Is your brand an outhouse, penthouse, jumphouse, or lighthouse?

There are all kinds of houses. Small houses and big houses. Houses for kids and houses for seniors. Houses you rent and houses you own. There are beach houses and mountain houses. Mansions and condos.

But what type of house is your brand? Whether you realize it or not, you can view your brand as a type of house. And just like a house, your brand better have a strong foundation. Like the three little pigs, if your brand house is built with straw or sticks, when the wolf (your competitors) come by they are going to blow down your house.

There are four house types you can categorize as your brand. The first three you probably want to avoid, while the fourth is one to achieve. Here they are:

(1)    Outhouse

You know what you do in an outhouse (insert your own joke here). If you’ve ever had to use a port-a -potty at a public event, you know how they smell. Rancid. Stale. Old. Disgusting. Do those words describe your brand? The reality is over time your brand can easily become stale. It can stink. Especially if you let it sit too long without attending to it (get the idea?). Every several years it’s a good idea to take a deep dive examination into your brand to determine if it’s still fresh or not. On a side note, one of the things we do in a marketing audit is the “smell test.” We actually smell your bathrooms to see what they are communicating about your brand.

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