It’s easy to look at your brand as simply a functional thing. It is a name. A typeface. A color. And maybe a logomark.

It's easy to think of it is nothing more than another asset that helps the organization conduct business. But if this is as far as the organization goes, it leaves a lot on the table.

Underutilizing the brand results in missed opportunities.

A brand is emotional

People get emotional about the brands that they love.

Harley Davidson engenders incredible loyalty among the brand's faithful. They wear the logo like a badge. Some even go so far as to get tattooed with the brand.

Imagine creating the kind of emotional connection that spurs someone to permanently display your logo on his or her body. That's powerful.

How do you find the emotion?

In order to connect powerful emotions to your brand, you need to reveal its soul.

The most potent approach is to clarify your Big Audacious Meaning (purpose). In other words, the difference do you make in a life, a community, and even the world.

Harley Davidson realized its brand was more than the bike itself. It was what the bike represented to people. The brand helped the Harley Davidson faithful feel a sense of fierce independence and personal freedom. That is the soul of the brand and it has a big impact on the lives of those the brand serves.

The brand also created a strong sense of community among the Harley Davidson followers. That community brings people together to not only share enthusiasm but to organize to do good works in the world – from rides to fund disease research to gathering toys for kids at the holidays. All under the banner of the Harley Davidson brand.

Revealing your brand soul

An organization in any category can find the emotion in its brand. Harley Davidson does it in the motorcycle category where other brands like Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Honda don't generate near the emotional connection.

John Deere does it in the tractor category for farmers. Before Apple, the computer category was dull, technical, and even intimidating.

In all these instances, the organizations tapped into the soul of the brand to reveal something that created an emotional connection with those they hoped to serve. As a result, their respective followers rewarded them with enthusiasm, passion, and loyalty.

If these brands can do it, so can you. Your brand has something irresistible waiting to be revealed.