What the Heck Is a Brand, and Why Should You Care?
A brand is fancy marketing lingo for how you (because yes, an individual absolutely is a brand too), your product, company, or organization is perceived by others. It is composed of things that are tangible—such as your logo, your colors, your font choices, and your messaging—as well as things that aren’t—your voice and your values. The sum total of these elements can, when done thoughtfully, add up to a brand that draws people in and engenders a sense of loyalty and respect—even before someone has directly interacted with you.
I learned the importance of cultivating a brand in the corporate world when I worked in marketing and communications for Fortune 500 companies like General Electric and Anthem. I knew from those experiences that good branding increases the value of a company, provides employees with direction and motivation, and helps generate new customers. The same is true in the nonprofit world: a strong brand helps enhance the credibility of an organization, gives its volunteers direction and motivation, and helps attract new volunteers. That’s why Moms Demand Action has worked so hard from the very beginning to create a brand that makes women feel empowered as they go toe-to-toe with one of the most powerful lobbies in the nation, and conveys to everyone who hears our name that we mean business.
As the Tennessee story so aptly captures, our brand—with our instantly recognizable red T-shirts, tell-it-like-it-is name, and clear messages—helps us effect change.
How did we cultivate such an influential brand? We followed a few key principles.
Branding Principle No. 1: Know Your Audience
When building a brand, it’s important to understand who your target audience is—in other words, who will buy what you’re selling, whether what you’re selling is something intangible, like culture change, or something you can hold in your hand, like a bar of soap. When I started Moms Demand Action, it was because an online search of gun violence prevention organizations didn’t yield any that spoke directly to me as an American mom. I wanted to be a part of an army of mothers across the country who would fight for the safety of their families and communities. And, based on the response to my Facebook page, I knew I was onto something—many of America’s eighty million moms felt the same way.
One California volunteer said that after the May 2014 Isla Vista shooting near the University of California–Santa Barbara, “I was so distraught. I had two sons in college at the time. I Googled ‘moms against gun violence’ to see what would come up. Moms Demand Action, which had been founded two years prior, was the first website that popped up in my random search. I joined immediately and have been devoted to this amazing movement ever since. It was the word ‘moms’ that was so important to me.”
That’s why everything we did in the early days of Moms Demand Action was aimed directly at American moms, from our organization’s name to the stories we told on our social media platforms to the look and feel of our graphics.
And although I wanted to appeal to moms, I didn’t want to create a brand that represented the stereotype of moms that presents them as soft and doting, or frazzled and exhausted, or constantly cleaning and cooking (as many of the commercials geared toward mothers still tend to show moms). “Mommies Demand Action” simply wouldn’t have cut it.
I wanted to create a brand that represented moms as more of a fierce mama bear—protective, powerful, fearless, and, yes, loving. Our tagline “One Tough Mother,” which we’ve used for T-shirts and fake tattoos, perfectly captured what I was going for.
Our goal is to use our “momness” to both appeal to and empower our target audience: women who turn into badasses when the safety of the kids in their community is threatened. As a volunteer in Little Rock, Arkansas, said, “The ‘One Tough Mother’ icon resonates with me (enough so that I got it tattooed on my hip), not only because the work we do is tough, but also because it helps me feel strong about my gun violence survivor story.”
That’s why it’s important to think not just about the demographics of the people you want to attract—how old they are, whether or not they have kids, where they live, how educated they are, etc. You also want to give good thought to the psychographics of the people you’re seeking to reach—what motivates them, how they think, what they care about, how they like to work. You need to put thought into both of these categories in order to craft a brand that draws your ideal people in like bees to honey.
It’s also important to remember that one brand won’t appeal to everyone, and that’s okay. In fact, trying to be everything to everyone can dilute your brand and weaken its ability to attract people. Even to this day, some people ask why I didn’t name the organization “Parents Demand Action,” or something less mom-specific, but I fought for what I knew was a missing movement for an untapped audience within the gun violence prevention space. I know that it can feel risky to choose a narrow target audience, but a well-honed message will attract people who are outside that target too, and you can welcome them in with open arms.
In our membership, which we refer to internally as “mothers and others,” we are proud to welcome women who don’t have kids, men, and nonbinary individuals, and they are joining Moms Demand Action in droves and proudly touting our brand, regardless of whether or not they personally claim the title “mom.” (Although we love the fact that many of our male members have embraced the slogan “Man Enough to Be a Mom” and proudly wear T-shirts and pins emblazoned with those words.) That’s because we’ve communicated the value and importance of letting moms and women, the backbone of our brand, lead.
Branding Principle No. 2: Create a Compelling Look and Feel
Any sophisticated brand needs a carefully designed identity, which includes your logo, colors, and fonts. Your identity is what makes you recognizable to supporters, so it’s important that it be professional, unique, and a clear representation of your purpose.
In the early days, one of our volunteers created a logo for One Million Moms for Gun Control. For the reasons I described earlier, that name was short-lived. But thankfully, at the same time we decided to change our name, I got a call from Patrick Scissons, an executive at an ad firm in Toronto, Canada, who would make the rebranding process much easier.
Patrick had read about us in the news and wanted to offer his team’s pro bono support to help build our brand. It was another bit of serendipity—and, dare I say, a result of our branding efforts! Even though we were still working the kinks out and building the plane as we were flying, the fact that we clearly identified as moms helped draw to us just the right people who could help. Over the next several weeks, Patrick’s team helped us hone our name and create a style guide of colors, fonts, and even graphics to use on all of our platforms. And our volunteer team of legal experts helped us be sure we owned our new name and logo.
One of the graphics we developed in those early days really captures the strength of moms that we wanted to convey: it features a female version of Superman (or Supermom) unbuttoning a very traditional button-down shirt to reveal her Moms Demand Action T-shirt, our own version of an action hero costume.
Colors are an important part of your look and feel too. Scientific studies have shown that colors alter people’s emotions and that women are more sensitive to bright colors than men. Over the years we’ve focused on two color schemes to represent our brand: orange and red. We wear orange to represent the gun violence prevention movement. The color was chosen after the 2013 shooting death of Hadiya Pendleton, a Chicago teen who was an accidental casualty of group violence. Hadiya was shot and killed in a South Side park where she and friends had taken shelter from the rain—just one week after performing at President Obama’s second inaugural parade. In her honor, Hadiya’s friends wore orange because it’s the color hunters wear in the woods to protect themselves and others from gunfire.
We wear red to represent the advocacy of Moms Demand Action. Not only is red stimulating to the eye, it’s linked to some of the most famous brands in the world, such as Coc
a-Cola and H&M. Early on we found that red T-shirts popped and sold better online than less vibrant colors like blue or gray. Since then, red has become Moms Demand Action’s signature color—an interesting juxtaposition with Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again baseball hats.
As Kristi Cornett’s story showed so well, our red shirts have become a recognizable calling card for Moms Demand Action. Lawmakers and other influencers see our shirts from across a crowded room and make a beeline for our volunteers. According to a Boston volunteer, “In Massachusetts, we’ve replaced the motto of ‘the red coats are coming’ with the ‘the red shirts are coming!’ when we walk into the statehouse to lobby for gun-sense legislation.”
A Portland volunteer says, “I went to a fundraiser for Oregon governor Kate Brown that was sponsored by a group of women physicians. Even though the event was focused on health care, the governor ran over to me when she saw my red shirt and made it a point to talk to me about gun safety legislation she hoped to pass during the next session. And then, in her opening remarks to the crowd, she called out Moms Demand Action by name and thanked us for being there.” This is exactly what a brand does for you—it makes you more visible and more influential.
It also helps you claim your territory. One of the most powerful NRA lobbyists in the country, Marion Hammer in Florida, used to wear a red blazer in the statehouse, calling it her signature color. Since Moms Demand Action has become a powerful force in the Sunshine State, Hammer has given up red altogether. It’s our color now.
Branding Principle No. 3: Amplify Your Influence with Photographs
A big reason why our brand became so recognizable so quickly is because we adopted the motto “Pictures or it didn’t happen.” Sure, it’s important to show up. But if you show up and take a picture—and then share it on social media and in the media—people who weren’t even at the event will know you were there.
In 2018, I was happy to be interviewed by Jason Kander, former secretary of state for Missouri, on his Majority 54 podcast. And I was especially thrilled when he told me: “When I ran for the US Senate, I was at tons of events where women in St. Louis, Kansas City, and all over the state kept showing up in Moms Demand Action shirts. And it was clear that they weren’t just showing up—they were clearly very thoughtful about organizing. They would ask me, ‘Will you take a picture with me in my T-shirt?’ I was so impressed by that branding know-how.”
So yes, it matters that we show up. But it also matters that we make sure we’re seen when we show up. At every meeting, whether it’s for new members or with lawmakers, we take a picture together. We even took a photo with Ted Cruz, the pro-NRA and anti–gun safety Texas senator, when we showed up at one of his town hall meetings to ask questions about gun violence. Much to my surprise, and as evidence of how recognizable and desirable our brand has become, Cruz’s people then included that photo in one of his campaign ads! It gave us the perfect opportunity to point out his hypocrisy and to make it clear that the only gun-sense candidate in the race was his opponent.
Branding Principle No. 4: Create a Clear Message
Brands aren’t just visual; they’re verbal. The messaging you create to communicate your values and beliefs should become the foundation for all of your communications, including your website, press releases, and social media posts. Clear and compelling messaging encourages a brand’s target audience to care and, ultimately, to act.
The first message most people encounter from us is our name. “Moms demand action” was a phrase we’d been chanting at marches and rallies across the country right after the Sandy Hook school shooting, and “gun sense” was something Patrick’s team came up with to describe our support for commonsense gun laws. We wanted to be for something, not against something. And, as moms and women, we wanted to be clear that we were demanding change, not just politely asking for it.
As one of our Tallahassee, Florida, volunteers describes our name: “The brand to me says POWER. I love all of the words. . . . ‘Moms’ conveys love, ‘Demand’ means immediacy (we ain’t askin’), and ‘Action’ shows we’re results oriented.”
Although we absolutely wanted to be direct in our messaging, we also needed to be very careful to communicate a moderate, nonpartisan, and strategic stance given how fraught it can be to talk about guns in America. We needed our volunteers to have the tools they needed to organize and speak out as powerfully and persuasively as possible on both sides of the aisle.
As a volunteer from Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, said: “Moms Demand Action’s messaging is very clear and inclusive of people who don’t consider themselves to be for ‘gun control.’ Once they realize we don’t oppose Second Amendment rights, it makes it easier for people—especially those in red states—to join. Many of my friends and family joined our movement after seeing how moderate our messaging is.”
This need to be moderate is also why we rely so heavily on data (something the next chapter dives into)—we want our brand to convey the fact that we prioritize evidence over anecdote, and that we know our stuff. After all, our supporters and volunteers need facts to dismantle the tropes of gun lobbyists and extremists.
Once you determine your messaging, you have to make it available so that your supporters can stay true to it. We house our main talking points on our organization’s websites, we have an internal clearinghouse where we keep messaging related to a wide variety of topics, and our primary messages are baked into every social media post. We’re constantly saying the same five or so things over and over again—such as “This isn’t a partisan issue, it’s a matter of life or death” and “We all want to keep our families safe”—to ensure that what we’re saying sinks in. Obviously, we have to come up with responses to new gun-related issues as they arise, but day to day, we’re talking about our priorities as an organization and staying focused on specific calls to action.
Branding Principle No. 5: Connect Emotionally
There are two ways to connect with a target audience through a brand: rationally and emotionally. Our use of data helps us appeal to people’s rational minds. But we can’t stop there. We also need to connect to people’s hearts, because it’s that kind of connection that encourages loyalty and inspires action. That’s why you see rational brands use ads that pull on heartstrings to sell insurance and cars; it helps them build a strong emotional connection with their target audience. When that happens, your audience can become incredibly effective brand ambassadors—think of how devoted users of Apple products became after the company’s 1997 series of ads that featured widely regarded visionaries with the tagline “Think Different.” Launched even before the release of the iMac (the iPhone wouldn’t debut for another ten years), those ads helped save Apple from becoming just another blip on the timeline of tech history, because they spoke to its ideal customers’ self-identification as creative nonconformists. Those customers bonded with the brand, and then proselytized the company’s products to their friends and families. And there is no better marketing than an enthusiastic and heartfelt recommendation from someone you know and trust.
Speaking directly to our audience’s core values is exactly how Moms Demand Action’s volunteer base grew so quickly—because our branding helps moms develop an emotional connection to us, and then they invite the people in their lives to come along for the ride too. Our name, our taglines, and our mission empower moms to embrace their strength and take on seemingly impossible tasks. They love us for that, and as a result, they also love the visual representations of our brand.
Kristi, from the Tennessee chapter, describes it this way: “I always feel like my red shirt makes me more comfortable. It’s like a security blanket. When I’m wearing it, I feel stronger and more confident. It reminds me that I’m fighting for a greater cause.”
Some volunteers say their red shirts make them feel invincible: as one Texas volunteer said, “When I put on my red shirt, it feels like a power suit or a superhero cape. My mood changes instantly.”
Now those are
some very powerful emotions that are inspired by something as simple as a red T-shirt! And that is branding at its best.
Branding Principle No. 6: Balance Consistency and Flexibility
Consistency is an undeniably important component of creating a successful brand. Rogue fonts, low-res logos, or messaging and graphics that are out of context with the brand’s purpose can make an organization seem confusing and disorganized. Imagine if Nike forgot to include its swoosh in an ad. Or if NBC sometimes used a Comic Sans font. Or if 3M occasionally spelled its name ThreeM. It would be confusing at best, off-putting at worst.
At the same time, any brand that wants to last longer than the ever-quickening news cycle has to be flexible and creative to stay true to the wants and needs of its audience.
At Moms Demand Action, we have tried to balance this need for discipline and consistency while also empowering our volunteers—our brand ambassadors—to feel ownership of this organization that is as successful as it is only because of their hard work and passion.
I knew from my corporate days how key it was to have brand consistency; what I didn’t anticipate was how challenging it could be to do that when building an organization that was run by volunteers from all over the country.
In the early days of Moms Demand Action, I noticed that some of our state pages were posting stories and graphics about issues that were not related to gun safety. For example, after the US Supreme Court weighed in in favor of marriage equality, some of our state Facebook pages celebrated the win. As the mom of a gay daughter, I was thrilled with the decision, but it wasn’t in our wheelhouse. Moms Demand Action focuses exclusively on gun issues. That’s why we created a set of guidelines to give volunteers to hold on to as the organization’s “style bible.”
Our style bible establishes basic parameters of what is and isn’t in line with the Moms Demand Action brand. As long as you stay within those white lines on the road, any variation is fair game.
Fight Like a Mother Page 14