From Atomic Habits to Atomic Branding

James Clear’s book ‘Atomic Habits’ is inspirational. Being easily distracted and curious, perhaps even a little chaotic, his theory has given me the perfect counterbalance to these tendencies. It’s changed the way I think and operate daily, which of course is the whole point of the book; ‘changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years.’ I’ve found myself applying his rules, not just for myself personally, but also as a parent and a coach. However, I never expected them to play a role in brand management.

I’ve talked before about the importance of embedding. Whether you're embedding values, brand essence, brand identity, or any guiding policy on group behaviour, if you don’t take the time to embed the rules into your organisation, all that work is for nothing. You can facilitate the most inclusive creation of a brand personality possible, but if there aren’t structures in place to influence ongoing daily behaviour, it’s all for nothing; your best endeavours are doomed to disintegrate daily.

if there aren’t structures in place to influence ongoing daily behaviour, it’s all for nothing

And there it is, the first parallel. You start a habit with the best of intentions, but if it’s based on outcomes rather than identity, you’re swimming against the tide. Don’t say you’re going to lose 20 lbs. Rather, ask yourself, how would a slimmer person behave, then assume that identity. The weight then falls off. The parallels for brand personality are almost uncanny. You’ve just gone through a powerful and inclusive process of developing your brand identity, but in order for it to generate brand equity over time, you can’t just ask people to assume the identity. You’ve got to live the identity; assume it, day in, day out, through every representative, at every touch point, time and time again. Small incremental actions will accumulate to reinforce your chosen identity over time. In short, decide what you want your brand to be, then prove it daily with little wins. On that basis then, it doesn’t seem too far stretched that we might describe this approach as ‘Atomic Branding’.

The most powerful part of James Clear’s theory for me is the Habit Loop. I wonder; what treasures might be uncovered if I applied the same four rules of the Habit Loop to embedding a brand identity?

The Habit Loop works around the academically understood stages of habit formation; cue, craving, response and reward. Clear outlines an approach to each stage to aid in building good habits and breaking bad ones. So, let’s start with the first stage; cue. If you want to build a good habit, you need to get good at identifying the cues, so he encourages you to ‘make them obvious’. When we apply this to embedding Brand Identity, it highlights the importance of a properly executed and ongoing Customer Touchpoint Analysis. If behavioural change starts with awareness, then pouring time into building that awareness as a team is essential. Much like habits, focusing on time and location across your brand’s activities is a solid place to start in identifying the most influential cues. Which brand touch points hold the greatest impact for your largest audiences in terms of emotion invested and time spent? Similarly, there are going to be situations where business demands and expectations are going to encourage you to behave out of character. Much like bad habits, you need to find ways to reduce the brand’s exposure to such cues, and to do that you have to identify them first.

For the second stage in the Habit Loop, ‘craving’, Clear tells us to ‘make it attractive’. He goes on to highlight that behaviours are attractive when they help us fit in. It doesn’t take a genius to see some symmetry with brand resonance and customer understanding. Clearly, fitting in with your chosen community is of vital importance in branding. Customer understanding and empathy need to be an endless pursuit. To mirror, and thus ‘fit in’ and connect with your community, you need to engage constantly. Make it attractive to ‘fit in’ and your team will gravitate daily towards a greater position of empathy for your community. Equally, where personality and business goals seem at odds (read, ‘unattractive’) ask yourself; can you reframe them?

Make it attractive to ‘fit in’ and your team will gravitate daily towards a greater position of empathy for your community

The 3rd law, applied to the ‘response’ stage, feels the most obvious from a brand guidance perspective - ‘make it easy’. Put time into assessing how easy to use your brand tools are by regularly seeking feedback from those using them. For example, how easy is it for everyone posting on behalf of the brand to understand and work with your tone of voice guide? How could you make it easier? Did the graphic design agency find your graphic identity flexible yet contained enough to aid them in delivering strong ‘on-brand’ creative? I guess the proof will be in the pudding, (assuming the brief was on point).

There’s another area where this law applies rather neatly. All too often, dissonance arises between the marketing tactics you choose, and your brand personality. When powerful tactics just feel fundamentally at odds with personality, there’s a pull that encourages the team to slip out of personality, or at least stretch it uncomfortably. So, ask yourself, what types of marketing tactics make it easier for your team to behave 'on brand'? Design your marketing mix so it’s easy to stay true to brand identity. In other words, if your brand adheres to the ‘Sage’ archetype (a brand personality that exudes wisdom, consideration and truth), perhaps it’s time to move away from social platforms where shallowness, idiotic pranks and pictures of kittens are the bedrock.

Finally, we all know that brand identity is a long game. Brand equity is created gradually, as you work each and every day to reinforce a singular sense of identity with consistent behaviours. With an ever evolving team, this can prove hard and requires constant attention in the pursuit of cultural change. As the 4th law dictates, if you want to make the reward of acting on brand ‘satisfying’, your team is going to need to be motivated frequently and overtly. Can you demonstrate to your team that there is immediate value in acting in accordance with brand personality? If they can see the value in the moment, it will drive them to repeat that behaviour. Can you even reward, in a way that also reinforces your brand identity, key actions throughout the organisation? Perhaps a brand activation tracker could achieve a similar result to Clear’s Habit Tracker, motivating the team through the acknowledgement of each and every ‘on brand’ win (provided of course that you’re measuring the right things).

So, thank you James Clear for writing ‘the book that just keeps on giving’. I feel like I’ve only just scratched the surface here. Perhaps a reread, taken through an alternative lens, will unveil further riches.

Now, who did I loan my copy to?

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