I heard about your brand the other day.

Let's talk about your brand's reputation.

There is a process that I have developed over the past five years and we use at our agency to focus us on the client’s product or service. It brings clarity to the positioning and consistently generates good ideas. In addition we end up creating a concentrated list of "power words" that help set the tone for the copy and creative.

The Reputation, Promise, Vision (RPV) Session
It's called the "RPV Session", a group of five or more people get together to identify the brand's Reputation, Promise and Vision. The players do not have to be "creative types"; in fact we get some of our best ideas from people who claim to have no creative ability. What's important is that each member of the RPV session has read all the product or service information and done their homework. What you're going to see is that the RPV Session consistently delivers new and different material.
We start with-

Reputation
That's what the customer/prospect is saying about our product or service's brand. How they would describe it if they were at lunch and talking about somebody.
"She's intelligent" or "He's aggressive." Reputation is what attracts us to the brand (or makes us run the other way).
Reputation comes in several forms-

No reputation
On a new product or service you have the opportunity to define what you want the brand's reputation to be.
Bad reputation
Be honest, if that's what it is, then that's what it is. Now we know what needs fixing.
Good reputation
Run with it. Make it better.

So think about your company's product or service and ask yourself, "If my brand were a person, what would my customers be saying about them?" What is the brands reputation?
Here are some reputation words to help get your brain going-
Warm, Friendly, Experienced, Happy, Serious, Professional, Quiet. Nerdy, Aggressive, Pushy, Honest, Strong, Fast.

Once you list your reputation words, you usually begin to see a pattern that can lead to the development of a brand look or feel.
For example, if reputation words were Warm, Caring, Helpful and Approachable, we might consider developing copy/creative that delivers a warm, caring, approachable message.

All right, you should now have a list of "reputation" words for your brand. Think about how the reputation words can help set a look or tone for your brand. The next thing I'll write about will be the "Promise" part of the RPV session and how it works with your brand reputation.

Jon