A brand goes beyond your logo, colour palette, or the tone of your brand. Its importance is impossible to overstate. A brand strengthens the consumer’s connection with your company. How can you take advantage of this power and create a brand that leaves a lasting impression on your audience? In this guide we will define what a brand is, discuss its importance, and offer tips for building one.
What is a brand?
In short, a brand refers to the deliberate actions you take to influence people’s perception of your product or service. As author and entrepreneur Seth Godin puts it: ‘A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.’ In other words, a brand includes all of the opportunities you have to influence those decisions, from the way you choose your brand name, design your logo and ads, to the way you build your website and arrange your premises.
Types of brands
Since every type of business involves different interactions with customers, each one has its own opportunities and challenges when it comes to branding. Let’s look at the various types of brands and their particularities.
Product brand
A product brand refers to the design, quality, functionality, packaging, and price that make up the identity of a product. The aim is for the product to stand out on the market, so that consumers can easily recognise it and choose it over others.
Service brand
A service brand is less tangible than a product brand and involves more variables, which is why building the brand is more demanding. A company that offers services has to make sure that its working environment, its employees, and its business policies create a unified identity.
Online brand
An online brand focuses on the way a company presents itself online. Social media, email marketing, content marketing, and website design all offer opportunities to strengthen your brand.
Brand in the physical world
This is the way the consumer interacts with the brand in the physical world. It includes your billboards, your interior furnishings, and (also) your scent. It is about the lighting, the choice of music, and the behaviour of your employees. These are the events you organise and the (outdoor) advertising you run. At its core, it is about the impression your customer gets in their direct experience with your company.
A brand in the physical world isn’t as easy to verify or monitor. You have to pay attention to your customers and their mood while they are on your premises (e.g. in a shop). Beyond that, you should ask for feedback whenever possible.
Although brand strategies differ from those online, your brand in the physical world should complement the online brand.
Co-branding
Think of Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg. Their personal brands are strong on their own, but together they have created an unstoppable joint brand. This clever marketing strategy is called co-branding, or cooperation between different companies. The strategy allows the companies involved to share a target audience and extend their reach.
Corporate brand
A corporate brand permeates everything an organisation sells, and how it operates. By providing an umbrella identity, it ties together all the brands underneath it.
Some companies, such as Unilever, which has hundreds of brands ranging from Dove to Hellman’s, allow the brands beneath them to develop unique identities. On the other hand, companies such as Alphabet, which owns Google, Android, Nest, and others, prioritise continuity over differentiation.
The latter type of corporate brand follows the vision-culture-image model, which calls for all brands to align across these three components. It matters less whether a company’s various brands maintain a tangible common thread, and more that they stay within the organisational ethos.
Personal brand
A personal brand encompasses your reputation and your personal and professional image. You highlight your personal brand with tools such as your CV, posts on social media, the design of your website, and so on.
‘A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.’ Seth Godin
Why is a brand important?
People form a first impression of someone before they are even aware of it. Researchers at Princeton found that people can ‘read’ someone in less than 100 milliseconds. A thoughtful brand strategy makes use of these milliseconds and influences the impression a consumer forms of your company.
Let’s take a look at how a brand affects your company.
It introduces your company
Brand recognition refers to how the market and consumers perceive your company. Ideally, customers have a positive impression of your brand and the services or products you offer. Strong brand recognition encourages your target audience to choose your brand specifically, even when cheaper or alternative options are available.
It sets you apart from the competition
Regardless of the industry, the competition is always fierce. Whether you are opening a bicycle repair shop, selling CBD products, or becoming a social media consultant, a brand allows you to set yourself apart from competitors. By highlighting what you offer, you can show why your brand is the better choice.
It creates a sense of recognition
A key part of brand recognition is also brand recall, which more specifically refers to how consumers remember your product or service. The visual elements of a brand, such as the colours, the logo, or the slogan, can trigger this memory. For example, imagine you are on a trip and in the distance on the motorway you see golden arches. Without thinking, you have already recognised McDonald’s.
It builds trust
Trust in a brand matters both for attracting potential customers and for reputation in the industry. According to Intelligence Node, ‘more than 60% of adult online users in Canada, the US, and Europe want companies to be transparent about their business practices.’
A company with a strong brand not only presents itself as more professional and well-organised, it also inspires trust through transparency and authenticity. Beyond that, defining your brand’s values and keeping your promises can encourage potential and existing customers to support your brand.
It gives your company an identity
Just as every person has their own unique identity, so does your brand. Imagine you want to set up two friends on a blind date and you have to describe each one to the other. How would you identify or characterise them? Try thinking about your brand as a person, not as a product or object. This idea, formally known as ‘brand anthropomorphism’, challenges you to picture your brand as a human being, in order to better define how it acts, speaks, dresses, communicates, or influences the world.
It creates pride among employees
Employees who stand behind their brand and are proud of their work are not only useful for the business, they also shape the public perception of your brand. This can affect how customers recognise your brand and encourage potential employees to seek out your company. A well-designed brand should give employees a sense of belonging, satisfaction, and pride. This will also encourage them to authentically promote the brand on various platforms and channels.
It increases the value of your company
Whether the company is small or large, a brand plays an important role in confirming your financial value and building brand equity. A company’s growth can be based on a successful brand when it comes to attracting new customers, generating business, or breaking into new markets. What is more, a well-designed brand can attract potential investors.
How to build a brand?
Develop a strong brand strategy
- Determine your ‘why’
- Shape your brand identity
- Write your brand story
- Design your visual identity
- Build a brand website
- Develop a style guide
- Manage your brand
Develop a strong brand strategy
Developing a strong brand calls for a strategy at every step. Your strategy serves as a plan for guiding all aspects of your brand, from design to customer service. Through research, analysis, planning, and preparation, you can define long-term goals and achieve outstanding results.
Determine your ‘why’
Before you tackle colour palettes and logo design, you first have to define your fundamental purpose. Your brand statement, or the position that represents the motivation behind your brand, should connect all the elements of the brand. Include these elements in your brand statement.
Mission statement: A mission statement is a key part of your brand-building efforts that expresses the purpose and values of the brand. In a few sentences, anyone who encounters your brand should clearly understand what you stand for.
Vision statement: Like the mission statement, the vision statement also clearly and concisely articulates your strategic business goals. Your brand’s vision can change over time, but it has to remain consistent with the brand’s core values.
Brand values: Consumers value transparency and authenticity and want to connect with brands that nurture similar values. Your values are the foundation of your business and influence every aspect of your brand.
Shape your brand identity
Once you have defined the inner value of your company, you can start shaping its identity. A brand’s identity is its personality. It is the overall picture presented by your company’s communication, both visual and non-visual.
Write your brand story
Stories attract, engage, excite, and connect. Your brand story should set the tone for all content and brand-design assets, from social media posts to marketing campaigns.
Design your visual identity
People often judge a book by its cover, which is why your visual language (corporate identity) is your most powerful tool for building brand recognition.
Build a brand website
A professional website is an essential part of your digital marketing strategy. Building a website is one of the key steps you have to take for brand recognition in the digital world.
Develop a style guide
Brand design is a strategic and critical process that calls for creativity. Since you are taking many brand-design elements into account, it is wise to create a strong and coherent style guide.
Brand guidelines
Brand guidelines (the corporate identity) cover every aspect of your brand-design efforts. These include:
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The logo, including icons, primary and secondary brand logos
- The colour palette, primary and secondary colours
- Typography, font sizes, styles, and spacing
- Other imagery and media, including photographs, shapes, and illustrations
- Tone and voice
Conclusion
A brand isn’t just a logo or a slogan. It is the perceived emotional image of a company. This image is shaped by various elements, such as the vision, the story, the market positioning, and the visual identity. It is important to point out that a brand can’t be shaped by a designer alone. The audience’s perception and their experiences with the company are key. Effective brand marketing involves various strategies that help create a strong and recognisable identity. Success on the market depends on a clear vision, a strong story, effective positioning, and a consistent visual identity.
