3 BRAND BUILDING REALITIES EVERY TECH EXECUTIVE NEEDS TO KNOW IN 2023
Things to know if you want to build a successful Tech Brand.
Author; Teresa Aligbe
Building a successful tech brand goes far beyond great products, cool employees with their impressive job perks, and raising round and after round of dizzying figures. Now while all the aforementioned laurels are staples with and at winning tech brands, all 3 things also describe a decent enough number of Start Ups today.
Building a successful tech brand is about a set of fundamental rules that drive human psychology and speak to the psyche of a very experience-driven generation (Research from Bain and Company shows that over 72% of Millennials and a higher percentage of Gen Zs would choose an experience over a product). So today, I am going to be breaking down 3 fundamentals of successful tech brands in today’s day and age to show you how you can join them or retain your position if you already have among these premium players
1. Tech Products = Lifestyle Enhancers
Was the rave over Paystack really just about the novelty of making payments online or was it about the access to digital revenue streams and nationwide or even international reach for a small business and freelancer who would otherwise not have the platform to finance such a move? Reality Check №1 Consumers don’t really care about how great your product is. What they truly care about is how much it enhances their lifestyles and enables them to achieve their goals, and while a number of us may know this, we often seem to forget it when we launch our brand marketing and positioning efforts. Plainly speaking, any brand development that is product, feature, or service-focused in its communication will always miss the mark.
Take for instance the copies below, which of these 2 copies will pique your interest as a consumer seeking a solution and which would you wager was written by a Product owner or manager obsessed with their own innovation?
A. Discover Transcendent, our new savvy app changing the face of payments in Africa!
OR
B. Transcendent, the cure to a lifetime of stress-filled digital payments.
2. Culture Driving or Irrelevance — No Middle Ground
When Piggyvest came onto the scene, it wasn’t just about a great app that helped you save. No! It was the herald of a new dawn of structured and even income-based savings and investment culture for the sub-generation
groups I like to call mid and lower Millennials. When Bamboo came onto the scenes a few years ago, it would mark the advent of a culture of Investing (particularly long term) in international financial instruments to hedge against inflation and instability of the local currency for Millennials and Gen Zs, and this is the point. Your innovation and the solution you bring to market are always about more than any one product you put out. If anything, the products you put out are a reflection of the culture and transformation you are trying to drive. Your real competitive advantage as a tech brand goes beyond products and feature-based innovations, straight to the heart of culture; because If you are perceived and accepted as a “Driver” of a particular culture, you would have successfully created the brand equity that will carry over into any product you create that facilitates that same culture. Without this, all your company becomes in a sea of thriving startups with interesting products is just another trendy new name with a fancy new app.
3. Brand Communities are the Holy Grail of Brand Building Today
It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of brand communities. Think of your brand community as an Army of Loyalists — who are unpaid but effectively serviced Brand Ambassadors and Brand Influencers who when satisfied and effectively curated can drive your brand to unfathomable heights.
Take Taylor Swift Fans (Swifites as they are famously dubbed) for instance. Less than a week ago, the host of the 64th Grammy Awards Trevor Noah humorously asked Taylor Swift if she could get her fans to drive down the rising price of eggs in the US, and she offhandedly quipped that they would get right on it and I quote “there is really nothing they can’t do”. Shortly after the price of eggs infamously dropped by 13%(Taylor’s lucky number) and while some Swifties tried to take credit for it, there was a more practical reason for this phenomenon (the outbreak of bird flu), but this is entirely besides the point. The reality is that Swifties just like many other fan communities are notorious for driving both social and sometimes economic trends in favour of the celebrity camp or community which they identify with.
Now while the dismissive thing would be to view this as an “entertainment thing” avoid it because the principle is exactly the same with brands. Whatever or Whoever people love and “Identify” with (this is really the key), they tend to take it upon themselves to protect and uphold.
So, If you are able as a brand owner or manager, to successfully design a lifestyle and culture your target audience is able to not only key into but start to perceive as an identity marker and socio-cultural differentiator, you
are well on your way on your way to building a powerful brand community capable of driving your Start-Up to remarkable heights. Think Apple!
In summary, as you focus on sales, fundraising, and all the very real and important realities of building a startup, don’t forget to;
1. Articulate the enhanced lifestyle or experience upgrade your brand is
promising to your target audience.
2. Identify the culture your brand is setting in motion or transforming and
build your communication strategy around that.
3. Invest in creating a brand worthy of a community and then carefully
curate and empower that community.
Teresa Aligbe is a communications expert with almost a decade’s experience building a broad range of brands including; StartUps, Luxury, Lifestyle, and Enterprise-Level brands. She is currently the Communications Director at Phenom Communications a boutique; strategy, brand development, and public relations consultancy building and positioning premium corporate brands and rising sector leaders.
