slip and slide

Something was happening at the house with the slip-and-slide.

What was happening was that there was a lot less happening.

A few blocks away from us is a house where the kids have a slip-and-slide that was an irresistible magnet to all the kids in the neighborhood when the weather got hot.

That yard was packed with neighborhood kids running around, getting wet, laughing their heads off.

But then it wasn’t, and the kids who lived there were wondering where all the other kids had gone.

What they didn’t know was that the family two doors down from us had recently purchased a palatial bouncy castle water slide complete with rotating sprinkler arms.

But the kids at the slip-and-slide house didn’t know that.

They just knew that no one was showing up to play.

Clients come to me with the same problem.

Customers aren’t showing up like they used to and they don’t really know why.

And they don’t know what to do about it.

When I am assessing a clients brand, one of the things that I am frequently amazed by are blind spots they have in really knowing who their competition is and what they are doing.

A competitive audit is one of the most illuminating phases in a brand re-design project.

How does your brand stack up to others in the competitive landscape?

How are they articulating the problem/solution/capabilities message to prospects in a compelling way?

How are they creating differentiation?

Assessing the competition invariably makes it very clear what the problem is and what needs to be addressed.

Because if you don’t know there’s a new bouncy castle water slide down the street…

You’re just going to be left standing in your yard wondering where everyone went.