Truly Deeply/Madly

Small Brands, Big Per­son­al­ity.
We reg­u­larly bang-on about the advan­tage that small brands have over big brands when it comes to per­son­al­ity. Small busi­nesses often come with a nat­ural sense of per­son­al­ity dri­ven by the founder and their per­sonal style. As busi­nesses get larger and lay­ers of man­age­ment and staff are required, often brand per­son­al­ity is the first casu­alty. The prob­lem is that for many brands, per­son­al­ity is what makes them so attrac­tive to cus­tomers, it pro­vides an imme­di­ate emo­tional con­nec­tion, which can be enough to over-ride event the strongest of func­tional mes­sages. Recently I came across this solid-gold exam­ple of a small busi­ness lever­ag­ing it’s authen­tic per­son­al­ity to stand-out from the pack.

Cull­man Liq­ui­da­tion is a small busi­ness that buys, sells and moves mobile homes in Cull­man, Alabama, US of A. In their mar­ket, for their prod­uct, Cull­man Liq­ui­da­tion’s raw, hon­est, warts and all approach hits it out of the ball­park with the right mes­sages deliv­ered in the right tone. The brand per­son­al­ity has a bru­tal hon­esty that is strangely charis­matic and builds a huge sense of trust — ‘This is what we sell, here they are, buy one, or don’t — we don’t care’.

The ads have been such a hit that they have built a brand rep­u­ta­tion well beyond their customer-base in Cull­man Alabama, and well beyond the return on mar­ket­ing invest­ment of their big­ger, more sophis­ti­cated mar­ket­ing com­peti­tors. Here’s a video of the mak­ing of the ad.

And yes, they even have Cull­man Liq­ui­da­tion Tees for sale now. As the Cull­man Liq­ui­da­tion guys say; ‘Wear one… or don’t. We don’t care.’

If you’d like to find-out how to build the right per­son­al­ity into your brand, why not give us a call.

David Ansett, Bran­da­men­tal­ist
For daily updates of our brand think­ing, fol­low me on Twit­ter
Brand Designer

Tags: Brand Agency, Brand Design, brand designers, Brand Experience, Brand Strategy, brand-designers-Melbourne, brandamentalist, Corporate Image, Cullman Liquidation, Dave Ansett, David Ansett, Graphic Design Melbourne, Melbourne Brand Strategy, small brand big personality, small brand marketing, small brands, Visual Language

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