Brand Integrity
I’ve always been proud to be British; I love my heritage and what it stands for. I’ve been lucky enough to live in London, Edinburgh and now a short distance away from Cardiff. This is great news when it comes to the six nations rugby tournament, having some sort of allegiance with fifty percent of the teams means a fifty percent chance of winning the cup… go on Wales… he he he.
As I’m sure you will agree, we have all had time to reflect over the past year and one word I would use to describe us Brits is resilient. Dependent on how you want to perceive current events the general belief is that every cloud has a silver lining and our country will pull through gloriously. This may sound clichéd and off course I’m bias but there are so many talented people and small business owners in our fine green land that will help to facilitate our economy bouncing back not to exclude the large clean corporates.
As our economy grows it will take vision, thought and effort to break free from the simplicity and reassurance of purchasing goods from the unscrupulous corporates. They manipulate our minds through spending large sums of money on advertising and use every marketing tool to entice us to build a relationship with their brand and ultimately make a sale. These are the fundamentals of business and there isn’t anything wrong with doing that especially when providing a quality product/service that is making a better future for us all, that said we should be taking a step back and ask more holistic questions about the integrity of a brand rather than just believing the hype.
To name but a few examples of flawed brand integrity and lack of consistence, a well-known bank laundering money for drug cartels yet we still believe in the brand, image and slogan ‘Together we Thrive’. We continue on our merry way oblivious to the reality, continuing to trust and deposit our hard earned money into their bank. Beauty industry products still continues to test on animals, the clothing industry trapping animals for their furs in the name of fashion and the food industry confusing us about health. Not to mention the large companies paying minimal tax that could be used to improve the lives of others and society as a whole. If we continue to support these businesses and avoid getting a true understanding of what we are buying into then the light at the end of the tunnel will not be daylight but a train heading toward the future generations. For those of you, who are not informed, in the politest possible way, please, please, please, do some research, this can reveal a lot and please consider first:
· British Companies Large and Small
· The Craft, Process and Time to bring you a product or service
· The people behind your product
· Business Integrity for a brighter future.
As the Commando Memorial in Lochaber, Scotland states, ‘United we conquer’.