From time to time, I meet owners who have built their brand for themselves and wonder why it’s not catching on? Sure, you have to like what you are doing, you have to believe in it, you also have to think it’s worth doing. But ultimately, it has to be about solving problems for your audience or at the very least filling and fulfilling a desire they have. So the big question is, who is your brand for? If it is for your audience, then your products, services and experiences must communicate that. This is what will draw in your target audience rather than repelling them.

So how did a city, known for tobacco production just 60-70 years ago, become known as the City of Medicine? Also, what’s this got to do with rebranding? Well, it wasn’t very long ago that Durham was a “thriving site of tobacco manufacturing facilities…for nearly a century…until medical findings about the health hazards connected to smoking played a part in the weakening of Durham's tobacco industry”. Now, Durham is often referred to as the City of Medicine and is known for the medical research that is done there and in the rest of the research triangle. Even buildings that were once factories for producing tobacco products are now being used as medical research facilities.

A few years back, I was working at a coffee roaster doing education…which meant I did account management, inside sales, events, and a whole bunch of other things. One of the “other things” I was involved in, was communicating to our current clients about the new coffees that we were about to launch. Sounds simple, right? Wrong! Every single time a coffee was released, I remember it being an intense, grueling, and cumbersome month(s) long process. Once, I remember, we received a coffee early in the summer and didn't release it till we were well into the fall.