25: When Change Trumps Different

During this odd election cycle, where the leading Presidential candidates go from joint appearances and platitudes to Internet attack ads, one thing has been easy to absorb: their mutual message. Oddly enough, the pair of opposing stumpers claim the same primary platform: change.

We should be accustomed to this by now as citizens in this system. Almost every election—at every government level—includes at least one candidate promising change. For me it’s become as cliché as, “This might be the most important election of our life time,” which we’ve seemed to have thresholded every four years since I was old enough to vote.

The thinking is that it will be easier to collect a majority of disgruntled voters than united, happy ones. At key tipping points in our nation’s history, this has been true—and maybe even needfully healthy. But more times than not, the incumbents—with their entrenched relational, governmental, and financial resources—overcome their challengers, often handily. They’ve got momentum, recognition, and a public track record that has usually been carefully honed.

So it is with your company’s public brand. You’ve been looking at the same pocket folders and proposals for five years; you have to proof your ads extra carefully, because they’re starting to all look mostly the same (to you). “It’s time for a change. We need something different.”

Before you call your nephew at community college to whip you up a new logo or hire some expensive metropolitan agency to give you five composite ideas of a new brochure template, ask yourself if your current materials look truly old or just too familiar.

See, your look has earned four-term Senator status in your marketplace. Whether that’s a good thing or not depends on how you’ve served your market—or maybe how many times you’ve driven your logo while drunk or embezzled inconsistency into your newspaper ads.

Usually, your firm is best served by making only small adjustments to its marketing momentum. There is, however, a time for brand reform: when your company is

1) changing its focus
[Nissan to “shift_” (performance) theme]

2) growing into a new arena of specialization or, conversely, generalization
[BP (fuel) shield to bp (energy) sunflower]

3) adapting to the marketplace and/or culture
[Wal*Mart (dollar store white+navy look) to Walmart* (brighter, warmer, round-edges theme)]

4) changing ownership or management
[Mailbox, Etc. to UPS Store]

5) adjusting to its true identity
[BiPlane Productions (historic) to biplane (modern minimalism)]

Your clients and patrons vote with their business. You might be able to reinvent your firm with a Contract for America-size revamp. More than likely, though, you will win those votes the way Beltway insiders do: exploiting your establishment.

Even if that includes a hair piece.
[tip]

I grew up in a faith system that prided itself on staying the same. While pastors and evangelists encouraged their listeners to grow in their relationship with God, that growth was barb-wire fenced with religious parameters [read: “tradition”] for what that had to look like.

Fast forward. I’m part of a church that has seen about 10% of its attendees (we don’t have membership) become Christ-followers within the past 18 months—a statistical anomaly in an American church. Serious life change explodes all around me: atheists becoming apologeticists, broken marriages being restored, addictions being broken. All this incredible change happens in an environment where conformity and uniformity are not even part of the discussion; there are no classes, no revival services, and no Sunday school with its prefab curricula.

I’ve been asked in group settings, “Where have you moved toward God in the past 30-90 days? Or what are you wrestling with God about?” The discussion is not about how to keep from sinning or maintain holiness and standing with God. It’s about our pursuit toward God, our movement and momentum—responding to the uncomfortable but rewarding promptings in our souls. It’s an inside out-change, not an outside-in one.

You can switch churches or swap religions, adjust priorities or guidelines, set some new resolutions or exchange value systems. But if you want positive, deep, and real change in your life, it starts by asking God to reveal himself to you—and then responding to him.

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