The Golden Circle is a concept presented as a circle, like its name suggests, with layers similar to onions and ogres. The three layers represent the questions: why, how, and what. The theory suggests that by answering these three questions, a company can understand the purpose of its business.
The Golden Circle is mentioned in the book Start with Why by Simon Sinek. In the book, Sinek discusses how crucial it is for brands to know why they were created and how this understanding helps them grow.
The 3 Layers of the Golden Circle
Each layer represents the questions: why, how, and what. Although they seem simple, they are a great exercise to understand a company’s purpose. In Start with Why, Sinek advises companies or their leaders to use the Golden Circle starting by addressing the why.
Golden Circle: Why?
In the first layer of the Golden Circle, Simon Sinek suggests that this is where you need to write down the purpose of your business. We must identify the reason for the existence of this business or venture, what drives and motivates all actions. This is the company’s purpose.
If the company truly identifies its why, everything moves naturally and flows. For this reason, it is the starting point for businesses—if you know why you are doing it, it gives you a direction for your entire business or venture.
Golden Circle: How?
In the middle layer of the Golden Circle, we determine and establish the strategies we will apply to achieve results aligned with the company’s purpose. This is where the company’s action or work plan is located and should always align with the company’s values.
Golden Circle: What?
In the last layer of the Golden Circle, Simon Sinek points out that this is where we must specify what the company sells or does. This layer of the Golden Circle is the easiest to understand because it involves the product or service the company sells.
Why Have the Golden Circle?
Having the Golden Circle is essential for an organization, especially if it is not clear about the reason for its existence. Having this information and understanding it allows you to conduct various marketing and communication campaigns, thus achieving better results.
By leveraging the Golden Circle, we can achieve various objectives and facilitate decision-making and good outcomes. Some of the impacts on your business include:
Inspiring Communication
Starting with the why can make all your communication exciting, impactful, and inspiring, increasing loyalty through a sense of belonging.
Example: Apple doesn’t just sell computers; it promotes challenging the status quo and innovation, resonating with a certain profile of customers.
Brand Strategy
Having a why helps the brand to be strong and coherent, achieving omnichannel presence as previously shared, which allows you to have a brand narrative that communicates clearly and maintains good communication.
Example: Patagonia, the clothing brand, achieves good communication focused on its purpose of sustainability and environmental protection, reflected in all its corporate actions, marketing, and products.
Differentiate from the Market
When you compete only by product (the “What”), you will likely compete on price. However, if you have a “Why” and “How,” you begin to compete on different variables.
Example: Southwest Airlines is distinguished not only by its low-cost flights (the “What”) but also by its commitment to friendly service and the democratization of air travel (the “How” and “Why”).
Customer Loyalty
Customers are more likely to become loyal and advocates for the brand if they can identify with the purpose, the Why of the company. This simplifies customer satisfaction.
Example: Tesla customers feel part of a larger mission towards sustainability and innovation in mobility.
Do you already know your Why, do you know why your company does what it does? If not, we recommend you start today and begin applying it.
When we talk about marketing, we always have the idea of generating campaigns or strategies so disruptive that they change the course of marketing and how it is perceived. However, not all campaigns achieve this, and not all campaigns withstand the test of time. That’s why we bring you 5 marketing campaigns that may not last forever but definitely change the way we see a marketing campaign.
Surreal, recommended by celebrities
Surreal is a high-protein cereal brand focused on functional foods, a company from England that has managed to make disruptive and different campaigns like their fake celebrities campaign.
In their fake celebrities campaign, they found people who share names with famous celebrities and had them try the cereal. After tasting it, they gave some comments or opinions that were used for the campaign, always clarifying that it was not the celebrity you thought it was.
This campaign is extraordinary because they took an element already known as the use of celebrities and with this in mind, they sought out celebrities with the same name to create a campaign using their names but not their images, managing to give a twist to the well-known campaigns of using celebrities without spending what it would cost to hire a real celebrity.
Vicio Burgers with Neighbors
when opening a new branch that involved distributing flyers locally, but as it is known, flyers quickly become trash.
With the task of executing an effective marketing campaign, Vicio created flyers that mimic the typical neighborly complaint found in condos or buildings, and with that, they promoted their new branch.
This changes the way we view advertising because instead of invading space, it becomes part of it and integrates, achieving a more effective campaign.
Although not the first to do so, Barbie, the doll that adapts to any season or job it faces, decided to launch its movie in 2023, which, like its dolls, was a success.
The movie is an excellent marketing tool because it is not only an eternal product placement but also managed to increase doll sales by 3%, representing the sale of 1,538 million dolls and a 16% increase in profits.
The movie not only manages to place the product well but also repositions it as a doll concerned with current issues, making it a benchmark in cinema for product placement, something Lego had previously achieved with its movie.
Burger King Real Size
How many times have you seen a burger on a billboard that looks giant, making you crave something that big? Burger King has bet on honesty with this advertisement by creating billboards that show the real size of the burger, and you can compare it with your hands.
This advertisement not only draws attention by achieving a typographic design that catches the eye but also invites users to interact with a billboard that normally does not interact. It is disruptive from the traditional advertisement, thus changing the perspective of burgers and their marketing.
Distance Steal Them If You Can
The brand Distance decided to run a campaign where you can steal sneakers from the store and keep them for free only if you manage to escape from the security guard, who is Mickael Zeze, a 100m runner in just 9.99 seconds.
This campaign attracted more than 100 visitors, and only one person managed to escape. This campaign is completely disruptive because it not only invites participation in an activity but also encourages people to do sports and face a different challenge with its campaign.
These campaigns are completely disruptive, either by the way they were done or by the quality with which they were executed. We have a lot to learn from them, both in terms of campaign style and openness to doing things differently. Sometimes it’s not a lack of ideas but a lack of courage to start doing them.
And you, are you willing to do something different?
Creating a logo and having a company does not mean you have created a brand. Building a brand is more complex compared to other elements that are needed.
To understand how to create a brand or branding, we first need to understand the difference between a logo and a brand.
What is a logo?
A logo is the symbol or identifier that represents a company, which can be presented in different forms, such as a logotype, isotipo, imagotipo, or isologo.
What is a brand?
A brand is the set of actions and strategies that penetrate a market to make users recognize and fall in love with the brand.
What to do to create a brand?
Creating a brand requires a lot of work and vision. Coherent, clear brands that know where they are going help users to identify and connect with them, and for this, we must work on the background. Here are the points to evaluate:
Define a value proposition
Having a well-defined value proposition will serve as a guide, as it will allow you to focus efforts to clearly reflect what the brand represents and why it exists.
Create your mission
Having a well-written mission allows you to define the brand’s reason for existence and what we want to achieve with the company. A company’s mission sets the path for the short and medium term.
Define your vision
The vision will allow you to achieve the impact you want to reach in the long term.
Brand persona
Create a brand persona in which you manage to define how the brand talks, how it looks, who it is, what it likes, what it fears, and what it wants to be. Defining the brand as a person gives you clear tools to treat it as such and thus achieve a very good connection with the end buyer.
Create a graphic system and communication system
Having a clear structure of graphic elements and a clear structure of tone of voice and communication is a super useful element to achieve a very good brand.
Having all these elements is not enough; you must also start creating clear strategies for communication, advertising, and even experience, to achieve all this and make it work properly you should use the guides or tools we talked about a moment ago.
With a good communication and marketing strategy that is coherent and clear, touching elements that excite or generate empathy with your ideal buyer or user, you will start to create an impact and over time if you continue with this, you will manage to create a brand.
Are you already working to create a brand? Or do you still have questions about how to achieve it?
Creating a marketing campaign involves many aspects, one of the most important being design. Being crucial and the first to catch the eye, it becomes an element that must be handled with great care, and for this, we have graphic systems.
What is a graphic system?
A graphic system refers to all the aesthetic elements that accompany a brand and everything that happens around it. Creating a brand with many graphic elements that comply with specific color schemes, shapes, and figures that can be identified as part of the brand is essential.
Having a brand with an extensive graphic system is fundamental for achieving good results because when the brand is poor in terms of graphic system, it becomes monotonous and boring.
A deficient graphic system can be a significant problem since if it is not a structured and clear graphic system, every content or artistic piece we generate will not seem to be from the same brand, and on the contrary, it will appear as different brands, which can cause problems of brand identification and positioning.
Having a clear, functional, and extensive graphic system allows us to create graphic pieces that adapt to the various communication channels we have, thus ensuring that your campaigns adapt efficiently and clearly regardless of the formats, thanks to the variety of formats that the brand will have in communication.
Un sistema gráfico hace referencia a todos los elementos estéticos que acompañan a una marca y todo lo que sucede a su alrededor.
Benefits of a Good Graphic System
Top of Mind
Having a good graphic system will enable you to have very good communication with your users. Not only that, if done correctly, it will make them remember you more often.
Recognition
Graphic systems are useful so that within your content and publications you do not have to put the logo everywhere and look like a cheap brand, but rather, they recognize you simply by your photographic style quickly.
Professionalism
Having a complete and extensive graphic system that truly complies with a clear structure will give your brand a touch of professionalism that you cannot acquire in any other way.
Is your graphic system extensive and clear, or do you just create what you think will work at the moment?
