What is brand DNA and how do you find it in your company?

In scientific terms, DNA is the molecule that stores and carries genetic information in every living being. At Cromoxoma we like to think of DNA as the identity and personality of an organization. Just like people, companies have their own identity, their own genetic information, which shapes everything they are, everything they do, how they communicate and even what they convey.

Imagine someone new joins your company today. After a week, what will their colleagues have told them about how things get done here?

That, exactly that, is your brand DNA. It’s probably not written down anywhere, and it’s probably the most valuable thing you have. What’s curious is that often, if not most of the time, CEOs, board members, entrepreneurs, owners, managers, operators and team members aren’t even aware of their own company’s DNA: they don’t know what makes them unique or what their identity is. But every single company and brand has its DNA.

Most companies have a mission and a vision on a wall somewhere, because regulations ask for them. Still, the mission and vision are far from what determines a brand’s DNA. Few team members can say, without looking, what makes their company different. In this article we show you how to find it.

Contents

1. What is a brand’s DNA?
2. Is it the same as the mission and vision?
3. Where is my company’s DNA?
4. How is it discovered, step by step?
5. Try it today with three questions
6. And after you discover it?
7. Frequently asked questions

What is a brand’s DNA?

Think of a friend. You recognize them by how they talk, how they react when something goes wrong, what makes them laugh. You don’t need to see their face.

A company works the same way. A brand’s DNA is that character: how it decides, how it treats its customers, what it celebrates and what it won’t tolerate. The logo is the face; it’s part of the identity and is also shaped by the DNA. But what you can’t see at a glance is what really shapes and defines a brand’s identity. DNA is character, and a new design or a rebrand doesn’t change it.

That’s why a brand’s DNA isn’t created. It’s discovered. A brand that tries to be something it isn’t gets tired fast: the team can’t sustain it and the customer notices.

Let’s look at a few well-known examples:

• Apple. Perhaps the most famous, and a flagship not only in marketing but in culture and DNA. The focus on detail, the minimalist products and communications, the clean, futuristic look, employees who seem more like fans of the brand than workers, the cinematic videos, and a long list of products and services aligned with its core philosophy, Think Different. It shows that a brand that knows its DNA, defined its identity and works every day to carry it into every part of the organization has a real competitive advantage.
• Nu. The world’s largest neobank is an exceptional case. David Vélez, its founder and CEO, puts it simply: “The culture and identity of our brand have been key to Nu’s success; and that culture and identity are built in the first stage of an organization… the first 10 people will define that approach.” Beyond being a disruptive solution in banking, Nu shows that a brand’s DNA is lived and felt in every part of the organization: customer service, how it talks to the people who matter to it, its products and services.
• Our partners. From the start of this project, we’ve found it beautiful to have this conversation with brands. Many of the organizations we work with had never heard the term DNA in an organizational context. Once we explain it, they begin a process of self-analysis and discovery that has turned their communication, marketing and even business strategy around by 180°. Our partners’ DNA is beautiful: family businesses, dreamers’ startups, mother-and-child ventures, brothers’ and friends’ projects; organizations that care deeply about their customers and their team, open to change and to working openly with their clients.

Is it the same as the mission and vision?

No. The mission and vision are the way they decided to tell people who they are. They work when they come out of the DNA. When they’re written in a two-hour meeting without looking at how people really work, they end up framed and forgotten.

Visual identity (logo, colors, lettering) is another layer: it’s how the DNA looks. If it isn’t clear what needs to be shown, the prettiest design decorates something nobody can name. That’s why our brand work starts with the DNA, not the logo.

Where is my company’s DNA?

Almost never in a document. Look for it in five places:

• In how decisions get made. Who decides, on what criteria, and what they turn down even when it would pay.
• In how a complaint is handled. What happens when something goes wrong says more about you than any slogan.
• In what you celebrate and what you correct. That’s where the values you really apply show up.
• In what you tell the newcomer. Their first week sums up the culture.
• In what’s hard to change. What resists most is usually very close to what defines you most.

The people who make up the organization, how they behave, how they talk to each other and how they interact internally are fundamental elements that shape a brand’s DNA and identity. That’s why being in the field, watching how the organization behaves, is the best way to define your brand’s DNA.

How can you find your brand’s DNA quickly, in broad strokes? Of the five places we just listed, at Cromoxoma we use a very simple exercise from the fourth one. Whenever we’re about to start working with a partner, we spend some time meeting a random team member, someone outside the leadership structure, and ask them to tell us their opinion and perception of the organization they work for. What is a working day like there? Who talks to customers, suppliers and allies, and how? How do people communicate inside the organization? What habits are unique to the company? What do they know about its structure? What sets the brand apart from the competition?

We act as if we were new team members. We go through an immersion process that lets us understand, beyond partial opinions, who the brand is that we’ll be working hand in hand with, and what its DNA is.

How is it discovered, step by step?

There’s an order that works.

1. Talk with whoever leads. Their story, what they dream for the company, how far they want to go and how they see their own culture.
2. Be inside. Asking isn’t enough: you have to see how people talk, how things get solved, how work is shared.
3. Listen to the team. What team members think is almost never the same as what leadership thinks, and both versions are useful.
4. Compare the culture you have with the one you want. The distance between the two is the work to do.
5. Write it in a document the team recognizes as its own. In our method it’s called the DNA Map.

That journey is the first stage of our method, and we do it in the company’s own spaces, with its people.

Try it today with three questions

They don’t replace a full project, but they tell you whether your team sees what you see. Ask them separately and compare the answers:

1. What do we do here that we wouldn’t do at another company?
2. What would a team member tell someone who’s just joined, in their first week?
3. When did we say no to a deal, and why?

If the answers are alike, you have a clear, shared DNA. If everyone answers something different, you know where to start.

And after you discover it?

With the DNA clear, you look outward: your market, your competition and what your customers say. From there comes the strategy, and from the strategy, everything else: the brand, the website, the content. It all starts from something true, and that’s why it holds. If you’d like another take on this, read Your brand already exists: it lives in how your people work.

Frequently asked questions