creativity, they unleash it. When a brand knows exactly where it can and cannot play, creative teams stop wasting energy debating direction and start spending it generating deeper, better ideas. The brands producing the most interesting work aren't operating without boundaries. They're operating within the clearest ones.
Having no lines is certainly not the answer, that is chaos. Making the lines wider is not the solution either. What is the answer? Hit brilliant shots within the lines. You see them all the time in tennis. That’s what the great ones do.
