When we think about what it means to be a brand, or heck what is a brand altogether, a lot of things start to pop into our heads. There are buyer personas to build, social media strategies to brainstorm, channel strategies to implement and a bunch of meetings to have in boardrooms saturated in half-empty coffee cups and permanently-smudged whiteboards.

But, we think that a brand is more than a cool catchphrase and an overly polished logo; a brand is something that drives your company forward. It’s a vision you can all get behind. Your brand should be the way that you, and everyone else at your business, present themselves to your clients and colleagues.

Today, we’re going to talk about why you should create a brandable persona… using octopod facts as a guiding light. This isn’t going to be your run-of-the-mill, no-duh, boring listicle. Oh no! Today, we’re going to get into the critical subjects — like the fact that both octopodes and octopuses are plurals for octopus! Oh, yeah. And, just for the halibut, we’ll tie that back around to building a brandable persona.

But, really, you should be staying for the octopus stuff.

Octopuses Eat Their Own Tentacles When They’re Bored

Holy Mackerel! This one’s true. If you put an octopus in a small space with little-to-no stimulation, they’ll start munching on their tentacles. If you’ve made it to this point in the post, let us ask you a quick question. Is this more interesting than a boring-old listicle so far? If so, that’s because we’ve learned a valuable lesson from octopuses — no one likes to be bored!

When you set out to create your brand, latch onto something that has a little umph! No, you don’t have to be overly silly, and, no, you don’t have to worship our 8 armed ocean-friends. But, remember that your clients and customers are more likely to digest your content if you’re a little fun to be around.

70% of brand managers think that building an audience is more important than direct sales. It’s true! You want customers to want to read your content. You want them to come back again-and-again. Look, here’s the thing, there are 4 bazillion blogs out there, and there are probably at least (bare minimum) 10 that directly target your niche. You want to stand out from the crowd.

To do this, you really want to develop a voice — something that everyone who comes onto your blog will instantly recognize and connect with. Do this, and, before you know it, you’ll be raking in those sweet, sweet sand dollars. They might be asking, “what is a brand?” And then, they come across your blog and they’re like, “oh yeah. I get it now!”

Our customers expect us to make sophisticated underwater jokes. Sure, they may be corny, but they are a part of who we are. Find your voice. It can be serious, silly, or something in-between. But, you have to have something that makes you stand out, or you risk being another fish in the school.

Octopuses Can Camouflage Themselves

If there’s one thing an octopus is good at, it’s fitting in. These adorable ocean creatures can blend into their backgrounds seamlessly. Let’s play can you spot the octopus! Check out the image below. We’ll play reverse Jeopardy and give you the answer — you have to guess the question!

What is Tentickles

Your employees should be like an octopus. Everyone in your business should latch onto your brand and identify with it. The last thing that you want is to develop a killer brand identity and then have your employees do (or say) something that’s completely not on-brand. So what is a brand? It’s what you live day-in and day-out!

Weekly meetings, brand statements, and branding strategy sessions are all great ways to help get your employees on-board. That being said, a good brand is naturally magnetic. If you create a compelling brand, your employees want to identify with it. Remember, everyone in your business is a part of your brand, from head-to-fin.

So, when your clients communicate with any of your employees, they should be able to expect a similar experience. You betta believe everyone here at Octopus Creative is on-board with our brand persona.

Octopuses Have 3 Hearts

Talk about love! Octopuses use two of those hearts for pumping blood and one for circulating it. This is why you’ll see an octopod crawling around instead of swimming. When they swim, it actually stops their heart and wears them out quicker.

Just like octopuses, your brand should have a heart. You know what! No. It should have three hearts.

Here’s a big branding secret. Whether you have a serious, hyper-technical tone, a silly tone, or anything in-between, you really want to make sure that you put some heart into it. It’s all about authenticity. There are so many brands who have no distinguishable tone. Most of the time, it’s because they never really put their heart into it. We know! That sounds fishy err.. corny. But, if you’re not fully committed to your brand, it shows.

Also, when you’re building your brand up, be like the noble octopus — crawl, don’t swim. You don’t have to figure your whole brand out in a day. That’s crazy talk. It takes a long time to fully build a brand. It evolves over time, and it takes hold of you and your employees. Don’t force it.

It took us a while to really come to terms with who we all were. We realized that we’re serious about marketing, but, we’re also a little quirky. It’s an honest representation of who we are — not a forced identity that we’ve put on ourselves.

It will take some time to figure out who you are, but once you do, you should be leveraging it. Branding isn’t just about winning customers, it’s also about being transparent. A good brandable persona is blood deep.

Conclusion: What is a brand and what do I do?!

Building a brand persona is about more than just strategy sessions and boardroom meetings. It’s a lengthy process that starts to shape you and your company. Your brand is the space you occupy in your customer’s mind. It’s why they pick you over your competitors. Next time you think of an octopus, try telling us that our agency isn’t going to pop into your head for a minute.

Are you having trouble building that brand and creating a brand persona? Contact us!

Look, we can’t build your entire brand for you, because, well, we’re not you. But, we can put you on the right track and hold your tentacle every step of the way. So, why not dive in and see what happens? You may just find that we squidnap your heart, and we build a fantastic relationship together.