How to Avoid Brand Fatigue (1)
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After finishing a rebrand project, I used to caution clients against using their new logo on everything, warning them about the dangers of "brand fatigue."
I've changed my perspective on this now.
It feels counterintuitive, but your brand should be 99% repetition and 1% novelty.
As a ministry leader, you'll get tired of hearing your core values long before your audience even remembers one of them. You'll be dreaming in only your brand colors before anyone even notices that there's an intentional palette.
In fact, there was a study done to see how well regular people could recall major brand logos from memory. The results were pretty shocking.
If regular people struggled to remember the TARGET logo, then your church probably doesn't have to worry about "over-branding."
That said, there's a simple principle that can help you give your church more brand "touchpoints" without going overboard and getting on anyone's nerves. I’ll talk about that in the next one.
See you there!
How to Avoid Brand Fatigue (2)
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Last time we looked at how most churches and ministries are probably not over-branding.
People are forgetful and have lots of other things going on. To cultivate a brand that bears fruit, we have to cut through the noise repeatedly, with clarity and consistency.
But how do we repeat ourselves without being annoying? The last thing you want to do is give people a negative feeling when they interact with your communications.
The key to this is to say the same thing in different ways, over time.
If your church has a tagline, or a "thread" like Mark MacDonald outlines in his book Be Known for Something, then you have your message - what to say. Now the trick is to repeat that message in different ways and in different places.
Let’s say your tagline is “Alive To Christ.”
First, you can put this tagline on your social media banner, website, and logo placeholder slide. These are semi-permanent places where new visitors and members will be introduced to that phrase.
One Sunday a month, take 60 seconds of announcement time to explain what it means to be “Alive to Christ” and connect it to a ministry opportunity your church has in the upcoming month.
If you livestream your worship services, you can even turn that clip into a social media post or a short reflection for community groups.
Next you could design “A2C” mugs or a t-shirt that says “Dead to Sin” on the front and “Alive to Christ” on the back.
These are just a few examples, but I think you get the idea. There a million different ways to say the same thing.
Do you have a tagline or thread at your church? Reply here and let me know what yours is :)
Gardening All At Once
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Have you ever tried growing a garden?
My wife and I have tried many times. Last spring, we thought "This year will be the year."
But what happened? We forgot to tend it.
Sure enough, we walked outside one morning and realize "Oh... we haven't checked on the garden in 3 weeks."
We tried to save it by dousing everything with the garden hose, hoping something would survive and "catch up" on its water needs.
Even if you don't have gardening experience, you can probably guess that we didn't see a crop last year. You can't water once a month with gallons at a time!
Just like cultivating a garden, building a healthy brand takes small investments of purposeful attention on a regular basis.
Your brand requires tending.
With patience and intentionality, eventually you will see progress. People will start to identify with your brand because it signfies their shared history, values, and purpose.
When people see your logo and colors used consistently on their church bulletin, you're watering. When you review the tone of voice in your website copy, you're adding fertilizer to the soil.
I don't want to push the analogy too far, so I'll stop there :) But that kind of patient consistency goes a long way toward building up familiarity, then trust, then action.
Just for fun, here's a relevant quote from Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute.
Michael: What is that thing that Dwight always says? Paper is the soil in which the seeds of business grow?
Dwight: It’s not the soil! It’s the manure! Paper is the manure! On-time delivery is the soil! Aah! [runs into office]
Accidentally Sending the Wrong Message
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Last year, my wife started selling old-fashioned lye soaps and shampoos made from goats milk. To distribute and label them, she had to make some decisions about packaging.
Clear plastic shrink wrap is easy and practical. It turns each bar of soap into a self-contained unit that wont get damaged or worn, shows the entire bar, and makes shipping so much easier.
Makes perfect sense, right?
After selling countless bars and getting a lot of customer feedback, she realized that her packaging was actually working against her.
People were buying her soap because they wanted a more home-grown, organic, less commercialized experience.
She was using packaging that was plastic, shiny, and sterile. It was communicating the opposite of her brand!
When she made the switch to brown craft paper, she immediately saw a positive response from our customers. “It looks so eco-friendly!” “I love that I can smell it in the store!”
Is there anything you’re doing that’s unintentionally sending the wrong message?
