When speaking with a journalist, choose your words carefully.
— Walker Lamond
When you’re building a brand, you have to get your story straight. You have to lay it all out in advance, and stick to it. Because every time you run an ad or PR campaign, you’re  going to be telling that story, so it needs be consistent.
This means choosing your words very, very carefully. It means choosing words that can’t be taken to mean something other than what you want your story to convey. It means being aware of what you’re saying.
But what happens when you’re too consistent? When that story becomes that same old story?What happens when we choose our words so carefully that they just don’t ring true anymore?
When your story is too rigid, it will only fit so many contexts. Â You risk crossing the line from being self-aware to being self-conscious, and then you just seem awkward. And that doesn’t fly in an age where we interact with so many of the brands we consume.
You see, the whole point of a brand story is that it helps you connect with consumers. It makes you seem more like something or someone that people can relate to. And people relate to other people — people with personalities, and personalities with depth.
So maybe the trick to branding in an age where consumers have almost as much of a voice as brands isn’t so much to be transparent, but to be responsive. ‘Cuz while neither you nor consumers will gain anything from you sharing what it was you had for breakfast, there is something to be gained from your brand approaching situations outside the sale funnel, accepting them for what they are, and engaging consumers on those terms — on their terms.
