How To Write a Brand Manifesto (10 Steps + Examples)

Attract new customers and investors with a compelling brand manifesto.

With thousands of businesses vying for domination of their target market, creating a brand manifesto is essential for a clear public profile.

Capturing the essence of a company's mission and ambitions can help create an emotional connection and foster a loyal customer following.

Continue reading to discover how to write a brand manifesto that reflects what makes your brand unique and motivates your clients, customers, and employees.

How To Write a Brand Manifesto (10 Steps + Examples)

Whatever the size and nature of a company, writing a compelling brand manifesto is important for establishing what drives them toward their goals.

With increased focus and scope for the purpose of branding in today's market, getting it right can make the difference between success and failure.

So, to help prepare you, here's everything you need to know to write a brand manifesto in 2024:

What Is A Brand Manifesto?

A brand manifesto is a powerful statement that expresses the driving force and ethos behind an organization's purpose and appeal to customers.

This can vary wildly depending on the company in question and often explores higher-level contributions to global issues such as sustainability.

Brand manifestos achieve this by using carefully crafted language that appeals to the target market's core values and interests.

They also incorporate a powerful emotional story that attracts additional customer loyalty and motivates customers to learn more.

Perhaps most importantly, a brand manifesto uses language and persuasion to create a strong connection between the brand and its audience.

As such, writing a brand manifesto is a vital component of a successful business plan for representing the brand's values to potential investors and customers.

Whether you're starting a makeup line or an e-bike company, your brand manifesto not only explains what your company does but why it does it.

Establishing your brand's identity will also inform everything from your marketing strategies to managing customer service and public relations.

Company's Brand Manifesto Vs. Mission Statement

While a brand manifesto is focused on the overarching motivations that underpin a business model, a mission statement serves a different purpose.

A mission statement, sometimes referred to as a vision statement, is an introductory document explaining a company's purpose, goals, and values.

It takes a more informative approach to the key components of an organization's purpose, outlining the products or services and the method of production.

Details about the target market and regional operations are also likely to be included in a mission statement and other information for investors.

As such, writing a mission statement requires a different approach compared to a brand manifesto, with less emphasis on emotional language.

A company's mission statement is linked to a brand manifesto, which provides a complete package explaining the brand's beliefs and operations.

Importance Of A Compelling Brand Manifesto

Countless studies explain the importance of branding and how it impacts the success of businesses of all sizes and industries.

From mom-and-pop small businesses to international corporations, stating the brand's values and fostering a loyal customer base remains important.

A brand manifesto works on various levels, attracting potential customers interested in your products while creating compelling opportunities for investors.

Advertising campaigns can be used to reinforce the brand's personality in the public eye, with the most successful ones entering the lexicon.

The concept of brand loyalty also applies internally, attracting employees who share the ideas and principles the brand believes to be important.

Large corporations such as Google have mastered this approach, with their 70/20/10 model of work demonstrating their approach to brand consistency.

More fundamentally, creating a brand manifesto encourages business owners to reflect on their goals and ambitions fully.

This process can help bring much-needed clarity to the brand's mission and hone a strong vision for the future that everyone can get behind.

How To Write Your Own Brand Manifesto: Step-By-Step

We've explored the definition of a brand manifesto and how it's important to distinguish it from a company mission statement.

Now, let's dive into our step-by-step guide on writing a brand manifesto that captures the ethos and spirit of any company.

Step 1. Determine Your Brand's Purpose

The definition of a brand's purpose is incredibly flexible, but at its core, it should encapsulate the higher purpose that motivates a company's desire to succeed.

As such, it should describe how your products or services are designed to improve customers' lives and have a broader impact on the world.

Your brand's purpose is also designed to describe how these product and service initiatives offer something unique from your competitors.

This helps capture attention by understanding the target audience's emotions and practical consumer choices.

Most brands achieve these aims through a combination of language that elicits joy and a sense of connection while also evoking pride.

It stands as a rallying cry for like-minded people to join the brand's journey and become part of an engaging story.

This quality should be reflected in a brand manifesto's opening statement, capturing the imagination with succinct yet powerful expressions.

You can also echo this in your website's press page, including any coverage your business has had that strengthens the brand's purpose and driving force.

Step 2. Understand Your Target Audience

Understanding the target audience is an important starting point, as emotional language is a powerful tool when creating a brand manifesto.

Different markets and niche industries have their own slogans and terminology that can be used to create connections with potential clients and customers.

Conducting extensive research into your target audience is the first step you should take before putting pen to paper and writing your brand manifesto.

The process should involve a concerted effort to understand how this audience perceives the relevant brands and what messages resonate.

One way to achieve this is to collect customer feedback through questionnaires and other platforms that offer surveys to businesses.

Other AI-powered tools and services can also deliver real-time feedback about shopping and consumer habits.

Likewise, creating a complete list of competitor organizations in your industry and researching their brand manifestos are important parts of the process.

This research will help inspire your design decisions and give you insights into the language style and percussion techniques used by big brands.

You can also use this research when optimizing a website's e-commerce store, incorporating brand elements into the slogans and design.

Step 3. Write In Second Or Third-Person

Choosing the tone of your brand manifesto is heavily influenced by the overall writing style and whether you use a first-, second-, or third-person voice.

It can be tempting to use the first person since this is optimal for speaking to people on a personal level, but this should generally be avoided.

By opting for a second or third-person voice in your brand manifesto, you create a greater sense of involvement in the story on the reader's part.

For example, the use of "you" in the second person voice appeals to the reader's individuality and draws them into the unfolding narrative.

It creates an instant association between the audience and the values expressed in the brand manifesto, enhancing reciprocity.

The use of the third person voice serves a similar function, using the word "we" to connect the audience and brand within the story.

A greater sense of unity and connectedness is gained from the use of pronouns that strengthen how the target audience interprets the brand manifesto.

Once you've settled on your writing style, consider including a note in your blog post checklist to keep it consistent in your written content.

Step 4. Describe Your Brand's Impact On People

The modern business world is increasingly concerned with global matters ranging from the environment to issues around sustainability and energy consumption.

The brand manifestos from major corporations consistently reflect these concerns, with extensive mentions of their dedication to the conversation.

As such, writing a brand manifesto is often focused on covering how the company's purpose is shaped by its desire to positively impact the world.

Selling products and services is often pitched as just one layer of what they stand for, on top of which are greater aspirations to improve people's lives.

This is expressed on two levels, beginning with the explicit statements around a company's commitment to delivering a positive impact.

It also has a deeper meaning that is more akin to a life mantra, urging the audience to pursue a positive vision of the future.

Examples of this approach can be seen in corporate brand slogans such as the "never stop exploring" advice from outdoor apparel brand The North Face.

When done well, this approach unifies the customers with the essence of the brand manifesto, creating a long-term and loyal following.

Step 5. Evoke An Emotional Connection

In the early twentieth century, the language surrounding advertising emphasized the practicality and functionality of the product or service it promoted.

That all changed with Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud, who, with his emotionally driven approach, forever changed the shape of marketing.

Rather than focus on the reliability of a product, Bernays adopted powerful language designed to create a strong emotional connection with the consumer.

This approach continues to this day, and it is used in everything from political campaigns to brand manifestos to establish authority and build trust.

More recently, Marc Gobé expanded on the concept through his book Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People.

His message of establishing strong communication through understanding customer needs resonates with business leaders to this day.

This emotional connection can also be enhanced by using complementary visual assets that support the text of a brand manifesto.

If you read through many of the best artist websites, you'll see that creative vision and brand perception are intimately linked.

As such, the tone of emotional connection should be reflected in everything from the company logo and choice of fonts to the overall aesthetic.

Step 6. Be Authentic

Writing a brand manifesto with inspirational language that connects on an emotional level means being true to the motivations of the company.

This means being authentic when describing your company's goal and demonstrating this commitment through action as well as words.

One way to cement this commitment to authenticity in the eyes of customers is through consistent engagement with their desires.

By creating your brand manifesto in collaboration with your target audience, they will instantly feel that sense of connection and authenticity.

This helps create a business manifesto that inherently reflects the customers' primary concerns while focusing on the most desirable goals.

Once the manifesto has been made public, it has already earned the approval of the people it sets out to appeal to by expressing shared beliefs.

This authenticity can also be achieved by referencing the journey a brand has taken to arrive at its current position in its industry and market.

By demonstrating authority, the brand manifesto can establish its authentic credentials through real-world examples of past accomplishments.

Step 7. Stay Consistent With Branding

Once a brand manifesto has been created, the principles and stylistic choices made should be applied to all aspects of a company's branding.

This begins with the brand voice and the tone of writing that is used to describe the brand and the values that it stands for.

If you're using content marketing and SEO-optimized blog posts to build authority, these should be written with a consistent choice of words.

Likewise, aspects of your brand's visual identity used in the manifesto should also be maintained across other branding and marketing assets.

Keeping these elements aligned is one of the main reasons why creating a website design timeline should be a part of any business strategy.

By ensuring this consistency, potential clients and customers will instantly recognize your brand and its unique vision.

Since repetition is also among the key components of persuasion, this consistency will only strengthen customer loyalty to your brand over time.

Step 8. Make It Read Like A Story

A successful brand manifesto draws the reader into a collective story and unfolding journey that matches their personal values.

Introducing a narrative component to a manifesto further resonates with how they view themselves as individuals and consumers.

Far from being passive consumers, they're on the same page and view their investment as one that supports the organization's purpose and goals.

We've touched on the importance of incorporating higher-level aspirations in a brand manifesto that ties the organization to global and humane ideals.

The story serves as the glue that binds this overarching goal to the company's activities and how customers share this collective experience.

It explains how the product or service will help the customer realize their broader ambitions and ultimately improve their lives.

In this sense, it is related to the company's vision statement and explains why customers should invest their time and money in supporting this mission.

The end result should be a story that creates a sense of community and common interests that all parties involved can get behind.

Step 9. Add A Call-To-Action

A great brand manifesto counts for little if it fails to encourage its target audience to take further action through investment of their time and money.

It should be accompanied by a powerful call to action that encourages active engagement to ensure the fullest level of interest possible.

A call to action is a short but powerful marketing tool that urges the reader to make a purchase or other type of transition.

Used in most marketing sales funnels, it drives people toward making a decision around a product or service or exploring more information.

Calls to action are also used to promote current discounts and other limited events, such as new product launches and special offers.

They use visually appealing assets to stand out and are often included on blog posts and other content in addition to company brand manifestos.

Adding a call to action is easy, and most website builders include them in page templates for brand manifestos and other online content.

By testing the effectiveness of a call to action, marketing professionals can refine them to focus on strategies that have the best impact.

Step 10. Make It Look Good

The chances of a brand manifesto getting the best results are significantly increased through the use of striking visual assets such as logos and illustrations.

We've covered how a brand manifesto's style should be carried throughout other content, but this topic warrants further exploration.

The choice of colors and typography provides a strong foundation for the overall approach to design and execution.

Choosing a great website template can also help with this process, providing inspiration for layout and other visual concepts that match the brand's ethos.

Using color contrast can help elements pop off the screen and highlight important phrases through bold text.

Careful use of paragraphs and header types can also help to ensure the brand manifesto is presented clearly and concisely.

The brand manifesto inspires action through a cohesive story by combining these elements in a unified style.

Best Brand Manifesto Examples

Creating a unique and engaging brand manifesto is an ongoing process, and you should revisit and revise it when your brand purpose changes.

Here are some of the best brand manifesto examples from popular companies to illustrate some of the elements that make them successful.

• Under Armour. With its focus on delivering the best products to enhance athletic performance, Under Armour's brand manifesto demonstrates a passion for athletic prowess.
• Nespresso. Sustainability and respect for the natural world sit at the heart of the values underpinning Nespresso's ethical consumption approach.
• L’Oréal. Like Nespresso, L'Oreal emphasizes its role as a custodian of the environment in its brand manifesto and the need to balance personal beauty with global concerns.
• New Balance. With decades of experience manufacturing sneakers and sporting goods, New Balance's manifesto explains its story and evolving commitment to excellence.
• (RED). The AIDs charity (RED) uses its partnership with various mainstream brands to save lives and support critical programs to empower health workers.
• Nike. Like New Balance, Nike's approach to its brand manifesto uses powerful imagery of high-performance athletes to capture the spirit of continual progress.
• Moleskine. Manufacturer of paper and writing products Moleskine appeals to the more discerning customers through a combination of classy fonts and an appreciation of the history of writing.
• KIA. Car manufacturer KIA uses creativity and innovation as the leading hooks to draw readers into its brand manifesto while encouraging a growth mindset.
• Apple. Apple's "Think Different" advertising campaign brings to mind the essence of the company's dedication to technological evolution and out-of-the-box thinking.
• Levi’s. With its appeal to a broad market through dedication to quality and style, Levi's has constructed a compelling brand manifesto that has withstood the test of time.

Researching how the most popular businesses craft their brand manifesto will give you a strong starting point when putting together your own written manifesto.

You can also find out who designed a website to see what techniques and approaches to graphic design you can incorporate yourself.

Summary

Creating an impressive brand manifesto will help your business stay on the same page with customers through shared personal values and goals.

By following the instructions in this guide and updating your brand manifesto regularly, your business goals and sales will enjoy continued success.

As your brand's mission evolves over time, you can refine the principles your brand manifesto reflects for continual growth and improvement.