Builder brands believe their purpose is to make the world a better place, and offer a warm welcome to anyone who wants to join them.
Friendly and approachable, they believe that none of us is as smart as all of us and that curiosity has the power to change the world. They are open to new ideas and thinking.
But with consumer expectation growing and an increasing focus on purpose and usability, what do builders need to do?
A tech-driven world
Tech companies today are facing more scrutiny than ever, as
our recent research showed. Adapting to the growing weight of consumer expectation that comes with this hasn’t proved to be an easy challenge, even as they are enjoying more popularity and mainstream adoption than ever before.
Builders are the most open of the brand types. They thrive on solving a challenge, and love to have their community involved in the journey.
A great example of a builder is Google. Dedicated to solving as many problems as it possibly can, its experience spans a wide swathe of sectors, roaming outside the traditional boundaries of tech.
Open for a change?
In many ways, builders answer much of modern-day consumer demand.
They offer collaboration, which 60% of the people we surveyed tell us they want. They work to solve societal problems – a must according to 54%. And they focus on creating products and services that answer our everyday problems, something 83% agree with.
So what more do they need to do?
While they’ve built a large and diverse community and developed a strong brand presence, unlike
guru brands they have to say less and stay focussed to remain successful.
Maintaining focus while changing the world
While loyalty is a hard thing to come by amongst today’s consumers, the only way in which to maintain any semblance of it is a focussed mission.
At times, builders can forget this as they move from one idea to another, working to solve as much as they can in as short a space of time as possible.
While for larger brands this approach might not result in a loss of vision, smaller brands aiming to define themselves in the same way should use caution.
No matter the size of the organisation, however, the comms issue is the same.
By talking about so many of their experiments, builders can at times demonstrate a lack of clarity about their purpose and potentially confuse customers.
They need to consider what it is at the heart of their company and focus their communications on that.
That doesn’t mean they need to experiment less. It simply means they need to challenge themselves to prioritise the goals that are at the core of their business.
By doing that there will be a common thread that ties all their ideas together whenever they speak externally, demonstrating clarity to their audience and giving them a strong brand purpose that defines them.
Download our full report or get in touch with us at hello@harvard.co.uk to hear more about what this means for your comms