Tribal Branding: Know Like Trust Series

This post is the final installment of the 3-part series on how to get customers to feel that they 'know, like and trust' your brand. The series was motivated by the need to create social media management (SMM) strategic content pillars. I think that, if I applied the 3 target behaviors / feelings to top, middle and bottom funnel positions, each one would apply in that order; ie 'know' will apply to the top, 'like' to the middle and 'trust' to the bottom. ... or depending on market needs, like when an unknown brand faces a huge challenge of gaining trust in expertise regarding a high-stakes problem, 'trust' and 'like' may overlap or be swapped within the cycle (of a month or whatever your expected cycle period towards conversion).

Even if your marketing campaigns have been successful in getting many people to know and perhaps even trust your brand, that does not mean that they will necessarily like your brand. You therefore need to connect emotionally, to have an emotional relationship with your market, ie you need to build brand affinity with customers. Afterall, brand affinity transcends brand awareness (which, as illustrated below, is only the first and most commercially beneficial of 4 levels of brand affinity). If developed successfully, brand affinity can motivate evangelism, the highest of the 4 levels. By such a point, customers make favorable purchase decisions based on emotional bonds with your brand. Needless to say, when measuring levels of affinity, the emotional connection is most important.

 

Brand affinity levels	Nature of consumer relationship with the brand
1.brand awareness	Consumer seeks to meet basic needs. Any product that does that meets basic needs will do. Won't go out of their way to get the brand.
2. infatuation	Consumer trusts the brand because the brand adds some value to their life. Consumer feels affection, appreciation or even obsession towards the brand.
3. fidelity	The consumer can truly relate to the brand values*. Consequently, the consumer feels an emotional connection and seeks out your brand specifically.  * Here are examples of core values to which consumers may relate. the style and image provided by a clothing brand very high quality images taken from Apple iPhones
4. evangelism	The consumer believes in your brand to such an extent that they want others to use the brand.

 

For the sake of making this post on the consumer's 'liking' or 'brand affinity' with a brand as clear as possible, I will discuss it in its extreme application; 'tribal branding'. However, recognize that, depending on the brand, tribal branding exists on a continuum. For instance, on one hand, Apple has applied it to the maximum extreme, while un-branded commodities not at all on the opposite extreme and  finally, most other marketed brands fall in the middle with varying levels of moderate tribalism. The majority of brands are in the center because they know that tribalism is hugely profitable but respond with only lukewarm attempts to tribalize consumers by claiming the most recently trending core values (like eco-friendliness). However, their corporate strategizing never quite achieves the same tribalism as Apple. 

Seth Godin's book 'Tribes' explains how to create tribes. Here is a quick breakdown of the take aways from that book along with some of my ideas on corresponding content pillars.

Lesson 1: Connection

Connection is the sine qua non of successful tribalism. Tribes comprise a group of people connected to each other, a leader and an idea. The idea may be based on anything like religion, politics, racial or other basis of marginalization, sports and so on. The communication is critical because back and forth messaging among members intensifies core values and attracts new like-minded members. Essentially, the communication is a catalyst for growth. Needless to say, social media communication makes tribalism easier than ever. In short, to transform any group of people into a tribe, 2 requirements must be met as follows. 

1. a shared interest
2. communication among members

Needless to say, connection is associated with the strategy of growth and tactical content pillars like ''Traction', 'Core Values' and, if you ask members to support each other and or ask qualification questions (about interests) as a pre-requisite to membership, also 'Ask / Participate'.

Lesson 2: Pull Marketing

Because the interest is so niche, the messaging is tailor-made to narrowly attract only the tribe's members (not everyone). It therefore pulls only those who share the tribe's passion. (See Push & Pull marketing). Needless to say, pull marketing is associated with the tactical content pillar like 'Core Values' with very specialized content. One option is to use specific questions from the consumer's perspective as the titles of your posts, ie rather than write generic titles. Social listening tools can help you to generate questions. For instance, rather than write a title as 'product x [your brand name]', write it was 'Is method a-b-c the best way to resolve problem y? -- or -- solutions for problem y'. Either way, establish the details in your brand voice and tone. 

Lesson 3: Leaders are heretics.

Heresy relates to having beliefs that go contrary to norms that are generally accepted in the broader community (like religion, sexual preferences and so on). In other words, they challenge the status quo. Example(s):

• When it was generally felt that computers would not be desirable at home, Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple suggested otherwise, likely seeming a little crazy by most who could not imagine his vision. However, Apple's Macintosh computer introduced the world's first home computer and therefore revolutionized the modern world. 

Lesson 4: Tribes are assembled, NOT created.

Godin explains that, before the formation of a tribe, its eventual members, although still disconnected and scattered somewhere in the world, they lay in wait to be connected. At the sight of a catalyst, they will join and do not need to be schooled on the interest.

• Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Black Twitter followers were not trained in a class room. Instead, they suffered for while and eagerly awaited their opportunity to be connected. Consequently, when the opportunity arose, they were eager to join.

Lesson 5: The tribe is not for everyone.

This is where I think many businesses fall short of the full tribal glory. I think this failing is due to lack of authenticity. Tribalism is about true believers with a burning desire to connect with other true believers. Their efforts are not staged through corporate strategy (alone) and so they can become cohesive simply because their intrinsic interest in the cause is sufficiently strong to sustain their focus. In other words, the focus is not about vanity metrics such as likes and views. Rather, they are more interested in drawing their members closer (than growing numbers). Wired Magazine's Kevin Kelly suggested that tribes only need 1,000 true members, ie enough for a core group of passionate, deeply 'heretic' members to sustain them. In short, leaders focus on their tribe, ignoring everyone else. This lesson corresponds with the tactical pillars 'Transparency' (Authenticity), 'Values' and 'Beliefs'. The rules for these pillars will suggest unapologetic specificity in content, brand voice and tone, etc. Some might even encourage exclusivity.

• White supremacist (WS) groups are unapologetic about their zero tolerance policies regarding membership.

As far as possible, managing a corporate tribe should involve having only the right partners, suppliers, employees and so on. 

Lesson 6: Tribes become movements (with the help of leadership)

After membership has reached critical mass, the tribe becomes a movement, ie it can bring about change in the world. Do not take this power lightly. Social media movements have swayed elections. The movement comes into being when the leader does the following.

1. Tell a story (to people who really want to hear). The story highlights the vision for a better future (whatever that means to the tribe).
2. Connect the tribe members to each other and themselves
3. They lead the movement with direction and purpose.
4. They make change occur in ways that no single member could have done alone.

Lesson 7: Leaders use a combination of the & leadership Cs

Leaders all accept their leadership roles and use a combination of the following elements. They

1. challenge the status quo.
2. build a culture
3. are curious  (about the world, how it works and how their vision can work)
4. are or become charismatic to attract and motivate followers
5. facilitate communication among members and themselves
6. commit to the cause
7. facilitate connection among members.

Video (above): Tribes by Seth Godin, Animated Book Summary by YouTuber MentalEFit Book Club.

Video (above): 'How the Dogtown Z-Boys changed skateboarding culture (tribal branding)' by YouTuber Intermark Group. 

The Dogtown Z-Boys was a small group of skateboarders in the early 1970s with an intrinsic interest in skateboarding long before the tribe formed. The earliest skaters were outcasts or 'heretics' by nature. The concept of skateboards was an adaptation of ocean surf boards that were adapted to the land. Their membership was exclusive on the basis of psychological characteristics and unique skating styles that evolved naturally into being from their interaction with each other. For instance, given their ocean surfing background, they did things that other land-only skaters did not, like bring their bodies close to the ground, touch the ground and so on (in other words, an aspect of their 'heresy'). They mastered this style inside of empty swimming pools at homes up for sale during a Californian drought. Craig Stecyk of a local newspaper  (Dogtown Chronicles) assumed the leadership role by publishing the group's symbols, images, core values and ideas. (Keep in mind that this occurred several decades before the internet). This leadership brought together like-minded, otherwise disconnected members and established their culture. They also wore uniforms to demonstrate to the world and themselves their cohesiveness. They even had a physical location where they met each other. Ultimately, the tribe transformed the initially basic trends of skateboarding into its current status as a mainstream extreme sport of skating up smooth vertical surfaces of modern day.

Apple has been able to create a loyal tribe that is willing to wait overnight outside of their doors for new releases, with hopes of paying much more than the competition for their products. In keeping with lesson 1 (regarding a shared interest for being outstanding in graphics and creating a space to encourage easy, direct communication), Apple engages heavily with its market over social media platforms. For instance, its Instagram posts have featured very striking images from customers using their latest iPhone model. Starting from their revolutionary 1984 introduction of home computers for personal use, they go out of their way to establish the idea that the brand is different, in an unapologetically superior way. Their tagline 'Think different' reflects this and is somewhat of a call to action for persons wanting to be seen as an outsider, non-conformist and revolutionary like the brand was in 1984.

TO DO

1. Research and identify your tribe as intimately as possible. To this end, create a target customer profile.

2. Be clear about your unique value proposition / UVP.  The UVP does not need to be only one value. It can be a collection of those values that are most meaningful to your target market.

3. Engage with your tribe, listening closely and responding accordingly.

4. Connect emotionally with your tribe. (This is a must).

5. Create strategic content pillars that incorporate the elements of tribalism. Here is a rough example that incorporates elements of brand tribalism for introducing a new brand whose state of being unknown must overcome sales objections of distrust based on the market not knowing and consequent distrust of the brand's expertise. Notice how the same tactical pillars are applied to each of multiple segment-specific thematic pillar (like plus-sized women's wear, regular-sized women's wear and so on within a single women's line). Those tactical pillars were inspired by the concepts of tribalism and Fastnet's 9 tactiical pillars. 

ToF lead generation  / Objective(s): to be known (through trust, seek qualify members)

• Thematic pillar 1 of .. segments
• Traction
• Value
• Results (Pull title)
• Authority (expertise)
• Social Proof (Pull title)
• Transparency
• Thematic pillar 2 of  .. segments
• same as above (s/a)
• Thematic pillar 3 of  .. segments
• same as above (s/a)

MoF lead nurturing  / Objective(s): to tribalize customer (like, trust)

• Thematic pillar 1 of .. segments
• Value  (Pull title)
• Transparency
• Results (Pull title)
• Heresy  (Pull title)
• Ask / Participate
• Solution
• Thematic pillar 2 of  .. segments
• same as above (s/a)
• Thematic pillar 3 of  .. segments
• same as above (s/a)

BoF lead conversion / Objective(s) to sell and retain customer with trust inspiring content)

• Thematic pillar 1 of .. segments
• Solution  (Pull title)
• Ask / Participate (Community communication)
• Thematic pillar 2 of  .. segments
• same as above (s/a)
• Thematic pillar 3 of  .. segments
• same as above (s/a)

CONTENT RELATED TO BRAND LOVE (TRIBAL BRANDING)

• Know, Like and Trust Series
• Tribalism is an extreme form of lifestyle branding.
• Brand voice and tone
• This article relates to B2C tribal branding / brand affinity. However, B2B brand affinity is also noteworthy. Third party research suggests that that clear top drivers are Trust and customer service. Read third party articles about this topic by Marketing Charts.
• When done correctly, tribalism is able to get customers to make buying decisions based on emotional bonds.
• Emotional branding and marketing.
• Branding: Core values
• Social media content management
• Persuasion technique
• Noteworthy case studies of corporate tribes not include in this post are Tesla, Nike

Brand Knowledge: Know Like Trust Series

This short post is part of the 'Know, Like & Trust' series. For background, see the first installment regarding trust . The primary aim of this series is to discuss how to encourage audiences to know, like and trust brands in the social media content management process.

Since a brand's aim to become as humanized as possible, brand knowledge can be understood as being similar to knowing a person. Just imagine; you feel like you know someone who you have seen enough times in a consistent way that you can identify them in a crowd or describe them to some one else; because you know their values, you can predict their actions and are even willing to buy new product releases without getting details; you are so familiar what they bring to the table that you can recall them only on the basis of what they mean to your life. In short, brand knowledge closely relates to brand awareness.

Within the context of social media content management, I suggest that brand knowledge may fit in tactical content pillars like 'Traction' (involving social or other hot topics that can go viral using virality pillars), 'Beliefs', 'Values' (involving lifestyle branding and core values) and 'Social Proof' (regarding values and beliefs). However, regardless of the tactical pillar, keep the following in mind. 

• Teach brand recognition to consumers. For instance, show brand assets in a consistent way in all posts. Be clear about your brand's voice and tone.
• Deliver value beyond the product. In other words, create content to inform, educate or entertain leads. Lifestyle branding is a case in point. 
• Patagonia's 50-minute video called 'Tribal water' discusses the matter of access to water for Native Americans in the US. The content is what one would imagine like-minded friends might discuss because it touches on deep values and beliefs they share. Consequently, the video aligns with the brand's core values so as to gently woo like-minded customer friends. While the product appears in the video, Patagonia never used hard sell tactics. Instead, its delivered value is the friendly chat itself.   
• Make the content shareable, after all, you want people to know about the brand. Having people share content within their personal sphere of influence is great advertising.
• Hold contests. Doing this with other brands (with the same target market) will boost brand awareness.

CONTENT RELATED TO BRAND KNOWLEDGE

• Social media content management
• Know, Like and Trust Series
• Brand awareness

Brand Personality - Color Palettes 101

Brand colors    

Brands use the psychology of color to convey their personality and to trigger emotional responses from the target market. For instance, if you want consumers to trust your brand and feel safe (possibly because of the potential sensitive nature of your industry and product), you may prefer blue. If you are unsure, seek inspiration from several logos and images that belong to direct competitors or are somehow associated with your brand. These can be used for selecting your main brand colors.

Color palettes, What are they?

A color palette is the full range of colors that your graphic designers will use for creating any user interface (UI) presentation (like a website, software and so on).  ^ 

Why color palettes (versus one color)?

Color palettes are useful for knowing how to combine colors effectively within a single presentation. Color combinations are noteworthy because they render an overall effect that is often very different to what is likely from presenting each single component color alone. This point is most evident when looking at a single logomark against different backgrounds with varying levels of contrast. In short, the higher the contrast, the greater the logomark will stand out and be effective because humans tend to look more readily at elements that have the greatest level of contrast.

This is therefore used strategically. A common example is when webpage users select an item that becomes more contrasty (like primary action buttons*) while the other options become less contrasty. This technique allows users to recognize the less contrasty elements as representing parts of the presentation but temporarily suspend their attention from those currently less important elements (like secondary action buttons).

Furthermore, color palettes are included in the brand style guidelines to establish the only colors to be used by UI graphic designers or other creators. This ensures that the brand's appearance remains consistent across all interfaces and other touchpoints.

*primary action buttons are usually calls to action to complete current tasks (or strong warning like to 'cancel' irreversible actions). Unlike 'secondary actions' that blend into the background, these buttons should be eye catching. ^ 

The composition of a color palette

Typically, palettes consist of the following components. 

• a very dark color that is either black or nearly black. In most cases, this color is used for text. Otherwise, it may also be used as a background color. 
• a very light color that is either white or nearly white. In most cases, this color is used for backgrounds and clearance (aka 'white space'). Otherwise, it may also be used as text colors on a highly contrasting dark background color. 
• a brand color that relates most to the emotional trigger you want your brand to have on the target market. Consequently, you will use this color in the most often as the focal point, not necessarily the color with the highest usage rate. This is evident in the case of McDonald's whose focal color is yellow, even though red is often used as a background for the arches.

• An accent color. This color originates from within the same color family, typically from the same side (warm or cool) of the color wheel as the other color. Sometimes, high contrast can be achieved by selecting colors that sit at 180 degrees, ie opposite to each other on the color wheel. 

• A 'contrasty' color. This is another, but more extreme accent color. However, it contrasts with the others. It should be very eye catching and is often used for call to actions (CTAs) buttons and hyperlinks.

Regardless of how many colors you have generated, all of them may be divided into the following 3 groups.

1. primary               aka dominant (the background)
2. secondary             aka complementary (often but not necessarily the brand color)
3. accents

Some brands have variations to these standards classifications. 

For instance, Atlassian's 3 palettes are as follows. 

1) a primary palette (with 2 neutrals and a brand color)

2) a secondary palette (with contrasts / accents of 5 colors) and 

3) multiple 'extended palettes' (with tint and shade variations of the other 2 palettes).   ^ 

 

How color palettes are used: the 60-30-10 rule

The primary, secondary and accent colors are assigned usage ratios that add up to 100%. The 60-30-10 rule has been well established in and borrowed from various fields that include interior design. As a sidenote, it is just a guide that can be used with some level of flexibility. However, since it has rendered reliable results in different fields, it is a good guideline, especially for beginners.

60% of a user interface (UI) usually comprises the background color. These colors are often neutral (like white, black or colors very close to them). (Neutral colors are subtle. Among the most common ones are black, white, brown, cream and gray. Although they are abundantly used in design, they often go unnoticed by layman users without experience in graphic design and brand management. They are so called because they often lack 'hue undertones' and are therefore thought of as being 'pure', and therefore rendering a very 'natural' feeling. The types of colors assigned to this dominant role can change between the neutrals and brand colors. For instance, bold designs like a special landing pages may assisgn a bold brand color as the 60% dominant color. See the illustration of this below.

30% is usually made of main elements like text. Brand colors are often used to this extent. However, that is not necessarily the case.

10% is made of accent colors that add contrast and interest to the page. These may be used to draw attention like calls to action (CTAs) buttons and hyperlinks. This percentage should be kept at its minimum because the contrast with the other colors tends to be very loud and, depending on your particular palette, may become intolerable beyond this point. For this reason, the common practice of swapping the assignment of the other colors between primary and secondary does not generally apply to these types of color.

Here is a palette. Before comparing it with the application of the 60-30-10 rule on the webpage below, note that black and white are interchangeable  because they are in the same 'primary' palette. One can easily be swapped out for the other if that alternative creates sufficient contrast. Like the black and white, the light and hot pink can also be used interchangeably or in combination as the accent colors because they belong to the 3rd 'accent' palette. On these basis, the large white letters are using the black assignment of space and the hot pink image below the button is part of the pink allocation.

On this bold landing page; the palette's blue is used at a rate of 60% (in the background), its white at 20% (in the large print) and its pink at 10% (in the tiny print and secondary color when the button is rolled over). (Notice how, although the white and black can usually be substituted within this palette, the black can not be used below because it does not contrast sufficiently with this background).

DOMINANT: blue
COMPLEMENTARY: white (or black)
ACCENT: light pink or hot pink

When users scroll down, the webpage presentation switches the space allocations for the same palette of colors. The 'white' is now used at a rate of 60%, the purple is now at 30% and the black is at 10%. 

DOMINANT: white (or black)

COMPLEMENTARY: blue or pinks

ACCENT: black

The poster immediately below follows the same 60-30-10 rule (for the most part). 

60%     neutral color: white 

25%    completementary: yellow

15%   3 contrasting colors

             10%     green

             2.5%    red

             2.5%    black

^  

 

How many palettes do you need?

Each brand varies of course. However, consider the examples above in which the neutral and contrasting colors comprised multiple color options. These colors will therefore be part of their respective palettes. On that basis, a single brand usually has multiple palettes as opposed to only 3 colors. As discussed above, Atlassian, a software company, offers 3 palettes, the 'extended' of which offer further numerous tint and shade variations for the earlier palettes. Keep in mind that color palettes are designed to provide all the possible colors creators can ever use. On that basis, provide sufficient options.     ^  

How to make a color palette ... or several palettes from one brand color

Color palette generators like a mycolor.space (a free online color palette generatspaceor) produce numerous palette options based on your given color. The given color always appears first in these palette options. In this case, the given color was #E31511. 

However, if you need to customize palettes, you can use the following steps. 

Within a color picker, select a color you are certain to use. You can use an image color picker to select a color from any image that you upload. Once you have the code for that image, enter the color into the color picker as pictured below.

Step 1.  Select a brand color. See how above. I will use the following to illustrate. This color will be the center of our palette. 

#E31511    Crimson

                                                                                                     ^  

Step 2. Create a color family 

From this point, create several colors that are lighter and darker than the brand color. For this illustration, I will create 4 lighter colors (the process of which can be replicated to create 4 darker ones). 

To create the 4 lighter colors, adjust the a) saturation and b) hue to arrive at different colors. As pictured below, imagine an arch that extends from the top left corner (that is closest to pure white), runs directly through the brand color and then ends in the bottom right color (that is closest to pure black). Select varations by plotting points along the curved path of this arch.

This process involves moving your mouse to those new plot points to find the additional colors that you like. You can also use the sliding tool to move away from the starting color. If you are going to select 4 different colors in the lighter range, it might be helpful to first establish the farthest selection plot point and then search for acceptable colors that are around equidistant points along the arch. In this example, if I want the lightest of my lighter colors to still feel related to red, I may stop at a sallow color as below before selecting the other points that are closer to the central point.

Continue this process until you like the new colors that are noticeably different from earlier ones. Here are the lighter colors is the emerging palette.

#E31511    Crimson

#E28751    terracotta

#F3b089    Tacao

#F7f1a8      Sandwisp

#F0f1cd  ≈ Tahuna Sands

Continue to arrive at the more saturated (ie darker) colors along the arch and moving the slider. (Not illustrated here).        ^ 

Step 3: Create 'tint' and 'shade' color variations

Variations of a single color are made by adding tints (ie more pure white) and shades (ie more pure black). Online variation generators typically generate variation options in 10% increments. On that basis, you can apply the same percentage of tint or shade to all the colors of your palette so far. This will create tints and or pastel variations. To find varitions for each color within the color family you created in the previous step. scroll down to the 'variations' section of the color picker (as pictured below using the brand color). 

Select variations with the level of tint you like. If I select 40%, I will apply 40% in the same way to all other of the colors in the color family from the previous step.

#E31511    Crimson  (original)

#Ee7370     ≈ Froly   (lighter variation)

#E28751    Terracotta (original)

#Eeb797     Tacao   (lighter variation)

#F3b089    Tacao (Original)

#F8d0b8     Danny Cream   (lighter variation)

.. and so on.

Repeat this process for lighter and darker variations. Of course, the darker variations require you to select 'shades' at 40%. Upon completion, you should have a range that looks like this. Ensure that there is sufficient variation among the 3 variations of any single color.

At this point, you can select parts of the palette that you like to be included into a 3-component palette (with 2 interchangeable neutrals, a brand color and a contrasting color). To make this final selection, consider the level of contrast you need. See below how 3 new palettes emerged in this example.

You can create even more palettes from these new ones. For instance, you can use this smaller color family as the basis for finding new variations (using the same process from above). See a new palette with variations highlighted below.

As a fun fact and as illustrated below, you can even overlay a color filter onto any palette to arrive at entirely new colors.

 ^ 

Step 4: Establish color rules for your brand style guidelines

Once you have established the 3 components of your palette (ie primary, secondary and accents), create the color-related rules that must be added to your brand style guidelines that are based on acceptable levels of contrast. 

Since primary and secondary colors can be used for backgrounds, test for acceptable contrast between them and elements like your logomark, wordmark, buttons of different contrasting colors, hyperlinks, font sizes, accent shapes and so on. Apply the same content to these different backgrounds, change the colors of each content as needed and then compare and contrast them until you can establish the rules for creators. See the demonstration (below) of this process and how to then apply the rules on a webpage.

 

Other rules are based on conditions. For instance. some brands allow greater use of contrast (in the form of illustrations) when brand awareness is already well established.  ^ 

CONTENT RELATED TO BRAND PERSONALITY - COLOR

Brand personality

Brand Positioning, Strategy

Brand style guidelines

Free tools for creating color palettes

Free online color picker. My favorite. Select colors from any image,  automatic suggested variations, suggested combinations, automatic conversioins among 8 code formats including hexadecimal and CMYK. 

Create color palette in Inkscape (YouTube video)

Free online color palette generator: Mycolor.space. This tool generates different palettes from the single dominant color you enter.

Free online color palette generator: coolors.co  .

^