The Spirituality of a Brand

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Whilst I don’t label myself as religious, I value spiritual health in individuals, communities and societies immensely. I also value the spiritual health of brands, and believe that much like human beings, every brand has a spirit that needs to be nurtured and developed in a healthy way. My understanding of spirituality is fairly personal, but I think it’s pretty elegant:

Spirituality is the integrity and unification of all our values, ethics and beliefs that represent our being, regardless of what it is we’re doing. Therefore, the measure of our spiritual health is how integrated we feel and are in our actions and behaviours with those values, ethics and beliefs, regardless of the specific nature of what it is that we’re doing.

So with that said, I propose that all brands have a spirituality and a spiritual health. That includes yours, whether you planned it that way or not. To verify this, all you need to do is ask yourself the following questions.

1. Does your brand have an individual identity?
2. Does your brand stand for something?
3. Does your brand have a values and ethics system?

I admit that many entrepreneurs may instinctively jump to answering no, at least to question 2 and 3. If you consider how your brand is perceived by those it’s speaking to, you’ll realise that it’s incredibly unlikely that your brand doesn’t stand for something and doesn’t represent a system of values and ethics. The question is not really about whether your brand has spirituality or not, but how much influence you’re exercising over your brand’s spiritual health. Some people will also argue that brands like Lehman Brothers, for example, don’t have any spirituality, because they have very poor ethics. Poor ethics doesn’t mean an absence of spirituality; it means poor spiritual health.

When we have poor spiritual health, we feel conflict and confusion within ourselves. Making decisions about important life choices becomes increasingly difficult, and we’re prone to falling into habits that hurt us, and often hurt those we care about. A brand with poor spiritual health experiences the same problems. The more you allow others to dictate how your brand is perceived, the more questionable your brand’s spiritual health becomes, as the spirituality of your brand ends up being determined by individual behaviours and reactions, rather than a strategic set of values, ethics and beliefs that transcend day to day operations and actions – i.e. who your brand is, rather than what your brand does.

So how can you make sure your brand is in good spiritual health?

1. Acknowledge that your brand is an organic entity, and is going to have spirituality, which will impact its overall health. It may sound obvious, or completely obnoxious, but unless you acknowledge the reality and practicality of this, your influence over your brand’s spiritual health will remain superficial and fleeting at best.
2. Define the values, ethics and beliefs that represent your brand, but transcend your products, services and operations. Consider what kind of values, ethics and beliefs would your brand still stand for if your organisation completely changed its products and/or services. Make sure those values, ethics and beliefs aren’t just a bunch of buzz words you can use for PR and marketing, because that’s completely not the point. Be clear, specific, and relevant.
3. Share what you come up with, not only to your staff and collaborators, but also to your customers and clients. Ask your best customers and clients what they think about your brand, and see if their perception matches yours.
4. Practice what you preach, basically. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. You’ll need to make sure that all your strategic decisions and responses are aligned with your clearly defined set of values, ethics and beliefs, and that you’re brand is accountable for maintaining its spiritual health, just as it would be to maintain its financial health.
5. Measure your spiritual health. This is obviously going to be a fairly subjective process from brand to brand, but the point is to implement simple systems to measure how integrated your brand’s actions and behaviours are with its spirituality. You could even make this social! Check out www.brandkarma.com for some inspiration.

The Ultimate Benefit of Keeping your Brand in Good Spiritual Health

There is really one, very simple, ultimate benefit of acknowledging the spirituality of your brand, and keeping your brand’s spiritual health in top shape: Your brand is empowered to grow and develop as an independent, organic entity, which isn’t dependent on any one individual or group for its moral and ethical accountabilities. As an entrepreneur, you’ve probably started a business for a sense of freedom, amongst many other individual motivations. The most important thing you can do to ensure that freedom is sustainable is to make sure you own the business, and your business doesn’t own you.

So how is your brand’s spiritual health doing? Time for a check-up?