Designing your brand on purpose
Did you know that if you don’t take some kind of direction with your company’s brand, people will “brand” you anyway…and you may not like how that turns out! For example, say you go to a restaurant and have poor service, or the food is not prepared well; what association do you make with that restaurant from then on? No matter what the logo looks like, next time you see it how will you feel about it? The experience you had will “brand” that restaurant for you. Let’s look at how a successful brand can be built.
Company DNA It all starts with articulating the core values, beliefs, mission statement and/or vision statement of the company. Sometimes a business can outgrow its original identity, and a big disconnect from their clients can occur here. It is time to define or re-define the company’s “personality”.Target Market Identify the core values, beliefs, and mindset of the customers you want for your business. I find that sometimes the customers my clients want are not they keep attracting. Smart branding can help correct that.
Brand Map: This is a Big Picture view of all the points of contact with a company’s clients and helps maintain consistency in how information is communicated. It’s broken down into Internal communication (within the organization and vendors) and external (consumer facing).
Design Elements: Finally we get to the actual visual/audio representation of the company used in the brand map. It includes the logo and all forms of communication.
It’s vitally important to be consistent and honest in your brand development – if you start with a solid foundation, then your brand can grow with you.
This is good stuff. I’m bad about simply assuming that my client or prospect understands my business and industry, and in so assuming miss an opportunity to educate and inform them. Thanks for pointing that out.