What is branding?
What does branding mean to you? I carried out this question to a few people and their answers were basically the same. A lot of people still see it as using names, logos and visual identities to advertise or differentiate their businesses. This understanding goes back a long way, It was commonly used through ancient times. Pharaohs used hieroglyphs in their tombs and temples and A number of techniques including freeze branding, ear tattooing, and ear tagging used in livestock to identify the owner.
People are not wrong for seeing Branding for its visual aesthetics, but the brands unique character, values and personality are additions we need to consider. With so much congestion when it comes to markets, be it whatever industry. The difference between you choosing one untried product or service to another could be the Branding. Which one appeals to you more and why? This is where Branding goes beyond its identity and becomes more important than people realise.
Branding helps you stand out to your target consumer
Through brand strategy we can discover our target consumer, what your ideal consumer wants, what are their interests and where they can be found and how yourself as a brand aligns to your ideal consumers. This can be discovered through identifying your brands personality, purpose and ethics. Brand strategy leads you to use the right visual language in terms of colour, patterns and fonts chosen as they all have a subtle subconscious meaning.
In the noise of various brands your brands visual elements will be the first thing to attract the right audience. Brand strategy helps you discover your visual identity. It is almost like creating a person with the right personality and aesthetics for the ideal match.
Branding provides a direction
With a direction on how your brand operates, who your brand is and who it isn’t makes it easier for your team to stay aligned to the brands values, ethics and general personality. This will make it easier for you to attract the ideal consumer. When you stick to who you are as the brand, consumer trust builds and leads to loyal consumers who will share how great your business is to friends, families and acquaintances. A great way to provide a direction is by creating a company mission statement and keep to it in all aspects of your business.
Everything you do as a business must not go against the mission statement. Apple founder Steve Jobs once said "A Brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room" just because you say who you are doesn’t mean it is a fact. It is important to keep to your brand direction so the consumer perception allies to it.
Branding = Advertising & Marketing
Once you have a brand strategy in place you’ll know who your brand is and isn’t, you’ll know what emotion your target market should feel when they meet your brand and this means your Advertising & Marketing ideas will be tightened up dramatically. This isn’t a bad thing, it enables you to get rid of all the unnecessary noise and focus on what is really important to your target consumer. This is a prime example of demonstrating qualityover quantity.
Branding builds your companies value
When all the above is done well this leads to the brand providing exceptional value. When it comes down to it, Branding is about raising awareness of who you are which in turn drives sales, a social impact and/or growth. Some brands are so successful they become more than just a product. They provide events and merchandise that their tribe of loyal consumers support.
If you need assistance or have any questions on branding, from creating your initial brand strategy to the visual identity elements, contact me for a free consultation. I’d love to help you identify and share your story!
I will also be posting more on Branding and more in the coming weeks so stay tuned here and on my Instagram www.instagram.co.uk/malcreations
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