Adding to Your Brand

We've talked at length about establishing a brand, defining a brand, and all sorts of different ways to work with and leverage a brand. But what if you need to add to it? Incorporating a new element into your brand can be a real challenge, especially if this element is something that is also entirely new to your organization.

McDonald's is working with this adjustment right now. The chain known for convenience, value, and consistency is now looking to build its "green" credentials and hopefully build this into its brand--not just for use as a PR tactic. The challenge here is twofold:

1. Can McDonald's actually make a big enough splash with green activities that their efforts will actually mean something?
2. If #1 is accomplished, can this be integrated successfully into the McDonald's brand?

Since this is something fairly new for the company, McDonald's needs to find a way to properly integrate its green initiatives into its communications. Much like any other group adding a new brand element, careful planning will occur, the new element will be installed across the organization's internal business processes, and finally, integrated little by little into external communications (ads, packaging, promotions, etc.).

One of the largest hurdles to overcome during this process is the check to make sure this new elements gels with the existing brand. If it does not, there is a bigger problem: why are you adding this in the first place if it doesn't make sense for the organization? Without passing this check, you'll end up shoehorning an incompatible element into your brand and sew the seeds of instability and inconsistency.

Source: Warner, Melanie. Large Fry. Fast Company, April, 2009.