Your company mission plays a major part in the way you run your company — including who you hire, what you do with profit, even down to who your clients are. But most importantly, your mission will guide all of your branding and marketing efforts.
Your mission builds your brand. If your mission is about environmental values, you won’t want to promote tires being set on fire. An affinity for the environment denotes soft nurture and strong passion, which will first be seen in that environmental organization’s mission statement, and then carried through their brand.
And at its core, your brand is driven by who you are as a company — what is important to you, your north star. Your brand is just the channel through which your personality can cohesively synthesize with images and communication to encourage interest.
Tips for creating your “brandable” mission statement
- Use language that elicits an emotional response within the mission statement to communicate your brand
As human beings, we’re all emotional by nature. We want to feel connected, understood, and inspired. It’s important to create a mission statement with language that evokes emotions — that’s how you connect with your customers and draw them in.
Starbucks’ mission statement reads as: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.” Notice the use of the words “nurture” “spirit” “cup,” and “neighborhood”? All four of these words are intrinsically visual and emotionally-fueled. Pair those words with the personalization that also goes in-line with the phrase “one [something] at a time,” and you’ve got a robust foundation for brand growth.
- Create core values that build your mission up, making it easier to then use in your brand messaging
Your personal and organizational values are at the core of who you are as a company. These values include what you believe in and what makes you who you are. Values give your company personality while differentiating you from the rest of the pack. Values explain what you care about, and can help to guide your decision-making as a company. Your organizational values and mission can shape your messaging — how you talk to your customers and the tone you ultimately use within your marketing campaigns. And because, at its core, your mission statement represents who you are, it will become second-nature to build that ‘essence of you’ into your brand.
The Zappos.com mission statement is “To provide the best customer service possible.” This mission is carried through their employee’s philosophy (they call it the “WOW Philosophy), and speaks volumes to how successful an organization can be by sticking to the basics.
- The more simple the messaging behind your mission, the easier it is to bring into every piece of marketing your company creates
Look closely at Nike’s mission. “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. If you have a body then you’re an athlete.” This statement is very inclusive and brandable. You can see how they pull that mission through everything they do. Their website includes inspirational photos of beautiful and expert athletes performing. Their “Just do it” is a tagline that was born of their mission. It’s clear they have successfully used their mission to navigate through unfamiliar branding territory.
Sublime advice
At the end of the day, make marketing choices that align with your core beliefs. Because if your mission doesn’t align with your branding and marketing choices, you’ll leave a lot of confusion in your wake.
Brand-successful businesses consistently focus on customers and delivering remarkable experiences. They reflect that fierce consistency in their business blogs, in their customer interactions, and in their mission statements.
At Sublime Designs Media, we’re happy to collect, curate, and offer up helpful branding advice like this on our blog. But in case you need our branding expertise, contact us if you’d like more of our helpful suggestions and expertise in building a brandable mission. We’re always happy to help our clients best strategize their brands.