Dell Computers has been thrashed many times for subpar customer service. If you promise one benefit and deliver another, your brand loses value. If you project one set of values, and act on another, your brand is lost.

The experience leaves the customer confused. Unable to align with a set of values promised, the customer feels betrayed. The customer loses faith in the brand.

On the other hand, fostering the faithful with positive brand interaction produces evangelists.

The “evangelizing moment” of a customer is when they touch the soul of the company. They become “branded” aligning with the meaning of the company’s true purpose. Think of Apple providing Seekers (those in search of new adventure or experience) the ability to “Think Different”. It connects to the Seekers core value – to be unique and nonconforming.

That connection between the core values – the soul of the company and the soul of the customer – is why they evangelize. They have found a temple of core value at which to worship. It’s mythic. It’s epic. The brand becomes icon because it connects to the subconscious yearnings of the customer, imprinting on the brain. The pictured emotional experience becomes a conduit through which the customer can again be touched by those core values.

Those pictures and emotions then become language in the brain of the customer. And it’s the language of evangelism.

It’s simple. No soul, no brand.  So create your SoulBrand. Copyright 2008 Leili McKinley