The Branding Problem

In this episode of Torch Talk, Lindsey Chupp and Julia Kooser break down what branding actually means in 2026 and why it’s far more than just a logo or color palette.

The conversation explores how strong brands create clarity, consistency, and trust across every customer interaction. Lindsey and Julia explain how businesses can build brands that actually stand out in a crowded market, from messaging and mission to customer experience and visual identity.

They also discuss the growing importance of storytelling, consistency across platforms, and why businesses need to revisit their branding regularly as they evolve.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• Why branding is more than just visuals

• How clarity strengthens your marketing

• Why consistency builds trust

• How to identify your ideal audience

• The role storytelling plays in modern branding

• Why businesses should revisit branding every few years

• How branding impacts customer experience

This episode offers a practical look at branding for modern businesses, especially for leaders trying to create stronger visibility, clearer messaging, and a more consistent customer experience.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is where honestly the purpose also really makes a difference. Because if you have a clear mission statement that everybody in your company knows, and then they know how that applies to their role individually and their language that goes along with them, um, how they dress. You know, we are known for going out and dressed in painting everywhere we go, all of our networking things. We usually have to have at least one article of paint on us just because it's now gotten to the point where I think if we didn't, people would be like, working at piercing. They would be like, what's wrong with what's going on? So welcome back to Torch Talk, the show where we spotlight bold leaders growing their businesses and communities with grit and purpose. Today I have Julia Cooser, our director of client success, and we are going to discuss branding. Branding in 2026.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Branding in 2026 is telling your company's story. Is it? Over and over again. Over and over again. Through multiple different channels and media.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

So branding, um, companies typically think that branding is their logo, their colors, their fonts, and that is one element of branding, but branding is really a lot more uh well-rounded. It's more of a whole picture of who your business is. So that includes the story. So why are you here? Who are you here to exist for? What is your mission, your vision, your values? Um, and then how do you want people to feel when they're interacting with you as a company? And the story that you have really does uh come together to shape the experience that you want your clients to have. So if somebody is sitting down to assess their branding in 2026, the first thing that we would recommend that they look for is clarity. So what is what does clarity mean? What do they need to figure out?

SPEAKER_02 1:46

So clarity is their message that's who they are, what they do, why they do it, and the their target audience or whoever's interacting with that brand needs to know those answers very, very quickly, quickly when they interact with their brand. And that could be interacting with their brand through their website, through their social media, through a print ad, through a billboard, whatever that platform is, the message needs to be very clear of who they are, what they do, and why they do it.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

We are actually a really good example of this. So we've done a little bit of analyzing. We're heading into five years of fierce, which is super exciting. Um, but we have always said that we specialize in service-based businesses, but we haven't really applied that into our marketing before. And it's been really hard for us because we don't like to say no to clients or projects. Like we can do all of the things, but you and I have been kind of wrestling back and forth with that. What I have found through that process is it's creating a lot of clarity. So, how do we set goals and where are we focusing and where do we go? Having clear um branding guidelines and a clear branding message that really supports what you do best and the type of experience you want your clients to have helps almost drive your decisions and help give direction to the focus so you know what to do. So, like for us, well, I guess give us some examples of what that means for Fierce.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

So, what we've just done is that. So, clarifying the message of who we exist for. Fierce is marketing focused on relationships and results, and we've added a little caveat for service-based businesses. So that is that lead generation, that brand awareness for a service-based business means a little bit different than for any e-commerce um client, for example. But we've have found that we have a great um strategy that we can implement for service-based businesses. Now that that's not to say that we don't tailor this strategy for each business, is because we do. Each business is is different in where in what their goals are and what their objectives are and how that strategy needs to show up, but we've kind of created that clarity around that message. Um, taking that message, then we're applying it to our website. So we're refreshing what our message on our website, the look and the feel of it. We are taking that and applying to our social media. So what what content are we creating? Is it answering the questions who what we do, who we are, what we do, and why we do it for service-based businesses. It also, once you have that clarity, it helps companies not have brand drift as well. So keeping you in in line with where you want to go and not squirreling or rabbiting off to the side.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Amen, sister. So the next part would be then once you have a little bit of clarity around where you want to go, you can look um through the lens of conviction. So uh what do you believe? What do you stand for? What are you willing to say that others won't? So, how are you going to do what you do uniquely for you in your industry? Um, we have really evolved um over the five years of Fierce Creative Solutions. So we did a re big rebrand two years ago, but even since then, we're continuing to tweak and optimize what that looks like visually, but also from a messaging standpoint. Um, but that's rooted in who, what do we believe, what are we here for? So we have a mission statement, it's marketing focused on relationships and results. Um and our our new vision statement is to serve a hundred service-based businesses in Northeast Ohio. That gives us a lot of clarity about around where we're going. That also tells us what we should do from a marketing perspective. So, where do we need to be and how do we need to show up to serve a hundred service-based businesses? Um, and then our core values are how do we get there? So, like, how do we do the work every single day? What would your advice be to somebody, say a service-based business who's listening to this, who just threw a logo on a truck and went out there and maybe they're struggling to generate leads? What exercise would you kind of walk them through to create more clarity here?

SPEAKER_02 5:48

Yeah, so starting with your why. Why, why did you want to get out there with that logo and do what you're doing? So, what is um what is the why behind your business? What problem or so um solution, what solution are you offering to a problem? Who has those problems and who do who do you want to work with? So, like we had said, we can say yes to a lot of things, and it's not that we don't want to say no to certain people, but we've also found that our ideal client and our target client is service-based businesses. So that also helps clarify where we're showing up and what we're saying. So if you can answer why you're doing what you're doing, who you're doing it for, and what's that solution, then you can able to know where you need to go next, what you need to do.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Okay, so one final um element to branding then would be consistency. So tell us what does consistency mean?

SPEAKER_02 6:41

Yeah. So consistency with brand with marketing in general. You and we say everybody's everywhere, you need to be everywhere, but you also need to be consistent over showing up everywhere. So consistency is kind of what it sounds like doing the same thing over and over again. So what sharing that message over and over again. You can't just say who you are once and then not say it ever again. So new people are gonna be interacting with your brand on a daily basis. So you need to make sure you're explaining who you are, what you do, and why you do over and over again in multiple different ways to keep it unique, to keep it fresh, but you just need to keep showing up with that same message over and over again.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

You need to say the same thing a hundred times rather than a hundred things one time. Correct. I would also say consistency is making sure that your brand is represented in the same way across multiple channels. Correct. Uh, most businesses are on social media, their website, um, and then they have their, you know, their trucks, their business cards, all of their print materials. There needs to be consistency there, but there also needs to be a consistent experience that they should have. So maybe you have positioned yourself as an elevated brand, your website feels very high-end and luxury, but then you show up with a beat-up truck and a guy wearing cowboy boots and a backwards hat and a tore-up shirt, you know, like is the experience that they're getting right with you in person matching the experience that they're getting online or the brand that you have represented when there is not alignment there from a branding perspective, it creates this almost subconscious like distrust of you as a brand. Um, do you have any examples of that?

SPEAKER_02 8:20

I mean, that's a perfect example of the website um looking elevated and then your service provider showing up not elevated.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Well, that means so like communication standards. Yeah. So how are you answering the phone? And how do your salespeople talk? And do you have selling language that needs to be defined, or everybody gets to put their personal style on it and use their own language? But the this is where honestly the purpose also really makes a difference. Because if you have a clear mission statement that everybody in your company knows, and then they know how that applies to their role individually, and there's a language that goes along with that, um, how they dress. You know, we are known for going out dressed in pink everywhere we go, all of our networking things. We usually have to have at least one article of pink on us just because it's now gotten to the point where I think if we didn't, people would be like not working out fierce anymore. Yeah. They would be like, what's wrong? Like, what's going on? So if you can create that type of visibility with your brand, so what's unique to you? It may not always be a color, it might be a different type of experience or um something unique. But in a world that is fast moving with low attention spans, your brand is the perfect way to stand out and create a unique experience for your clients. And really, if you're not thinking about them and how to do that, then you're missing a huge opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

Yeah. And it can be something just as simple as your brand color is pink, so you have pink everywhere. So if your brand color, so if we were to have pink on our website and then our business cards are yellow, like that doesn't match at all. Um, so just something as simple as making sure your brand colors are consistent across all platforms. It doesn't have to be your social media doesn't have to be, you know, super extensive, but just showing that same consistency really matters.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Okay, so for a quick summary, branding is even more important in 2026 than it's ever been, but it's just evolved to be more of a whole picture approach in the world of AI and all of the things, having a unique, custom, crafted brand identity for you is super vital. And so we would just, I would also encourage business owners and leaders, if you have a business and you haven't changed your branding in a while, you haven't revisited who you are as a company, make sure you're looking at that every couple of years. We would be happy to sit down and go through a branding exercise with you. Um, we have a marketing blueprint that helps identify who your target clients are, but also create a brand persona. So who are you as a person? How does this embody and turn into a real person so that instead of, you know, I'm sitting that person is sitting across from Julia and you're really able to envision what that looks like. Um, we, you know, we've done multiple different examples of that. Um, but sometimes I'm talking to business owners and they're just afraid to change their logo. Like they're just so emotionally attached to it in ways that are not really rational. Um I think the biggest pushback is if you change your logo, then people won't know who you are.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

We don't know who you are, but then it's all of the things that you have to change with it, like your business cars, your car wraps, your website. But that it's okay to change those things if it's needed.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

When we work with clients, we try to build websites and things in a way that those types of changes can be made without a huge investment cost. So if your website is built properly, hopefully you can go in and change out some things without having to rebuild the whole thing from scratch. Um, but the second follow-up thought to that is you can also slow roll it as much as you can. Some it takes some companies an entire year or more to totally change up all of the things. Like I would tell a service-based business that has a bunch of trucks out there. If you replace your trucks every couple of years, then just do it when you're buying them and eventually through osmosis, all of those trucks will be done. Usually we're not rebranding to the point where you have totally lost the identity that the old one doesn't feel like you at all and the new one feels so totally different. We did that for us, but not for everybody else. So usually it's just an evolution. It's to look a little bit more modern, to look fresh, to make sure that it fully represents who you are and who you want to be in the future. And hopefully it will also evolve with you for the next couple of years. But it's always just worth revisiting. Like I would say every three to five years, is this still relevant? Do we have clear mission, vision, values? Does that line up with our brand? Do we have a good customer experience? And are we showing up consistently across all channels? So if you need help reviewing your branding, if you want to revisit it, if you just have questions, reach out to us. You can look us up on FierceCreative Solutions.com. You can reach out to me or Julia directly. We would be happy to sit down and have a chat with you. Thanks for tuning in to Torch Talk. If today's story sparks something in you, share it with a future change maker colleague or friend. Until next time, stay inspired, stay intentional, and keep your fire burning.