In this episode of Message Received, host Jennifer Madigan speaks with Lindsay Fair, Invest Ottawa’s Vice President, Marketing, Communications and Bayview Impact, about the idea of brand perception and why most organizations misunderstand it. They explore the difference between brand and branding, how to discover what people actually think about your brand, and why a visual “refresh” or campaign often fails to address deeper misalignment between brand promise and experience.
00:00:00,560 --> 00:01:33,240 [Jennifer Madigan]
[upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to Message Received, a podcast by Syntax. I'm Jennifer Madigan. On this show, we talk about how messages actually land, how strategy, storytelling, and audience insights come together, and why some ideas cut through while others don't. Each episode, I'll sit down with people who shape narratives for a living, leaders, builders, and communicators who understand what you say and how you say it really matters. Let's get into it. Today, we're talking about something that sounds simple but is actually deeply strategic: perception. Whether you're a company, an institution, or an entire city, you don't get to decide how you're perceived. You only get to decide whether you understand it and whether you're intentional about shaping it. My guest today is Lindsay Fair. Lindsay is a brand and marketing leader who has spent her career working at the intersection of strategy, storytelling, and economic development. She currently leads brand and marketing at Invest Ottawa, and most recently is guiding a major brand rebuild initiative, work that is grounded not in creative instinct, but in research, diagnostics, and ecosystem alignment. I mean, let's be honest, creative instinct on top of all of those things. What I appreciate about Lindsay's approach is that it starts with a hard question, not what do we want to say, but what are we actually known for? So today, we're gonna unpack how you determine brand perception, what you do with that information once you have it, whether marketing can truly change perception, and how leaders can approach brand as a strategy and not decoration. Lindsay, thank you so much for joining me today.
00:01:33,240 --> 00:01:36,840 [Lindsey Fair]
Thanks for having me, Jen. This is very exciting.
00:01:36,840 --> 00:01:54,280 [Jennifer Madigan]
I am gonna have trouble keeping this conversation tight, to be honest, 'cause I, I find it so interesting, and participating in one of your sessions around the Y Ottawa brand in particular was really interesting for me to be on that side of thing. But I wanna start, you know, you've built your career in brand and marketing. What drew you to this work in the first place?
00:01:54,280 --> 00:02:09,060 [Lindsey Fair]
Oh, that's [chuckles] that's a great question, Jen. I think like most careers, it was a winding road. It certainly wasn't a linear path, um, that led me here, and I think, particularly when I think about brand, I started as a marketer.
00:02:09,060 --> 00:02:09,090 [Jennifer Madigan]
Mm-hmm.
00:02:09,090 --> 00:02:58,980 [Lindsey Fair]
Uh, and I started where things were more concrete, uh, where you, uh, understood an audience, and then you tried to influence that audience in some manner. Um, and it was later in my career, probably 20 years in, that I started to say, "Well, actually, how much control do we have, uh, over this?" And so I kinda went backwards and, and re-engineered what I had known for 20 years, unlearned a whole bunch of things to start learning again what it meant, uh, to build a brand, and how do you inform a brand, and, and actually how much can we control? And so the best way to do that, I, I ended up going back and doing my PhD late in life, in my 40s, um, to ask those critical questions, to actually, uh, step back and say, "Wait a second, everything I know might actually be wrong."
00:02:58,980 --> 00:03:05,660 [Jennifer Madigan]
[chuckles] I love it. Okay. Well, let's start with how do you define brand for those leaders who still think it's mostly visual.
00:03:05,660 --> 00:03:57,980 [Lindsey Fair]
Yeah. So I think most people actually get hung up on branding, and they assume that branding is brand, and branding is signs and symbols and artifacts that we use to help people understand a brand, but that's simply a communications layer. It's not actually the true definition of brand. Brand is in the eyes of the beholder. It is a perception and a feeling. It's a set of ideas that people form opinions on. Sometimes they're real, and sometimes they're not, actually, and that's ... Perception is really complicated because it actually sits in people's noses and in people's ears. Uh, it sits when people are around a dinner table, not when they're looking at your ads or your websites. It is not your slogans. It's actually almost the opposite. It's what people say when nobody's watching. It's that saying of dance like nobody's watching.
00:03:57,980 --> 00:03:58,290 [Jennifer Madigan]
Mm-hmm.
00:03:58,290 --> 00:04:05,590 [Lindsey Fair]
That's what your brand is. It's what happens when nobody's watching. I, I like to say they're, they're formed on the street, not in the boardroom. Uh-
00:04:05,590 --> 00:04:05,980 [Jennifer Madigan]
Right
00:04:05,980 --> 00:04:09,900 [Lindsey Fair]
... and so that's the difference, I think, between a brand and branding.
00:04:09,900 --> 00:04:13,590 [Jennifer Madigan]
So when an organization says, "We need to refresh our brand"-
00:04:13,590 --> 00:04:13,590 [Lindsey Fair]
Yeah
00:04:13,590 --> 00:04:16,840 [Jennifer Madigan]
... what should they really be asking themselves at that point?
00:04:16,840 --> 00:04:44,450 [Lindsey Fair]
Yeah. Oh my goodness. I get both excited when I'm asked this question, as somebody that's spent my career, uh, in marketing and advertising and now brand. Um, I get so excited, but I also get almost frustrated because often we do it on a hunch, and sometimes that hunch is good, but sometimes we're, we're actually trying to solve a problem that is not brand-oriented. So I always have to start with that why. Why, why do you think a brand refresh is gonna-
00:04:44,450 --> 00:04:44,480 [Jennifer Madigan]
Mm
00:04:44,480 --> 00:06:03,920 [Lindsey Fair]
... solve the problem of today? And it's often, uh, about customer acquisition is where people are starting. We're not getting the right customers through the door, or more often, we're not getting enough customers through the door. And then when I ask them what success looks like, 'cause that's the next question, "Why are we doing this, and what does success look like?" And often the answer to that is, "We need a new slogan," or, "We think our logo is outdated." And I'm ... And I, you know, have to have a really real and honest and difficult conversation with them to say, "I don't think people aren't your customer because they don't like the color of your logo." I truly don't believe people don't buy from somebody because they don't like circles and they like squares instead. That's not why. Um, and it's typically because of the brand layer, not branding layer, and it's typically 'cause their customer service is poor. Um, there's a disconnect or a cognitive dissonance between what we sell them and what they actually get. It's how people talk about them when, again, they're not around. And so the best way for them to address it is not going to be through updating their logo. It's going to actually be through addressing their customer service layer, uh, perhaps their sales layer, perhaps the product itself has some fault in it. And so the best marketers are gonna say, "Let's fix the product before we actually try to go sell the product."
00:06:04,204 --> 00:06:08,584 [Jennifer Madigan]
... Yeah, and sometimes that can be a lot harder than just make something look nicer, right? [chuckles]
00:06:08,584 --> 00:06:16,284 [Lindsey Fair]
Yes, exact- yes and no. Uh, it's a lot harder, but, uh, you'll spin your wheels if you just keep trying to-
00:06:16,284 --> 00:06:16,294 [Jennifer Madigan]
Sure
00:06:16,294 --> 00:06:18,644 [Lindsey Fair]
... fix the logo. [chuckles]
00:06:18,644 --> 00:06:53,404 [Jennifer Madigan]
So we do a lot of brand marketing for, uh, municipalities at Syntax. And so as you're saying this, I'm thinking a lot of them, especially, you know, during the pandemic and the years after, we're sort of chasing all of those people who are looking to get out of Toronto or, where cities like that, and come- you know, move somewhere smaller, somewhere quieter, and so they wanted to look at a brand, a brand refresh or a rebrand with that, so what or why being about bringing new people into their communities. So at the beginning all of this, how do you actually figure out how you're being perceived, and why is that such an important step?
00:06:53,464 --> 00:07:53,074 [Lindsey Fair]
Yeah. Uh, so I think you have to go back to human nature again, and how perception, uh, is started, and it's often based on what you're not. People think it's about saying who you are. And as Canadians, too, and I've worked with many cities around the world as well, um, and Canadian cities are notorious, and Canadians in general, are notorious for not wanting to ever do a benchmark, um, or a reference point, because we never wanna be seen, like we're, you know, putting another place down as an example. But people actually understand a thing when you can express how it's different than another thing. And so, um, that differentiation is so critical to that work, and we often, uh, water that down, or we often don't go deep enough to truly understand what's different and what's unique in, in the marketplace. Um, so we'll say: "Well, we've, you know, we've got really nice people." And I'm like: "Well, uh, I've never seen anybody put on a billboard that we have really mean people."
00:07:53,074 --> 00:07:53,124 [Jennifer Madigan]
[chuckles]
00:07:53,124 --> 00:08:37,024 [Lindsey Fair]
So, you know, I ask them to think about what is the opposite of that, and would somebody actually use that? And if not, that's not a differentiator. So, um, if you say, "Well, we're beautiful," I'm like, "Again, every city's gonna say we're beautiful." And so it has to be something that is true so that it sticks and resonates, and there isn't this cognitive dissonance between your audience and what you're saying. Um, and so that they can... It, it can be lived. It has to be lived to be real, uh, because that's how you actually form those, um, mental souvenirs of, um, what your brand stands for. And so spending way more time on differentiation and way less time on the next step, uh, I think is so important.
00:08:37,024 --> 00:08:43,044 [Jennifer Madigan]
How do you actually find out what people really think of your brand, though? How do you get that perception data?
00:08:43,044 --> 00:10:43,203 [Lindsey Fair]
Spend time in the zoo. [chuckles] And I don't mean the actual zoo, but I mean, like, find out who's out there and what they're doing and what they're saying. In my research and what I was using for the Y Ottawa project was something called social sensing, and there's so many modern tools that help with this now. But back when I, uh, was doing my dissertation, I actually had academic licenses to all of the social media platforms, which meant I could see a whole lot of stuff that everyday people can't see about what people are posting. So I was able to see, is that the people inside the city saying this about the city? Is it people outside of the city saying this about the city, as an example. And I was looking at neighborhood branding in particular, so I was actually looking, is it this neighborhood talking about that neighborhood, or is it outsiders talking about this neighborhood? And so by social sensing or social listening, you know, in professional context, not academic [chuckles] context, um, where you're actually hearing real people talk about your brand. I think the most, uh, valuable, though, is to then take a benchmark against what you're saying, and it's that difference that matters. If there's a close alignment, you're gonna have a much easier, less expensive path to forming the right brand perception in people's minds. And if there's a big disconnect between what you're saying and what others are saying, that's gonna be... You can get there. That's a long journey and a very expensive journey. And so, you know, if you wanna be the tech capital of the world, but you're known for being the antiquated village, which antiquated villages are some, like you said, like hotcakes after the pandemic. [chuckles] People wanna go and get offline for a little bit. So, you know, if, if you wanna be this, but you're already that, that's gonna be a long, expensive journey to get there, and you're gonna water yourself down in the middle. So you're actually gonna lose the people that want the antiquated- [chuckles] ... village in the process of becoming the tech, and you're gonna end up just being really muddy for many years until you can really change the whole ship again. 'Cause it's not about your logo, it's about changing everything under the hood.
00:10:43,204 --> 00:11:17,924 [Jennifer Madigan]
I love when you made that point. It's really an interesting one when you look at Ottawa. You know, when we're looking at how we talk about Ottawa outside, and then try to attract people to live, work, play in Ottawa, you know, people don't like the idea of, of, you know, words like competent and strategic, right? They, they're like: "No, we need to make Ottawa more exciting. Tell it... Let's show how fun we can be." But, you know, I've watched you navigate this sort of, "Oh, but let's temper it," because is that who we are? So what happens when the data reveals something that is kind of uncomfortable or, or something that you don't want to be?
00:11:17,924 --> 00:13:05,328 [Lindsey Fair]
Yeah, it's so fascinating. Uh, and I'm glad you were part of that session, and I really wanna dive into the why Ottawa brand and, and that competence piece and what it actually means. Recently, I was at a session about Ottawa as a brand, and somebody stood up, and I thought it was the most brilliant, uh, statement, where they said: "The only people that are ever saying we don't want Ottawa to be boring or to be known as boring, and we need to stop that, are people from Ottawa." And as somebody that's not from Ottawa, I am one of those people that had no idea and had... It had never entered my mind that Ottawa is boring. And the only reason that that narrative exists is because people in Ottawa are so afraid to be boring, they keep talking about, "We don't wanna be boring." And so I loved that this person stood up and actually articulated that, is that this is actually a Ottawa in problem, not an Ottawa brand problem. Yeah, that's my big aha, is, and I don't think anybody else outside of Ottawa has ever thought of Ottawa as boring. So let's go back to the question you were actually [chuckles] asking now, Jen. Um, that, uh, the challenge when people are faced with a mirror, I think it doesn't matter if it's your b-The brand is faced with a mirror of the brand, uh, or individuals see a mirror, and, and what we see is not always what we want to see. And we're uncomfortable with that because we have aspirations as individuals or as brands of where we want to be, and I think that's human nature. I think we also get bogged down again in the language of, of the brand, assuming it's a slogan or a tagline. Uh, we have a really hard time separating out the emotional layer, which is the brand, from, uh, the signs and souvenirs and, um, and symbols such as the branding-
00:13:05,328 --> 00:13:05,338 [Jennifer Madigan]
Mm-hmm
00:13:05,338 --> 00:14:15,108 [Lindsey Fair]
... to really understand the brand. And so the one you were talking about was the Why Ottawa presentation, where I did this benchmark study, and I looked at five cities across Canada and how we all sit in Aaker's five dimensions of brand, and we came up as competent. And it very much frustrated almost everybody we presented it to, because especially, uh, people from Ottawa, because it, it, they felt that it was reinforcing the boring, uh, narrative. And so working to understand what does competent truly mean, getting under the hood, and in today's world, you do a lot of stuff post-pandemic with cities, so your work would also lean to this. The world is really messy, and, and frantic, and chaotic, and people are craving stability and calmness in a place that doesn't feel chaotic. And so this could actually be our superpower, but we're so afraid of that boring narrative that we're pushing against it because w- I think based on the feedback, it's, I think it was we're really afraid that I'm gonna turn that into the branding, and I'm gonna put on a billboard, "Ottawa is competent."
00:14:15,108 --> 00:14:16,758 [Jennifer Madigan]
Yeah. Exactly. [laughs]
00:14:16,758 --> 00:14:50,348 [Lindsey Fair]
[laughs] I'm never gonna put that on a billboard. I'm never gonna say Ottawa is competent. What I'm actually gonna say is, "We are open for business 24/7," 'cause that's what a competent G7 city looks like. And 24/7 means that we run rock concerts five times a year, uh, massive rock concerts like the Blues Festival five times a year because we are an epicenter of culture and creativity, and that's what competence looks like. And so competence doesn't mean boring. Competence means that we've got our crap together. Am I allowed to say crap?
00:14:50,348 --> 00:14:52,318 [Jennifer Madigan]
Yeah. [laughs]
00:14:52,318 --> 00:15:03,908 [Lindsey Fair]
But it means we've got our crap together to be able to pull off really spectacular things and to create a vibrant ecosystem that makes people wanna live, work, and play here. That's what competence is.
00:15:03,908 --> 00:15:13,818 [Jennifer Madigan]
Yeah. I think that's so interesting, and, and that's exactly what it was. People were like, "Well, we're not... We can't say we're competent. That's just reads as boring," [laughs] right? So...
00:15:13,818 --> 00:15:13,828 [Lindsey Fair]
Yeah.
00:15:13,828 --> 00:15:44,248 [Jennifer Madigan]
But it's interesting. It's more about understanding where you are, and then how do you use that for the marketing campaign. I wanna get a sense of how you, how do you decide what to lean into versus what to evolve? So if people didn't wanna lean into competence, despite your explanation on why, especially right now, this makes a lot of sense, like this is what people are craving. But if people say, "We don't wanna lean into that, we want to evolve and become more exciting," how do you make that determination, I guess, first, the green light, which way do you go?
00:15:44,248 --> 00:18:14,948 [Lindsey Fair]
Yeah. And, and so that's where understanding how far you have to go, so you can look at how, you know, no city, no brand, and just like people, we're complex. We're not only one thing. So although Ottawa, uh, very much was in the competent camp, and in fact, we owned it more than any other city I studied, it doesn't mean that we didn't also have strengths in other brand personality, right? You can be an extrovert and also into books, right? Like, as humans. And so brands can also be complex, and they can be multiple things at the same time. Um, and so, you know, if you went to your second dimension, so say, you know, your second one was sincere, which is down to earth, family-oriented, and so on, and, and say it was only a little bit off of your, your primary dimension, you probably on- you know, have a shorter path. It's gonna be less expensive. You're gonna be able to make a few interceptions, um, perhaps, uh, that can... or disruptions that can change how people understand or move through your city, uh, or through your brand so that you can start creating new perceptions of your city. If you want to be dramatically different, and I used to see this in the university sector all the time 'cause that's... I worked, uh, as a CMO in the university sector for many years, and everybody was competing for sophisticated. Everybody wanted to be, you know, U15 or... And, and they'll all say they don't wanna be that, but they all did. Uh, they all wanna be rated in the QS rankings. They all want some form of prestige. They're all trying to be the most prestigious university. And in fact, there's three prestigious universities in Canada, and they have held that prestige in the minds of the beholder for decades, probably centuries. And to compete there, it's gonna be really expensive, right? If Trent University, who is an amazing university, and they, they would be one of the only ones that is in that activist or rugged category, if they wanted to move into sophisticated, that's a long journey for them. They're gonna have to invest in research labs. They're gonna have to invest in researchers. They're gonna have to invest in bringing in a, the next president from Harvard University. They're gonna have to create some shortcuts to creating what appears, 'cause it's based on perception, not reality, but they're gonna have to create those artifacts that signal sophisticated, and those are often, in particular, around sophisticated, expensive. You're trying to create a luxury brand in that sense, and that's expensive to go from here to there.
00:18:14,948 --> 00:18:21,688 [Jennifer Madigan]
And what I'm hearing you say is what they can't do is just make a marketing campaign that shows that they're sophisticated.
00:18:21,688 --> 00:18:58,500 [Lindsey Fair]
Yes. Hence where my frustration that drove me back to school came from is as a marketer, uh, you know, I, I owned an agency for many years, and, um, it paid my bread... It was my bread and butter was to do this work, but over time, um, I, I... felt like I was up against something that, uh, was doomed to fail, 'cause I was slapping on the logo, or I was slapping on a slogan, and they'd get really excited, but at the end of the day, it wasn't doing what they needed it to do. It wasn't driving the business, whatever the, the brand was, it wasn't driving the business they needed.
00:18:58,500 --> 00:18:59,250 [Jennifer Madigan]
Mm-hmm.
00:18:59,250 --> 00:19:46,260 [Lindsey Fair]
Um, and so I really wanted to have some validation that I was onto something, that, uh, it really- my intervention as a marketer really needed to be at the product development level or the customer service level, which is why the job with U- with Ottawa, w- with Invest Ottawa, in particular, is so exciting because I am VP of marketing, but I'm also VP of Bayview Experience, and so now I actually get to participate on the delivery or the product to make sure that when I'm out there saying that Ottawa delivers this competent, this safe, intelligent, very technical... We're complex, we're exciting, even though when I'm saying we're competent, but we're exciting in our competence, I actually get to do it through demonstrating it, not just saying it.
00:19:46,260 --> 00:19:52,300 [Jennifer Madigan]
I thought it was interesting looking at Mississauga when you were showing the different cities, and I'm from Mississauga. [laughs]
00:19:52,300 --> 00:19:58,020 [Lindsey Fair]
Oh, no! I feel so bad. I'm, I'm like, "I hope no Mississauga people see this." [laughs]
00:19:58,020 --> 00:20:15,140 [Jennifer Madigan]
No, but I, but I was like, "Yeah, it's, it's true." Mississauga's not, like... It, it didn't lean in too strong in either direction, so then what is it, right? It almost doesn't [chuckles] have a really strong perception. But that's what I always say to people, I'm like, "Well, yeah, I grew up in Mississauga. It's a suburb." Like, I know it's a lot more than that, but what was it really? It w- it didn't-
00:20:15,140 --> 00:20:15,280 [Lindsey Fair]
Yeah
00:20:15,280 --> 00:20:30,240 [Jennifer Madigan]
... there, you know, it doesn't really have, even in my mind, having spent all of my childhood there. [laughs] So that was really interesting, though, because if you pull from the... As you were saying, if you pull from the, the area where you're strong to try to get over here, you risk becoming more of that
00:20:30,240 --> 00:20:32,179 [Jennifer Madigan]
mushy middle nothingness. [chuckles]
00:20:32,180 --> 00:22:27,750 [Lindsey Fair]
Yeah, so the- exactly. So in my assessment, Mississauga was trying to be a little bit of everything, um, minus ruggedness. They, they really had no strength in the ruggedness category, but they had, you know, a little bit of excitement, a little bit of sincerity, a little bit of competence, a little bit of sophisticated. They're- they were right there in the middle, and, and every other city I studied owned one of those dimensions, those personality dimensions. And so the problem is, they became, when you try to be everything to everybody, you're nothing to nobody. [chuckles] And so they really fell into that trap, and I think that they were onto something. When they first... Early in my career, really early, probably one of my very first marketing jobs, is when I feel that Mississauga kind of broke out as its own city. Uh, and I don't actually know the history of the city itself, and at that time, they were setting up to almost be the multicultural hub of Toronto, and that could have been, if they just kept going in that, that could have been really interesting. Uh, that could have really leaned into sincerity. It could have been a differentiator that, you know, Toronto is the busy, bustle place, but we are the multicultural hub. This is where people from all over the world want to raise their families here in Canada. Uh, there could have been something unique there, but I feel that they lost that somewhere along the way, and I don't know why. I haven't studied enough about Mississauga. I'm curious about it, and I think they're doing fine. I mean, that's one of the other parts that I still have a question about. If you were to say, "Well, what's still keeping you up at night?" Is, I don't think Mississauga is staying up at night, 'cause I think they're doing fine. They're growing faster than they can keep up with, so is this a problem? I- that's the one part that I'm not sure about, because they might have a brand perception problem, but they don't have a growth problem.
00:22:27,750 --> 00:22:35,340 [Jennifer Madigan]
Mm-hmm. Okay, one other scenario I wanna pick your brain on is an organization that does research and realizes that
00:22:35,340 --> 00:22:55,000 [Jennifer Madigan]
there is no perception of them. Even if they're a, you know, a, an older institution or older organization, there's no perception of their brand in the market. So now they have the opportunity to do what? [laughs] Right? When you have that, and I mean, you're chasing now, you have to actually create awareness.
00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:55,240 [Lindsey Fair]
Yes.
00:22:55,240 --> 00:23:03,540 [Jennifer Madigan]
Uh, what do they do then when they, when they see that there is actually, there's very little awareness, therefore very little to no perception of their brand?
00:23:03,540 --> 00:26:06,772 [Lindsey Fair]
Yeah, and I've got a few of those. So I'm gonna talk about a sector, so polytechs as a sector. I've spent so much time in post-secondary, so excuse me [chuckles] that I keep going there, but people know what a university is, and people know what a college is. But I worked at a polytech, and we did a national brand study to ask that: "Do you know what a polytech is?" to Canadians all over. What is a polytech? And we couldn't even get people that work in polytechs to explain it, and so [chuckles] um, it is a completely unknown, um, often misunderstood form of institution in Canada. Uh, and it's partly because every polytech looks different, and whereas our universities are pretty much the same, right? There's research universities, and there's non-research universities, but other than that, they're pretty much the same. And colleges, same thing, pretty much the same, and that's where it became really challenging. And so it becomes, a- and I've h- seen this many times, where you're doing both education and trying to sell the product or the thing that you're trying to, you know, get customer acquisition through. You're trying to build awareness for the thing, but also for the, the language. My first marketing agency... Actually, I'm gonna start there, too. So my first marketing agency that I owned was a web marketing company, and I started it in the year 2000, so right during the dot-com crash. And I said, "Web marketing," and nobody knew what the web was yet. [chuckles] Like, very few people knew what the web was, and I did search engine marketing, and people were barely... Like, they used search engines. There was 11 of them, too, not just one or two. There was 11 mainstream. There was probably thousands, but 11 mainstream, and I did search engine marketing, and but I had to actually teach people about search engine marketing and about web marketing and about email marketing, 'cause they didn't know what any of these things were. People checked their email once a day back then, right? And so-I had to teach that and try to make them know what my brand is. And so it was very complicated. What I would say is if you're new and you do a brand study and nobody knows who you are, you have to spend equal amount of time developing the experience you want people to have, as well as the brand narrative and the brand story of that so that it becomes true. And the quicker you figure that out to create, uh, truth-making, it will expedite your path to having a brand, a positive brand perception in people's minds. And so what can you do today to make truth-making, uh, happen, uh, when people experience your brand? So whether that's every single interaction, the way you talk to people at events, the way you ... when people enter your space, when people hear you in a conversation at the dinner table, every interaction they have with you in those early days are so critical in forming those brand perceptions. And then the last part I would say is people know they understand brands not for who they are, but who they're not. And so giving them that reference point of, "We are this, which is not this"-
00:26:06,772 --> 00:26:06,782 [Jennifer Madigan]
Mm-hmm
00:26:06,782 --> 00:26:09,812 [Lindsey Fair]
... is really helpful when you're trying to form something.
00:26:09,812 --> 00:26:16,892 [Jennifer Madigan]
That's so interesting. All right. If you had one last piece of advice about brand and perception for a CEO or a founder, what would it be?
00:26:16,892 --> 00:26:22,612 [Lindsey Fair]
It's not about the logo. It, it, it, re- like, I know I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here. But-
00:26:22,612 --> 00:26:23,022 [Jennifer Madigan]
[laughs]
00:26:23,022 --> 00:27:02,232 [Lindsey Fair]
... um, it is really about understanding how people talk about you at the dinner table. Think secret shopper. Figure out ways to get in the minds and voices and conversations of your everyday customers to really understand who you are, and it doesn't have to be fancy. Uh, when I worked in post-secondary, I ate in the cafeteria every day, and I was one of the only executive that did that. I s- literally sat in the middle of the students every day so I could hear and feel and smell, which university students don't smell great for the most part. But, uh [laughs] so I could literally be immersed in what is our brand experience, what is the brand truth of who we are.
00:27:02,232 --> 00:27:26,132 [Jennifer Madigan]
Yeah, I love that. I mean, whenever we do a brand refresh, rebrand for a municipality, I like to go to the municipality and find the coffee shop. For me, it's ... and everyone who knows me will laugh. But find the coffee shop, go talk to the people, right? Wander around the streets because, I mean, there's other ways we're gonna gather your data, but it is, it's something extra about just being in it and seeing for yourself what the experience is like.
00:27:26,132 --> 00:28:09,492 [Lindsey Fair]
Every city smells different, and you can't get that from a brochure, right? You know, Hamilton smells very different than [laughs] London, Ontario, where I'm from. And so even that, that lived experience tells a story. Yeah, so I love that, Jen, that you actually physically go and, and immerse yourself in place. Oh, Zita Cobb from, uh, Fogo Island, she, she is brilliant at understanding place and brand actually, and that it starts with how it's experienced. Uh, but she had a brilliant quote that said, "Everything happens in place, so start in place." And I'm like, that's brilliant. I think your brands are lived experiences. Start there.
00:28:09,492 --> 00:28:32,682 [Jennifer Madigan]
Yeah, I absolutely love that. Lindsay, thank you so much. This has been such a thoughtful conversation. What I'm taking away is that perception isn't something you manage with a campaign, it's something you earn and reinforce through clarity, consistency, and confidence. Marketing can amplify a truth. It can sharpen it, it can express it more boldly, but it can't manufacture credibility where it doesn't exist. Thank you so much for joining us today, and hopefully we'll talk again soon.
00:28:32,682 --> 00:28:34,862 [Lindsey Fair]
Thanks, Jen. It was awesome.
00:28:34,862 --> 00:28:49,772 [Jennifer Madigan]
[upbeat music] That's it for today's episode of Message Received. If you enjoyed listening, follow or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can find more from Syntax Strategic on LinkedIn and at syntaxstrategic.ca. I'm Jennifer Madigan.