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If you’re a frequent gym goer like me, you’ll know exactly what it feels like to go into a workout exhausted. Maybe you didn’t get enough sleep last night, or you didn’t eat enough before heading to the gym. Or maybe you didn’t eat at all.
Our bodies need energy to get through workouts and some caffeine isn’t enough. We need carbs and a bit of protein to push our bodies through lifting heavy or some intense cardio.
By not preparing our bodies for gym, we aren’t creating the optimal environment for our bodies to be at their best.
So why am I lecturing you about something as obvious as “when you do a strenuous activity your body will need energy and fuel to do it”?
Because it’s very similar to something that we see business owners and creatives doing every day. They focus on a single tree and not the entire forest. They hyperfocus on outputs, and not on the quality or purpose of those outputs.
If you’re following our gym analogy, they just worry about lifting the weights, not all of the things they need to do to get their body prepared to lift heavier weights AND to how to provide their muscles with the nutrients they need to get stronger.
Those entrepreneurs are skipping over a key piece of the overall brand building puzzle: how all your outputs contribute to the overall ecosystem of their brand as a whole.
We as entrepreneurs need to think of our brands as ecosystems. A collection of pieces living, breathing, interacting, and influencing each other.
What is an Ecosystem?
An ecosystem is defined as "a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment".
Ecosystems that we typically think of, like the ones in the rainforest or in the Amazon, have two main parts:
- The plants and animals/living organisms: Every ecosystem has native types of plants and animals that live, breathe, eat, grow, die, and interact with each other.
- The physical environment: The temperature, types of terrain, etc. that influence how the flora and fauna behave, live, and interact with each other and their environment.
Brands behave exactly like an ecosystem. They are composed of elements that interact with each other and are influenced by the environment they're in. The environment of your brand dictates what those living organisms need to live, breathe, and behave to survive.
What makes up a brand ecosystem?
Brands are made up of three parts: Environment, Elements and Organisms.
Environment
The environment is made up of the foundational ingredients that make your brand human. Those ingredients make up the psychological, cultural, and/or societal reason that you created this brand in the first place.
Things such as:
- Brand Purpose: why you started your brand/business and what sort of change do you want to see in the world/your community as the result of this work.
- Values: what you will or won’t do in the pursuit of completing this work. The values that you hold as a person are usually mirrored here.
- Mission: the actions that you’re dedicated to doing everyday in pursuit seeing your brand’s purpose come to fruition.
Every single business is started because that founder saw a piece of a conversation missing from the overall picture of their industry. And they believe that they are uniquely positioned to participate in that conversation and steer it into what they believe to be the right direction.
No matter how small you think your business is, this rings true for you.
The sum of your environment creates your positioning.
Your brand ecosystem’s environment is filled with all of the characteristics that fuel your positioning: which is the particular stance that you are taking in your industry. This stance dictates what your unique perspective is on the work that you do, who you do it for, why it’s important to do it your way.
Elements
Your brand elements are the result of and are directly influenced by your positioning. If your positioning changes down the line, these elements have to adapt and change with it.
The elements of your ecosystem are the following components:
- Target Audience: Who you’re actually talking to. These are the people that would align/agree with or see the most value in your positioning.
- Messaging: the different ways you’ll be communicating the different sides of your positioning and the value in it.
- Brand Voice & Personality: how you plan to verbally, visually, and psychologically communicate your brand’s positioning on and offline.
- Offerings: the goods and/or services you’re providing that align with that positioning as either a result of it or because of it.
Usually, things in your brand’s environment such as your purpose, values and mission don’t change as frequently, which is how many entrepreneurs are able to pivot or grow their businesses to serve different target audiences or change their messaging but the core of their brand is still intact.
Organisms
The organisms, or tangible outputs, of your brand ecosystem are things that can be "touched" either digitally or physically. These organisms are the expressions a brand uses to express to the audience in a multitude of ways different aspects of the brand’s positioning and messaging.
These organisms include things such as:
- Brand identity (logos, colors, patterns, etc.)
- Website
- Brand social media platforms
- Physical brand collateral and marketing
What happens when your ecosystem is out of balance
When your ecosystem is out of balance, basically when certain elements or organisms are not working in harmony with the environment, the brand runs the risk of diluting their messaging and failing to connect with their target audience in a way that’s meaningful, long-lasting and authentic.
Think of it like “missing the mark” or “not reading the room”.
For example, a brand that is putting out messaging that is not aligned with its values (or what they allowed their audience to assume that their values are) is trying to push a position onto its target audience that the audience doesn’t find to be valuable, interesting or authentic.
This can result in a lot of issues. One of the major issues that we see a lot here at Standard Operations with our clients is inefficient experimentation, such as:
- Constantly rebranding or redesigning websites in an attempt to chase current design or societal trends.
- Following generic advice from coaches or other “experts” that are not experienced in brand building, messaging, or design
- Dumping hours into creating resources/services (free or paid) without any data to back up if their audience is in need of those things or if they even align with the brand’s overall goals.
We’re not here to knock experimentation or trying out new things! We strive with every project to push our clients to take the preconceived notions that those in their industries have and work with us to subvert those expectations.
But what we won’t do, is inefficiently experiment with your brand ecosystem just for the sake of being edgy or different. We base all of our decisions, from headlines on web pages down to the psychology behind your brand’s color palette, on what you want the true essence of your brand to be and the change that you want to see happen in your industry and/or the world.
A new website or logo isn’t going to save your business.
Your brand is much more than a collection of tangible components or the outputs. A new website or a new logo will not save your business from a lack of understanding of the inner workings of your brand and what makes it different from your competitors.
That website or that logo is simply a component of a much larger ecosystem that is influenced by how strongly the inner workings of your brand is understood and honored.
Understanding and maintaining a healthy brand ecosystem is crucial for sustainable business growth. But it's not always easy to do on your own. That's where we come in. Together, we can create a strategy that truly reflects your brand's essence and resonates with your target audience.
