About branding and why it matters

The words brand and branding are used around freely by all sorts of people in all different contexts and all sorts of meanings. So what exactly is a brand?

Let’s talk about brand. A brand is a set of associations that a person makes with a certain company or product. These associations could expand through marketing and corporate identity, but also by sources that are outside the company’s control, for example a poor press review.

There are a lot of examples of recognised brands. For example Toyota, Amazon and Coca-Cola. Each of these carry a strong brand set of associations in the mind of people.

We thus state that a brand is the results of a set of associations. In branding we attempt to influence and control these associations to help businesses perform better. Any business can benefit by creating a brand that represents the company values.

So why does a brand matters

Perhaps the most important reason is that your clients want to have a positive feelings about your product or company. You know what you’ll get from a well-branded, established product or service, right?

The identity of a brand is made up from a specific combination of logo, words, font, design, colours, personality,… It’s a bundle of attributes.

It takes a lot of time and very hard work to build and maintain a good brand, a good brand that can speak volumes in just a few syllables.

The last thing while developing a brand is following the beaten path. You want to head down your own road. Your brand should be special and unique. It should place itself in the hearts and minds of prospects and customers.

It also has to be remarkable and memorable. You should see your brand as the focus of all your marketing efforts. It needs to say something about your company and connect with your audience.

Your brand should radiate a promise, a voice, a look.

So every business needs a brand identity

A logo and professionally-printed materials show that you are committed to your business, as well as your clients. It makes you look like you have been around for some time and that you’re stable. Some clients look for a well-developed company. The look and feel of a business is one of the criteria on which people decide to work with certain companies. Your logo and professional image should convince those people.

Besides that 40 percent of all people remember a product/ company much faster by its logo then from a sales pitch. So having a good brand identity that associates with your business and is used on all your materials will make sure you pop up into the mind of many prospects or clients. It can create a resonance in the minds of consumers who are using both emotional and pragmatic judgements when choosing products and services.

A strong identity will make you stand out from the crowd. Your logo and identity can have many meanings and can begin to tell a story. Your story. How you do business. It’s an established technique in the branding of a business to tell the sort through the businesses communication elements such as corporate identity, marketing materials, stationery and so on.

The importance here is to achieve consistency, so that all attributes and characteristics are similar in all areas of the business’ operations. The brand should touch and inform everything you do.

It’s more than just a logo

A common misunderstanding that many designers and business owners have is that a brand is simply a logo or colour identity. I believe a brand is much more than just a logo or a colour identity, a logo is just the beginning of a brand. A logo is the top-level communication seen by the greatest number of people. A brand is a strategy, ideas and believes, a promise of the company. The design is what translates those ideas into forms of communication. Although designers will mostly work on both the design and implementation to make sure the results are consistent, adaptable and in-keeping with the original brand’s attributes.

A good designer will always finishes your branding with the so called ‘brand-guidelines’. It’s typically a document which explains the different uses of the elements to be applied in different situations. This gives the organisation the possibility to manage the brand after the designer’s work on the project is completed.

Are you in need of a good brand identity? Or want to learn more about branding?
Feel free to contact us!