Speaker 1: Today we're talking about brand language. Why? Well, it's everywhere. It's on the ingredients of your cereal pack. It's on the safety instructions when you get onto a train. It's the way that you name your products and services. It's in the marketing and advertising. It's the way that customer service person will talk to you on the phone. In fact, it's the way they'll greet you in the store and it's the way that the signs direct you inside a store or inside a station or an airport. The thing is, whether you like it or not, your brand has a language. It already has a voice and the choice is, the choice that you have to make, is whether that voice, that language is speaking for you or against you. Where does it come from, this voice? In an ideal state, in an ideal place, it will come from the core of your brand. It will be inspired by it. It will be an expression of your brand idea and that idea will pervade everything that your company does. In an ideal state, you can walk what you talk and you can talk what you walk. But if you're not saying what you do, then you're just full of chat. Your verbal identity can really be as strong as your visual identity. In fact, it can be stronger so that you know that it's Coca-Cola talking to you, you know it's Microsoft, you know it's Apple, you know it's McDonald's. And when it's successful, not only are you able to get your message across, but you're able to enter into a dialogue, a dialogue with consumers and a dialogue with your employees. And that kind of conversation breaks down into three pretty simple steps. First step is that you're able to tell people who you are and what you do. The second step is to say this is what's different about us, this is our personality, this is why you should choose us. And if you want to get higher and have some more impact with your brand's language, then you really want to try and get people to like you and if you're lucky, even love you. The way to do that is to tell them stories. To enter into a dialogue where you're telling stories that have meaning and relevance and resonance that stick in the mind of your customers. The second most important thing about any kind of dialogue or conversation is that you listen. That is a natural conversation, it's a two-way dialogue. And the third, if you're really lucky, what's going to happen is you're going to start having conversations and telling stories to your customers that not only are they going to remember but they're going to repeat. So in this magnificent situation where the language that you speak makes so much sense to your customers and employees that they start speaking for you. So I could tell you a story about 8 o'clock Christmas Eve at Nordstrom's, customer rushes in and says would you mind wrapping this for me? Customer service representative says yeah sure. The interesting thing about the story is that the present was bought at Macy's and now if I repeat that story and you repeat that story and the person you repeat it to tells it to someone else, that's when you start to discover the power of brand language.