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Ahoy, Branding Crew! Danielle Gagner Talks Brand Positioning, Ep #57

Ben Johnson
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Episode 57

With Benjamin Johnson and Danielle Gagner

There are two sides to marketing in the charity world: fundraising and branding. Both are essential, but it’s time to give the branding crew some love! On this episode, Ben sits down with Anchor Marketing President Danielle Gagner to discuss why marketers need communication skills, the importance of branding, the prerequisites for a rebrand, creating intergenerational loyalty, and using data and branding to produce a strong sense of identity in donors.

You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...

  • The marriage of marketing and communication skills [0:09]

  • Expanding a narrow understanding of brand and the prerequisites for a branding overhaul [5:11]

  • When rebranding doesn’t work and creating intergenerational loyalty through branding [14:56]

  • Broadening the concept of philanthropy for people outside of the religious context [23:26]

  • Mining the data iceberg and final thoughts on branding [25:39]

Building a sandbox

Many of an organization's branding problems can be boiled down to a narrow understanding of branding. Branding is so much more than your colors, logo, and typography. Danielle explained that creating branding for an organization should be like coming up with a metaphorical person. What do they sound like? What is their ethos? Knowing your mission, vision, and values is integral to bringing your brand to life in the real world. Every branding department's goal should be building a sandbox to play within. Strict branding doesn’t help any more than loose branding does. A clearly outlined sandbox allows you to create new and interesting ideas that still reflect the core beliefs of your brand.

Look before you leap

Putting an organization through a rebrand can be a complex and costly process. That is why it’s so important to ensure the necessity of a rebrand before springing into action. Danielle’s number one step to determining whether an organization needs a rebrand is conducting what she calls a Discovery Session. In this session, she gathers key stakeholders of an organization to uncover the brand disparities causing friction and identify common threads that can be used to weave a more cohesive brand tapestry. What’s different and effective about Danielle’s approach is that the term key stakeholders are not limited to owners and executives. It’s also the people who have to use the brand everyday, interact with it, and understand it enough to communicate it to the masses. Those are the perspectives that add a deeper richness to the branding conversation and can most accurately communicate what works and what doesn’t.

The power of intergenerational loyalty

An often overlooked and highly effective aspect of marketing is intergenerational loyalty. Young children tend to develop a sense of nostalgia-based loyalty for the things that their parents are passionate about and support. Consider how the love of college and professional sports teams is passed down from generation to generation. These kids could grow up and live in a completely different geographic location but will never forget how much their dad loved the Toronto Blue Jays. The same can be said for nonprofits and charitable organizations! The cost of putting a coloring page in your newsletter pales in comparison to the potential legacy gifts you could receive in the long run. Charities that seek to connect with and engage the children of their donors are setting themselves up for generational success.

Resources & People Mentioned

Branding Resources

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