Your corporate commitment: What is a brand promise?

At a basic level, a brand promise is a declaration of assurance. It’s you, telling your customers what they can expect when they purchase your products and services.

A good way to look at it is as an extension of your company positioning statement. While your brand positioning statement gives context to your organization and explains why you exist to your customers, your promise is how your clients can differentiate you from your competition. A promise makes you more desirable, and relatable.

If your brand were a person, its brain would be responsible for the logical things, like your unique selling proposition and positioning. The way the person looks would be represented by your logo, and visual assets, while their voice would be driven by your marketing plans and personality. In this metaphor, the brand promise is the heart of your personified company, it’s the emotion that drives the brand to deliver a memorable experience.

A brand promise can be spelled out to the public through website pages, your corporate story, and even your tagline. However, the best brand promise definition will always be one that infuses the guiding values of your organization into everything you do and say. After all, a conflict between your brand promise and the way your business behaves can quickly cause problems for your company.

We’ve all seen companies that struggle with establishing a strong, and credible brand promise. From the corporation that claims to be family-friendly, but drives the team to work hefty overtime hours, to the company that claims to be all about efficiency but takes forever to deliver. The only way your brand promise can deliver value and loyalty for your brand is if you commit yourself to it.

Customers know a genuine promise when they see one. Your company’s pledge should be borne from your brand purpose, connected to your values, inspired by your mission, and delivered in every interaction you have with your clients.

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