It still matters

"Everything you do, from the way you answer the phone to the design of your packaging, from your location to the downstream effects of your work, from the hold music to the behaviour of your executives, and even the kind of packing peanuts you use—all of it is a form of marketing your brand. You can’t measure it. You might not even notice it. But it still matters."

There’s a line that’s stuck with me for years:“Everything you do, from the way you answer the phone to the design of your packaging, from your location to the downstream effects of your work, from the hold music to the behavior of your executives, and even the kind of packing peanuts you use—all of it is a form of marketing your brand. You can’t measure it. You might not even notice it. But it still matters.”

We live in an age of dashboards, metrics, and algorithms. Impressions, reach, engagement — all necessary to guide modern marketing. But when brands start to believe that only what’s measurable matters, they miss the point. A brand isn’t built in the analytics tab; it’s built in the thousand small interactions that never make it to the report.

The Invisible Side of Branding

Most of what makes a brand resonate is invisible. It’s the tone of an email, the follow-up call that didn’t have to happen, the way a package feels when it lands on a customer’s doorstep. These moments don’t get tracked, but they create the quiet hum of trust that grows over time.

The irony is that these details, the ones hardest to quantify, are often what customers remember most. Not the campaign slogan or the clever headline, but the feeling they had while interacting with you. Every choice communicates something: respect, indifference, attention, care.

The Weight of Intention

Good brands are intentional about what they design. Great brands are intentional about the experiences that live between the official touchpoints. They think about how their products arrive, how their emails sound, how their partners are treated, and how their decisions ripple outward into their communities. Every detail reinforces or erodes trust.

That’s why at Crosshatch, we talk about craft as much as we talk about strategy. The two aren’t opposites; they intersect. Craft is how strategy becomes real. It’s where values take shape in tangible, everyday ways.

Beyond Measurement

Not everything that matters can be measured, and not everything that’s measured matters.The best brands understand that a strong identity isn’t just a logo or a campaign; it’s a pattern of consistent behavior over time. Every small act adds up to something bigger, something you feel before you can explain.

So yes, the hold music matters. The out-of-office reply matters. The tone of your invoices, the way you sign your emails, the way you thank your customers — it all matters.

Because in the end, your brand isn’t what you say it is. It’s what people feel when they experience you, and those feelings are made of the smallest details.

#brand #marketing #design #packaging #brandidentity #sethgodin