Why communication is so hard in branding (and how to fix it)
- Josh Lobo
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
Most businesses know what they do. Far fewer know how to talk about it.
They’ll fumble through mission statements, list services in bullet points, or spit out features like a product manual. But when it comes to telling people why they matter, who they’re really for, and why they’re different. TBH it all gets a bit fuzzy.
That’s the great communication problem.
Why communication is so hard in branding today
Communication is deceptively hard because it isn’t just about saying things. It’s about building clarity across complexity. Your offer. Your positioning. Your audience. Your category. Your competitors. Your values. Your vision. Now express that in a single line on a homepage.
Good luck.
Most people default to two things:
Say everything and hope something sticks
Say what everyone else is saying because it feels safer
Neither works. Both make you invisible.
You’re not just telling a story. You’re building a memory.
People don’t learn about your brand all at once. They see fragments. A homepage visit here. An Instagram post there. A pitch, an ad, an email, a review. You can’t control when or how they show up—but you can control what they see and how consistent it is.
If your brand is a story, every interaction is a scene. If that story keeps changing, or the scenes don’t connect, people won’t remember the plot. And if they don’t remember the plot, they won’t remember you.
Build your communication toolkit (and pair it with your visual one)
What separates brands that resonate from ones that confuse? Tools. Not software. Language.
A copy toolkit helps you stay clear, sharp and consistent—no matter the context. You’re not rewriting your story every time. You’re pulling from a set of building blocks that already express who you are.
What’s in that toolkit?
Your brand’s point of view
A few clear, ownable phrases
A short and sharp tagline
Customer pain points in their words
Proof points (like stats, testimonials, outcomes)
Your tone of voice, values, and philosophy
But copy is only half the job. This toolkit should sit right alongside your visual toolkit—your logo, colour palette, typography, design system. These are the things people start to associate with you. Use them well (and often) and you become recognisable before someone even reads the words.
Without those repeating elements, it becomes hard for your audience to know what belongs to you. You feel disconnected. Patchy. Hard to follow. And that means they’re less likely to engage, trust, or stick around.
Consistency isn’t boring. It’s branding.
When your words and visuals work together, they don’t just deliver a message. They build memory.
Brand communication isn’t about clever headlines. It’s about forming patterns in someone’s mind. That takes repetition. That takes clarity. That takes a toolkit.
You don’t need to do everything. You just need to start.
Communication will always be complex, but it doesn’t have to be chaotic.
Get the foundation right. Build the toolkit. Learn what resonates. Then use those same pieces, again and again, to tell your story in a way that actually sticks.
If you need help building your communication and visual toolkit—or figuring out what story your brand should be telling, get in touch. We’ll help you craft a message that makes sense, stands out, and gets remembered.
