Building a Better Brand around your business
What is Branding?
There are many areas that are used to develop a brand including advertising, customer service, promotional merchandise, reputation, and logo.
Brand
- A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. –Wikipedia
Branding
- Branding- the promotion of a particular product or company by means of advertising and distinctive design.“The process of branding should be considered in global terms” –Oxford
Brand Identity
- Brand identity is the visible elements of a brand, such as color, design, and logo, that identify and distinguish the brand in consumers’ minds. Brand identity is distinct from brand image. –Investopedia
Brand Image
- The impression in the consumers’ mind of a brand’s total personality (real and imaginary qualities and shortcomings). Brand image is developed over time through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme, and is authenticated through the consumers’ direct experience. –businessdictionary.com
The Need for Branding
Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers.
Brands with a consistent visual identity resonate with their customers more effectively and get the added benefit of having to spend significantly less money in the long run on advertising and marketing materials.
Branding is important because not only is it what makes a memorable impression on consumers but it allows your customers and clients to know what to expect from your company.
There are many areas that are used to develop a brand including advertising, customer service, promotional merchandise, reputation, and logo.
Brands with more scattered visual identities have to spend more and more to get their brand in front of customers as it changes so frequently. – Daniel Herndon
Branding helps in attaining three major purposes:
- Navigation
Brand helps a consumer to choose from a bewildering array of products or services. A brand provides consumers buying decisions when feeling confused about the same product from different companies. - Reassurance
Brands communicate the intrinsic quality of product or service and reassure the customer that they have made the right choice. - Engagement
Brands use distinctive imagery, language associations to encourage customers to identify the brands.
What's your Brand?
In order to determine who your brand is, you need to ask yourself several questions.
Questions that go beyond industry generalizations, and services or products offered but also questions to determine who you are as a company, and more importantly, who you are as a brand.
The following questions are an excellent place to begin your brand discovery.
- What are your core principles and values?
- What is your mission statement?
- What inspired you to build your business?
- Why do you want to offer your products or services to your target audience?
- What makes you unique?
- What is your internal company culture?
- What is your professional sense of style?
- What are your communication characteristics?
- What do you want to come to mind when someone hears your business name?
- How do you want people to feel when they think of your business?
- How do you want customers to describe you as a company?
Why do I need a Brand Identity Kit?
In a survey, 93 percent of buyers said they focus on visual appearance, and close to 85 percent claim color is a primary reason when they make a purchase! – smallbiztrends.com
Your brand is one of the most important things in your company; it is how the world identifies you. While branding isn’t just about your logo, it still plays a key part in helping people easily recall your brand.
You should always be protecting and monitoring the use of your logo and branding elements. It’s when things aren’t unified and consistent that branding efforts can start to fall apart.
– Karlie Mosher vimm.com
McDonald’s usage of energetic hues like red and yellow appeals to youngsters, arouses hunger & promotes a feeling of urgency.
Obviously, Ronald McDonald himself is popular with children, but on the other hand, he’s certain to disturb adults more rapidly.
This encourages quicker customer turnover.
“Interestingly, the only major global brand to use green as its primary color is Starbucks. Using green shows that Starbucks hopes to promote a sense of relaxation in their cafes, inviting customers to come in for a coffee break during a stressful day.” – smallbiztrends.com
What Does My Brand Identity Kit Need?
You might want to create a Brand Usage Guideline and an Identity Kit in a place readily available to any employees, marketing agency or designer that may need it. All the files in relation to your brand identity will be in this folder.
A Usage Guideline
This guideline should contain all of the basic information about your visual brand identity that can be referred to as a quick reference guide. More in-depth pieces such as a whole branding/identity manual can be created that covers various use cases.
Identity Kit
This is a folder located in a central location that contains all of your logo files, font files, and any secondary elements used in your marketing.
Here is a simple list of items to include while building your brand’s visual identity:
- A simple color palette – This should feature 1-3 primary colors and 2-3 secondary colors (Black and white count).
- A primary logo mark and wordmark.
Make sure to have these in several different high-resolution file formats:
- A vector file such as an Illustrator (.AI) or .EPS file.
These types of files allow graphics to be resized at any scale without losing quality. If you have any design-related work sent out, this is the file the vendor will more than likely ask you for. - Transparent – .TIF or .PNG
These types of files allow an image to be saved with a transparent background allowing you to place it on different backgrounds as needed. - .JPG
(Versions for both print and web)
*Having more than one orientation (horizontal and vertical) is very helpful because your logo will be placed on multiple different platforms.
For instance, a logo version in a square format comes in handy when uploading to Facebook or Twitter as a profile picture. This ensures that your logo won’t be cut off anywhere and made unrecognizable.
- A secondary logo mark and/or wordmark – This should be designed to be used in place of your primary logo, like on a t-shirt, hat, or pencil.
- Fonts – These can be as simple as Helvetica or they can be custom-built. If you’re looking for ease of use, pick a widely-distributed font that is available on all computers. If you want something more distinct, you can pick a lesser-known font or even build your own.
Keep a text file that has different color profiles for your company colors. The most common form is the hex number, a combination of numbers and letters that a device converts into a color.
Secondary Elements
Secondary elements you may use consistently while marketing your company could be photos, graphics, patterns, and icons; anything you use to support your brand. Like your logos, make sure to have high-resolution files of them on hand in several different file types.
Consider using texture – This can be a complex pattern or a simple color overlay that you put on top of photography. Make sure the textures you include can be used on everything from printed pieces to your website.
Tips for photography – These don’t need to be in-depth, but give a general idea of what type of photography is “on-brand.”
- Do you want people in your photos?
- Should you see their faces?
- Should pictures be posed or more dynamic?
Color Psychology
Marketing and advertising are well-known for utilizing color psychology. The fact that some companies have heavily invested in this type of research and many others have followed through in its use shows they have enough belief in the concepts of color psychology to implement them in their advertising.
Most marketing and advertising executives will likely agree that there are benefits to understanding and utilizing the psychological effects of colors. Let’s take a look at some of the more common traits of color psychology in the Western Hemisphere.
“Keep in mind that certain shades or tones may result in very different meanings. Also, the context around the color, and even surrounding colors, can have an effect.” -Art Therapy
A beginner’s guide to color psychology
Red – Creates a sense of urgency, which is good for clearance sales.
It encourages appetite, thus is frequently used by fast-food chains. Physically stimulates the body, raising blood pressure and heart rate, associated with movement, excitement, and passion.
Blue – The preferred color of men. It’s associated with peace, water, tranquility, and reliability.
Blue provides a sense of security, curbs appetite, and stimulates productivity. The most common color used by conservative brands looking to promote trust in their products.
Green – Associated with health, tranquility, power, and nature.
Used in stores to relax customers and for promoting environmental issues. Green stimulates harmony in your brain and encourages a balance leading to decisiveness.
Purple – Commonly associated with royalty, wisdom, and respect.
Stimulates problem-solving as well as creativity. Frequently used to promote beauty and anti-aging products.
Orange & Yellow – Cheerful colors that promote optimism.
Yellow can make babies cry, while orange can trigger a sense of caution. Used to create a sense of anxiety that can draw in impulsive buyers and window shoppers.
Black – Associated with authority, power, stability, and strength.
Often a symbol of intelligence, but can become overwhelming if used too frequently.
Grey – Symbolizes feelings of practicality, old age, and solidarity.
But too much grey can lead to feelings of nothingness and depression.
White – Associated with feelings of purity, cleanliness, and safety.
It can be used to project an absence of color or neutrality. White space helps spark creativity since it can be perceived as an unaltered, clean state.
What is a brand tagline?
A tagline, also called a slogan or motto, is a phrase that accompanies your brand name to quickly translate your positioning and brand statements into a few memorable words that provide an indication of your brand offerings, promise, and market position. –Dummies.com
Great taglines have a number of common attributes. When writing your tagline, see that it meets these criteria:
- It’s memorable. You hear it, remember it, and repeat it with ease.
- It’s short. Great taglines have as few as ten syllables so that they’re quick to recite, easy to tuck in alongside logos, and short enough to include in the briefest of communications.
- It conveys a brand’s point of difference. A good example of this element is Zipcar: “Wheels when you want them.”
- It differentiates a business from all others. In fact, a great tagline is so unique that it doesn’t work when linked to a competitor’s brand name.
- It reflects the brand’s identity, character, promise, and personality.
- It’s believable and original.
- It invokes positive feelings without running the risk of triggering sarcastic retorts.
- It appeals to consumers. In other words, the tagline doesn’t get bogged down with the input of executives who inadvertently turn the slogan into a corporate rallying call rather than a consumer magnet.
- It adds to the meaning of the brand name without repeating any of the same words or concepts.
Do I need a Tagline?
Taglines carry your brand identity and promise where your logo can’t go, like your e-mail messages, word ads, voicemail greetings, and other nonvisual communication channels.
To determine whether you need a tagline, answer these questions:
- Does your business offer consumers distinct advantages that aren’t conveyed in your name?
- Would your brand character be more clearly presented with a line that travels with your brand name?
- Is your company best at something that you want consumers to know about but that isn’t conveyed by your name?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, a tagline may well be a strong addition to your brand name, logo, and marketing program.
Coming up with your slogan
In crafting your tagline, follow this advice:
- Know your positioning statement. What meaningful and available niche in your market do you fill better than any other brand?
- Based on your unique position, come up with a list of quick, memorable one-liners that convey your special distinction.
- Put each of your tagline contenders to the test by seeing if they live up to the qualities listed above.