Protecting Your Brand Messaging

Protecting Your Brand Messaging

No, now is not the time to announce you have a “COVID-Special.” That’s it… that’s the entire blog.

A Brand is More than a Logo. 

A brand is how people feel when they think about you, what they associate with you and your values. These are very delicate times and you will see a massive amount of dedicated messaging based solely on establishing individual brand positions in our world. In the coming months, you will need to take several steps to protect your brand so that it survives not only our current environment but also remains relevant and respectful. Ensuring our clients have the appropriate messaging and tools available to them is one of the many ways we’re working to protect our clients and their brands.

Scrub Your Social Media and Placement Immediately.

Industry professionals schedule social content, digital ads and pre-roll placement days, weeks and months in advance — so it’s easy to forget that witty joke that was written three months ago is going to pop up at the most inappropriate time and will be horribly tone-deaf. Go through all planned media, and make the adjustments you need now. Freestyle has established contingency plans with all of our clients to ensure messaging remains clear and timely. One of Freestyle’s clients has over a month’s worth of social content developed and approved in advance. Their posts consisted almost entirely of (now canceled) group events and ways to socialize. (Uh oh!) We had to immediately cancel all scheduled posts and quickly develop alternative messaging and graphics within 3 days. (That’s a lot!)

Be Ready to Pivot in a Heartbeat.

What is today? How is it May? What happened to April? It feels like a week’s worth of news happens each day. Now is the time to make backup plans for backup plans. Give your team the talking points, verbiage, and messaging they need to successfully communicate with people outside of your brand and within. Freestyle has worked closely with our clients to fine-tune their messaging, PR, and video production timelines — providing them with talking points, timelines, and plans for each version of reality we get hit with next. 

Set up Google Alerts and Keep an Eye on Your Keyword Queries.

You have to keep a pulse on what might be said about your industry, competition and your own messaging. By staying up-to-date at all times you’re always prepared to create a well-crafted response to almost any situation. Freestyle’s digital team has been diligently working with clients to keep a close eye on their search results and competitor language. Freestyle wants to be sure our clients are never taken by surprise and are prepared for any possible search results.

These small steps and frank, honest conversations about your brand and possible pitfalls can go a long way in protecting your brand messaging. Freestyle is working with our clients to ensure they’re up-to-date and helping them past unseen hazards. If you need help navigating your brand messaging or have any questions, we’re here. Let’s talk.

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