A good brand proposition lies at the heart of any strong brand. It’s like the skeleton, or the scaffolding. Without it, the brand has no support and is likely to collapse. It explains what the brand stands for, and what makes it special. It describes its values and the way that it should behave. It tells every employee in your company what they need to do to reinforce the brand.

In this guide, we’ll explain what the function of a brand proposition is, why it’s not the same thing as a brand, the ingredients of a good brand proposition, and how to write one.

This isn’t a quick exercise. It requires time, dedication, creativity and research. But it’s possibly the most important document that you’ll write. It’s the cornerstone of your brand strategy and will give your brand unstoppable competitive advantage.

Most companies will ask a specialist brand consultancy to write this document for them, and of course we’d be happy to do this for you. But if you’d prefer to do this yourself, this guide will give you everything you need.

Part 1: the essential background – what it’s for, what to avoid, what it should achieve

The objective of a brand proposition statement – what it’s for

This document is incredibly important. It will enable every employee to understand what’s special about the brand and how their activities help to build the brand.

So it should be written in everyday language. It should be beautifully clear. It should inspire.

You should write this statement with the intention of changing the world.

Brand onion, brand key, brand wheel and other models to avoid

You might have come across a variety of brand models, like the brand onion and the brand key. We don’t like these, and advise against using them.

They are usually little more than a list of words, structured in a geometric shape in what looks suspiciously like an attempt to make them look important, but which don’t tell a compelling or memorable story about the brand.

They are usually full of jargon and give the impression that the brand is a specialist thing that only marketing people should care about. That’s a big mistake, because everyone in the organisation needs to understand what the brand stands for and how they can play a part in its success.

Nobody can remember them, anyway.

The difference between the brand, and the brand proposition

The proposition isn’t the same thing as the brand, and it’s important to understand the difference.

The proposition is a description of what the brand stands for and how it behaves. It’s strictly for use by company employees, and would never be shown to customers.

The brand, on the other hand, is what the customer experiences as a result of the delivery of the brand proposition.

For example, a coffee shop’s brand proposition might state that the brand is about uncompromising passion for superb coffee. It would be entirely wrong for this proposition (and there’s much more to a proposition than this one-sentence summary, as we’ll see later in this guide) to be shown to customers by being plastered over posters and adverts.

Instead, the customer would discover that uncompromising passion for themselves, through the experience of visiting the coffee shop. The quality of the coffee would be superb, of course, but everything else that they experience would reinforce this. The cups might be antique china. There would be jugs of water, perhaps flavoured with fresh herbs or slices of lemon or grapefruit on every table. The prices would be decidedly premium. The artwork on the walls would be quirky but unique and classy. The background music would be unobtrusive and carefully chosen, and certainly not a local radio station blaring from a cheap radio behind the counter.

So the customer would know that the coffee shop’s brand was about uncompromising passion for superb coffee because they had experienced it, not because they had been shown the proposition statement.

But the proposition statement was what enabled the team to make all the decisions about the décor, the music, the furniture, and everything that delivered that brand experience to the customer. The customer never saw the proposition statement. They didn’t need to, because the brand delivered it.

The difference between a good proposition and a poor one

Some brand managers make the mistake of writing a quick proposition statement that says little more beyond making a claim that the brand is very good at what it does. (“Our brand is the leading supplier of office stationery, combining superb customer service with a passion for everything that we do.”)

Propositions like that don’t do anything to develop the brand. They don’t enable colleagues to make any decisions about the way that they work. Nor does a proposition like this shape the customer’s experience of doing business with the company, which is what defines the brand. So the proposition has failed.

A good proposition takes time to develop, but it is far more effective at creating a brand that customers will want to develop a relationship with.

The four criteria of a successful brand proposition

A strong brand proposition must be:

• Differentiating. It should say something about you that sets you apart from the competition. Claiming to care about customer service probably fails this test, because most companies would make that claim. For example, Dove uses models to promote its beauty products whose bodies don’t fit the usual stereotype of a female model. By doing so, it is cleverly positioning itself as the brand that understands that real beauty comes in all sizes.
• Attractive. An attractive brand is one that the customer is happy to develop a relationship with. People don’t develop relationships with features or benefits, so a good brand’s attractiveness is defined by its values and its personality or attitude. For example, Nike’s brand is summarised by its three-word strapline “Just do it.” This push-yourself-at-all-costs attitude is so attractive to its target audience that they are willing to wear T-shirts with the Nike logo, to demonstrate to their friends that they, too, share that attitude. While nobody doubts that their shoes are well-made, the brand is about much more than these functional benefits.
• True. There’s nothing worse, or more cringe-making, than a company trying to persuade people that it’s something that it isn’t. It’s the corporate equivalent of That Person who posts lots of inspirational quotes and wise sayings from the Buddha on Facebook in an attempt to brand themselves as a wise and enlightened guru, when everyone knows that they’re really just Kevin, the slightly creepy bloke from the Accounts department. A good brand avoids this by being rooted in truth. To revisit the Nike example, its core values of dogged determination are entirely demonstrated by the company’s history. (Nike very nearly went bust several times in the early years, and was rescued by the sheer hard work and belief of its founding employees. Phil Knight’s book Shoedog, in which the founder of Nike tells its story, is a surprisingly good read.)
• Consistent. Your customers should experience the brand every time they encounter it. Too many companies put most of their effort into developing an expensive brand advertising campaign, but ignore the less-than-perfect processes that the customer experiences when they try to do business with the brand. The brand is the experience of doing business with the brand, and it’s how people perceive the brand. In other words, the brand is the company’s reputation. And this reputation can be destroyed by a poorly worded standard letter, or a badly designed call centre script. A customer journey audit is the best tool to help you to make sure that your brand is protected. By listing every point where the customer meets the brand, and by reviewing what happens at each of these points, you can reassure yourself that the experience matches the brand. There’s a guide to completing a customer journey audit here.

What you’ll need before you start

To craft a brand proposition that meets all four criteria, you’ll need some information before you start. Here’s what you’ll need.

• Research about your competitors and their brand positionings, so that you can make sure that your proposition is distinctive and stands out from the competition.
• Research about your target audience – their needs, wants, values and aspirations – so that you’ll know that your proposition is attractive to them.
• Research about your company. You’ll need to know everything about its values, its history, its behaviour, its capabilities, its strengths and weaknesses and more, so that you can be certain that your proposition is rooted in truth.

There’s a guide to getting the right brand market research here.

Part 2: How to write your brand proposition statement

There’s an example of a brand propositions statement here, to show you what we mean by each of these ingredients.

A good brand proposition statement should be brief, but should be more than a list of words or bullet points, so that anyone could read and understand it. It should tell a compelling story about your brand. We recommend a two-page document, which should include the following ingredients.

Page one

Your manifesto: why you exist, the problem that you solve.

Start by writing a brief statement to explain why you exist and how you benefit your customers. First, state the problem that people have. Next, starting with the words “We exist to…”, explain how you solve this problem and make people’s lives better.

You should think beyond the obvious problem. For example, Persil is a laundry cleaning product, so the problem that it solves is that people’s clothes get dirty. But that’s not a very inspiring problem to solve, and it doesn’t differentiate them from the competition.

Instead, Persil have asked why people’s clothes get dirty, and whose clothes tend to get dirtiest. By doing this, they have worked out that children’s clothes get dirtiest, because they like to learn by playing outside and making dens, riding bikes and doing all the good outdoor things that a great childhood involves.

So their definition of the problem is that “Children are all too often prevented from learning through messy play, because parents are worried that they will spoil their clothes, and replacing children’s clothes is expensive.” By solving this problem, they have established a brand that cares about children’s development and which understands the needs of busy parents.

Finally, close your manifesto with a paragraph that states the benefit to the customer. This benefit should be an emotional, not a functional benefit. A functional benefit of a laundry liquid might be ‘clean clothes’. The much more important emotional benefit might be ‘the reassurance that I am a good parent, because I let my children play outside without worrying about whether I’ll be able to get their clothes clean afterwards.”

The manifesto is powerful, because it tells a story about your brand. Stories are far, far more memorable and relatable than any jargon-loaded brand models, like the brand onion, triangle, key and so on.

Page two

Brand cause

In one or two sentences, state why your brand matters. This should be a summary of the problem, and your role in solving it, that you described on page one.

For example, Persil might state their brand cause like this. “Too often, parents are made to feel that their kids shouldn’t play outside in case they get their clothes messy. We are the champions of childhood development and we take away this worry, by giving parents the reassurance that it’s ok to let their children play because we’ll take care of the inevitable consequences.”

Brand belief

This is the core of your proposition. This belief lies at the heart of your brand. It’s the reason why you are in business. So think carefully about what this is. For Persil, their belief is that children grow and learn best when they can play outdoors, and that any child deserves to do this as often as possible. You should state your brand’s belief in one or two sentences.

Brand values

Refer back to the research about your company and its real values. State the two or three values that underpin your belief and the way that you behave. Your research should have revealed the ways that your company demonstrates these values.

For example, JCB (the manufacturer of huge earthmoving equipment) might decide that their values are toughness and power. Andrex might state that their values are softness and strength. Harley Davidson’s values might be American freedom.

These values allow a company to decide whether their brand might credibly enter into new sectors. JCB’s values allowed them to diversify into a range of rugged boots and clothing. Harley Davidson’s values have enabled them to launch a wide range of products, including aftershave and clothing.

Importantly, these values are ownable, in a way that lazily generic values like ‘passionate’ or ‘customer-focussed’ really aren’t. Make sure that your values relate to what you do, and that you can demonstrate how and where they apply to the benefits that your brand provides.

As demonstrated by the examples above, your values should pack an emotional punch instead of being functional values such as ‘quality’ or ‘well-designed’.

Your target audience definition

State who you exist to serve. These should be people who are inspired by your values and your belief. Define them by their demographics, but also by a portrait of their attitudes and aspirations.

The reason to believe

Prove it.

Go back to your brand cause, where you have summarised the problem that your target audience experiences, and how you solve it. This is where you state why they should believe your claim. What is unique to your brand that enables it to solve the problem?

The emotional outcome

State how you benefit your customers, and what emotions they experience as a result.

For example, does your product make your customers feel like better, more caring, more successful parents (Persil)? Or does it make them feel that they are more successful and desirable because they belong to an exclusive and aspirational tribe (Beats by Dre headphones)? Or does it give them an affordable moment of pure self-indulgence in which they can take a few moments to step out of the chaos of family life to focus on themselves and their sensual needs (Lush toiletries)?

Tone of voice

How should your brand sound? This should cover all communications; the advertising, social media, the website (including any error messages), the standard letters and so on.

Just as you wouldn’t expect a close friend to suddenly start speaking in a formal, jargon-loaded way, you will need to make sure that your brand always speaks with a consistent voice – one that you’d expect from a brand with your values and belief.

List around three characteristics that define your brand’s tone of voice. If you can, give an example of someone who you’d expect to speak in this way.

For example, a provider of luxury rental apartments for young professionals might define their tone of voice as respectful, superlative, while remaining unstuffy: like Virgin Atlantic, not like Jeeves. A toy retailer specialising in toys that are designed to be educational might speak with a quietly caring and maternal tone of voice, like a favourite primary school teacher. If they sold toys that were designed to appeal to kids’ sense of adventure, the brand might speak in a more anarchic, daring tone of voice, like Rik Mayall’s character in the TV programme Bottom.

Finishing the document

Writing this document will have taken a long time and a great deal of thought.

Next, sleep on it. Go and do something else. Revisit it with a fresh mind after a day or two. Are you still happy with it? Does it contain any jargon? Show it to people that you trust, ideally from outside your department. Does it make sense? Do they recognise the brand from this document? Would they know what they should do, having read it?

Get as much honest feedback as you can. If the feedback stings a bit, take a step back and reflect on it. It might be fair, in which case it will enable you to improve this document before you show it to your board and to your CEO.

Whether you’ve written this document yourself, or have briefed a specialist agency to create it for you, take a moment to congratulate yourself on its completion. Too many brand professionals avoid writing a proper proposition statement, and their brand is lacklustre and poorly-defined as a result.

Part 3: what to do next

Once the document is completed, launch it. Show it to your board. Once you’ve got their approval, launch it to your colleagues across all departments, taking time to explain why it’s important and how it relates to them. Show them that it isn’t just a document for the brand and marketing teams.

Next, embed the brand by conducting a customer journey audit to find out how the customer currently experiences the brand at every point that they encounter it, and make adjustments to your processes and communications as appropriate.

You’ll find more details on the next steps in our guide to being the best marketing director your company has ever had, here.

Click here for an example of a brand proposition statement.

Your brand proposition statement is incredibly important. If you’d like specialist help with creating a proposition statement that will deliver real competitive advantage, please get in touch for a chat.