
© 2011 Shaun Hensher
“What is branding?” is kind of a tough question. It can mean different things to a lot of people. Even when well-defined, branding is a massive subject with complexity approaching the bounds of comprehension. That being said, my goal in this article is to help you understand what people are talking about when they refer to branding and identity design and also to help you understand why it is such a crucial concept for you to understand if you wish to succeed in business.
Before we can attempt to define branding, we must first answer the question “What is a brand?”
According to Merriam-Webster, a brand is “a class of goods identified by name as the product of a single firm or manufacturer”. Although technically correct, this is an entirely inadequate definition. Interbrand defines it a little better: “a brand is a combination of attributes, communicated through a name, or a symbol, that influences a thought-process in the mind of an audience and creates value”. Personally, I define a brand as the totality of the identity, personality, and perceptions associated with a company, product, or person. A brand is something that is only partially under the control of the person or company it represents.
So What is Branding?
Again, the dictionary is not much help here. Merriam-Webster defines it as “the promoting of a product or service by identifying it with a particular brand”. In practice, branding is quite a bit more than that. Branding, as I see it, is really any action one takes with the intention of controlling any aspect of a brand. Such actions may include things like designing a logo or a website, choosing to use a specific type of imagery to represent your company, hiring spokespeople, instructing employees to answer the phone a certain way, or attempting to associate your product or company with a certain ideal. The term brand management can also be used to describe this effort.
The area most people associate with the term branding is identity design. A brand identity (sometimes referred to as a corporate identity) is those elements of a brand that can be directly controlled. These elements are often referred to as brand assets. This includes non-visual and visual elements. The central component of a brand identity is the visual identity system, which includes things like the company logo, business cards, marketing materials, signage, websites, etc.
Why is Branding Important?
Your company and/or product is seen by your target through the lens of your brand. They form opinions about your product or service based on the messages you deliver to them, what friends and influencers say about you, and most importantly, through the experiences they have with your brand. Branding allows you to affect the colour of that lens. A strong brand intelligently sculpts the audience experience at every point of contact in a way that reaffirms your target’s positive opinions.
In essence, your brand identity is a promise. The messages you create, the imagery you use, the emotions you elicit and the beliefs that you foster create an expectation in your audience’s mind. Positioning yourself highly in the prospect’s mind and consistently delivering on that promise is how you build a strong brand that will keep customers coming back again and again and again. In other words, branding is what creates that holy grail of marketing: loyalty.
So How do I Build a Strong Brand?
Patience, grasshopper. Building a strong brand takes a long time. First, you need to understand your audience. Who are you targeting? What do they believe? How often do they buy? Where do they buy? How do they make purchasing decisions? How can you deliver your marketing message to them? You also need to understand your competition. Who are they? What are they doing right? What are they doing wrong? What makes you different/better? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you have some work to do. I recommend a fully realized business plan. At the very least, you need to do market research and a competitive analysis (a.k.a. SWOT analysis).
Assuming you know your audience and your competition, the next step is to hire a professional graphic designer. Only a professional designer or branding strategist will have the necessary knowledge and skills to sculpt your visual identity in a way that properly targets your audience. If the designer you are working with doesn’t ask you questions about your audience or competition, you haven’t found the right designer.
Your graphic designer will create a visual identity package for you. Depending on your budget and needs, this will usually include a logo, business cards, stationery (letterhead, invoices, envelopes etc.), usually a website, and often, marketing materials (brochures, flyers, posters, advertising). If your budget allows for it and it makes sense for your business, you may also get a brand manual, which is a manual outlining guidelines to follow to maintain brand consistency. It is important that you have a reasonable budget set aside for this process. A skilled graphic designer will cost money, and your visual identity is not something you want to skimp on.
Once you have your brand identity established, you can begin the work of building brand awareness and positioning. Brand awareness is (perhaps obviously) the level at which your audience is aware of your existence and the basic message of your brand. Positioning, in simplest terms, is the process of creating a positive impression of your brand in the audience’s mind. Brand awareness and positioning are mainly built through your marketing and promotions strategy. This may include advertising, social media strategy, sales calls, SEO, or any number of methods, but it should always stem from the knowledge gained by your market research. Positioning is also greatly influenced by your brand design.
From there on, it’s mostly a matter of consistently fulfilling the promise made by your brand identity and marketing. If you you do this, over time you will build brand recognition and loyalty.
Tags: advertising, basics, branding, definition, design, graphic design, logo, marketing
What? So buying a premade $50 logo off the Internet isn’t “branding?” Say it isn’t so!
All business owners need to know and understand this! If they did it would make my job as a freelance graphic designer a whole lot easier!
Twitter: rubycanuby
says:
Great article! How does the content of promotional material (e.g. copy, images) factor in to building and maintaining a brand?
Twitter: henshercreative
says:
Content plays a huge role in brand building. The images you use, the things you say, and most importantly, how you say them all work to influence the audience’s opinion. Every brand should have a “voice”. In other words, the tone and language you use should be consistent at every point of contact, and should be consciously controlled to reinforce the brand message. Likewise, the photos and art you use should reaffirm that same message. It’s all about building familiarity and trust. If your marketing materials have multiple personalities, your audience won’t be able to connect with your message as easily and will have a harder time deciding if they should trust you.
(dofollow)
Shaun Hensher recently posted..The New Heineken Logo
Consumers recognize some of the giant companies because these companies over the years have established itself as a trusted company. People come to know about us through our brand so we have to be very careful about how we deal our work.
Thank you for the information in this article because I’ve never really thought about branding before. the “Why is Branding Important?” paragraph of your article really helped me out.
So I guess I have to restart looking at my branding
Robert UK
Corrlinks recently posted..Welcome To Corrlinks Email
Twitter: WebTrafficCafe
says:
There’s another reason building a brand is becoming more and more vital, Shaun – search engines.
They definitely give preference to brands and tend to rank them higher, all other things equal.
Ana recently posted..Best Affiliate Marketing Programs that Pay
Twitter: startmissionapp
says:
I find this whole realm of branding and marketing very hard to grasp, and I wonder if it’s because of my technical background as a developer/engineer. How my friends and I buy something is we compare the specs and cost of products. The numbers speak for themselves most of the time. But I’m guessing this is not how most people make purchases.
I’m curious, does one need to have a very clear marketing strategy before they know how to make effective use of branding?
Because my team and I don’t know the first thing about marketing, we wouldn’t know how to incorporate branding in to our business?
Twitter: henshercreative
says:
I too take a logical approach to purchasing decisions, when I don’t have an existing brand relationship. Sometimes it doesn’t matter. With commodity products, I typically buy whatever’s cheapest. I don’t really care who packaged my table salt. But other times it makes decision making easy. When I’m buying computer input devices, I usually buy Logitech. Why? Because I trust them. I’ve only ever had good experiences using their products, so I expect that if I buy a Logitech product, it will work for me, so I need not consider the competing products. To keep my loyalty, Logitech only needs to make sure they maintain brand consistency so that I recognize their products on the shelf. If I’m comparing two products that have similar features and similar price points, and one is a brand I’ve never heard of while the other is a brand I’m familiar with, I’ll gravitate to the brand I’m familiar with, even if I have no experience using their product, simply because they have credibility. Even if I’m comparing two brands that I am unfamiliar with, I will gravitate to the one that looks the most trustworthy. I’m sure if you look at the way you buy groceries or electronics, you’ll see similar patterns. Some people buy brands for other reasons as well. Perhaps it’s Gucci, because it’s a status symbol, or Pokemon because all the other kids have it, or Moleskine because it makes them feel ‘artsy’. Proper brand design helps to create these beliefs and elicit these emotions, as well as to build that trust.
For branding to be effective, you need to know what you’re trying to say, and who you’re trying to say it to. Do you have to have fully fleshed out marketing plan? Maybe not, but the more information you have about who you’re selling to and what their psychographic profiles are like, as well as who your competition is and how you are different, the better a job your brand designer can do.
(dofollow)
Shaun Hensher recently posted..Graphic Design Toronto
Twitter: startmissionapp
says:
Oh, some other important questions…
“How important is branding RELATIVE to other aspects of a business?” I know the answer to this question will vary a lot depending on each business. But is this something a business plan will answer?
All I hear from marketing and designers is that “branding is important”. But my only reaction is, “I still don’t know what it is, so i’m not sure how important it really is.”
John recently posted..Task Calendar
Twitter: henshercreative
says:
I suppose I’m biased, but I think branding is paramount for all businesses. Do you have to spend a pile of money on a full brand identity? Not always, but you definitely have to be conscious of what you are saying to your audience and make sure it is in line with what you are delivering. If you have a bad product, or a product for which there is no market, no amount of branding will save you. On the other hand, if you have an amazing product, brand management can be the difference between doing ‘pretty good’ and becoming a massive success.
(dofollow)
So to answer your question, I think branding is no more and no less important than a good product, a solid marketing plan, or a solid financial plan. Whether you like it or not, you have a brand. Do you want to leave what it develops into entirely to chance? Or do you want to guide it and sculpt it to create the best possible outcome?
Shaun Hensher recently posted..How to Choose a Graphic Designer
Twitter: startmissionapp
says:
Very cool answer to both comments. I wish I could UPVOTE your answers
(dofollow)
John recently posted..Task Calendar
Twitter: henshercreative
says:
Thanks. I guess you’ll just have to settle for sharing the post on your social networks. ;)
Building a brand does take time – good point. Yet, if you consider the valuable end result of building a brand and being considered an expert in your field, taking the time and working longer and harder can bring great rewards.
I was confuse before when I was introduce about branding in SEO before. I was like how come it was associated with SEO. But now I understand it more.
Thanks for the tips. I like the part “So How do I Build a Strong Brand?” Branding should start with a good name.
The aim of this above article is to show the importance of understaning what does it mean by branding in order to succeed in business.Brand can be defined as the perceptions associated with a company, product, or person.It is partially something under the control of the person or company it represents.branding is any action one takes with the intention of controlling any aspect of a brand.In other ways , we can say that brand is the image of a specific product.Branding is that idea is marketed.But how a strong brand can be ccreated? Firstly,you need to understand your audience, their interests , their needs, and their way of thinking.You have to choose the appropriate materials and shapes of the products.
Twitter: Kitty_Canuck
says:
This is a great explanation of the importance of branding. I know a lot of businesses starting out don’t think about it much, but I think it makes a huge difference in the success of a new business.
Kitty Canuck recently posted..Help! My Daughter is FAT!