As a company just starting out trying to build a brand identity or even if you are trying to rebrand yourself after years of business, you should not be looking to just get buyers to notice your brand. What you really want are Trekkies; clients who are furiously loyal to your brand.  The goal of any good brand identity campaign is to create a fervent belief in the superiority of your vision, product, or offering.  You want your consumers speaking your version of Klingon and spreading the word about your brand to anyone who will listen like a bystander at a Star Trek convention.

How does one achieve this Prime Directive of brand identity?  Your brand must fulfill a dream, hope  or deep desire of the consumer.  Trekkies see the world of Star Trek as a utopian possible future they can dream and hope for.  They fulfill their inner desire for adventure and the unknown that was relegated to mostly inaccessible science fiction prior to its creation.  Even if your company’s widget isn’t something as sexy as warp drive or dilithium crystals, your branding campaign must work to associate itself to some desire of your potential client, so that when they think of your brand, they think of that which they desire.  Your brand should be mind melded to the consumers innermost hopes and dreams.

Your Trekkies will be loyal to the point of fanaticism, but that doesn’t mean you can’t lose their loyalty.  Your brand must instill confidence in the consumer that their dreams and desires will indeed be fulfilled by loyalty to your company.  Should your brand stray from the single minded focus on that which the customer has come to expect, their confidence will fade and a company will be forced to reinforce their brand identity once more or your brand may end like a bad spin-off series that ends up cancelled.  We’ll discuss more on brand confidence in our article Make Sure Your Company’s Second Trilogy Doesn’t Suck or Luke, I Am Your Web Designer.