marketing experts are like oranges, ditility is like apples

“We thought doing our DIY branding would just take a few meetings. It is over a year later and we’re nowhere near finished.” – CEO, Information Technology Industry

Do It Yourself Branding – The Risks
We understand that many teams or enterprises just don’t have enough time or money — or both — to get outside help with branding. But as with any DIY effort, DIY branding exposes you to the risk of never getting it done, or getting it done wrong which is very bad for business.

What Is Better? DIY Branding or Distility?
Let’s see how Distility stacks up against DIY branding. To help you make the right choice, we’ve also listed below some questions to ask your team members responsible for in-house branding.

 Distility
 Do It Yourself Branding
  • Suitable for straightforward branding challenges only
  • Error risks increase with complexity of project
  • Achieves successful brand
  • May result in diffuse, multiple, or conformist brand
  • Simple brand model: Promise, pillars, positioning, personality
  • Team members likely to have conflicting brand models
  • Client is facilitated to achieve the best possible brand
  • Project lead must facilitate and participate at the same time
  • Brand strategy in a day. Brand systems in as little as a week.
  • Many meetings, over many weeks or months
  • Collaborative Decision Making Model
  • Typically, project lead determines direction then seeks validation
  • Team exploration of brand ideas is high
  • Team exploration depends on priority of project
  • Team commitment to its own ideas are strong
  • Team commitment depends on quality of the process
  • Results are documented on one simple page
  • Results tend to be under-documented
  • Consensus is baked into workflow
  • Consensus can be elusive or result from “group think”
  • All costs and deliverables are clear
  • Hidden costs and deliverables are unclear


What to Ask Your Yeam Members Tasked With DIY Branding

  • What does branding mean to them?
  • How many times have they done branding, and how did they measure success?
  • What is their branding model and workflow?
  • How long will it take?
  • How will key stakeholders be meaningfully involved in exploring the brand’s potential?
  • How will they be fully educated and committed to the best brand definition?

Take Action