28 Days is a fun little movie about a successful New York writer living the fast-paced city life of late night parties, late morning lattes, and limitless opportunities to spend her limitless money. But a particularly rowdy night lands her in court-ordered rehab. A funny, endearing, down-to-earth tale ensues.

It’s the perfect role for Sandra Bullock.

28 Days Later is not a sequel. It’s a scary zombie movie featuring mass carnage and horror throughout London.

But you can see how I might walk into a dark theater looking for Sandra Bullock, only to be roared at by savage zombies infected with the rage virus. You can see how this experience would teach me a lesson about diversifying my information intake.

As customers we do this every day…take in information about a product or service, consolidate that information into our own expectations, then act on that information. So whether we purchase or not might really just be based on a weighing of our own needs versus how that product or service might solve our problem.

So when the information from different sources doesn’t align, it can be jarring. Like a pizza place that sells insurance. A rave at the library. Or Sandra Bullock in 28 Days Later.

As we both know, brand-focused messaging uses many pieces of collateral to ensure your message is told loud and clear. You can solve the customer’s problem, address the customer’s needs, and provide answers right there in your messaging, be it TV commercials, YouTube videos, print or radio ads, web content, or, of course, your in-store and on-hold messaging!

The trick is to make sure that all of these messaging assets are speaking the same language, using the same tone, addressing the same customer concerns, etc. Or if not keeping them the same across the board, at least meshing the elements in a way that still tells a cohesive story.

Coke sells fun, family, and refreshment among other themes, but the tone, the style, the verbiage, and more are often the same.

So the same way your business should act as a place for your customers to be enveloped by your brand, your advertising and messaging should act as part of that unified brand experience.

When we create messages here at Mood, we always consider your existing advertising collateral as our early entry point to connecting with your audience of customers. Because gelling with your tone, your style, and your brand is an important element of ensuring a successful addition of in-store and on-hold messaging to your marketing mix.

Your brand is the story we’re working to tell. And by keeping a holistic view of your marketing mix in mind as we’re working with you, we can (almost always!) guarantee that we’ll never produce the equivalent of adding zombies into your romantic comedy.

Have you been confused by a romantic comedy? Maybe a movie didn’t live up to the book it was being advertised as? Or you were excited about a certain product only to find out the full story wasn’t really being told? Let us hear about it in the comments below!

– Submitted by Jon Vaden, Voice