The Value of Your Brand - Creating an Identity

We all think we know what a brand is, but do we fully understand and appreciate the significance of building a strong, recognisable brand, and all the elements involved in this process? You would be forgiven for believing branding refers exclusively to a logo and/or colour scheme, this is a misconception of smaller businesses i find. They believe a powerful brand isn't something they are capable of with their time and budget constraints... I don't believe this is true, being recognisable isn't about money or time, its about consistency, understanding and effort (okay and a little bit of time obviously). 

I have put together some points i feel are important to look at when constructing a brand... lets analyse these aspects in more detail along side some examples;

Creating a company name - Okay so if you have come this far, chances are that you already have a name for your brand... no? Lets come up with one together. When you first think about how to name a company I guess the first thing you do is think about the service or product you offer, for instance, films (flicks) on the internet (net) gives you Netflix, and cheap items (bargains) for inside your house (home) gives you Home Bargains, and if you search for things (goo) online (gle) you get Google.... wait a minute! See a company name isn't always representative of what the company does, sometimes its good to tell the customer exactly who are are and why you're there, other times its great to get inventive and come up with something entirely ambiguous! Run some tests before settling on a name, focus groups are an easy way to get true data.

Creating a logo - Your logo is often the first component you come up with when starting a business, it is a company's VISUAL identity helping to differentiate from one brand to the next. How do i create a logo? Remember, less is more, if you are creating an instantly recognisable visual then you need to keep the number of elements the consumer has to remember to a minimum. Little text, only the basics, your company name and perhaps a tag line, or no text at all, depending on how representative your icon/image is. Maybe your logo is purely text, in which case make the font and colour memorable, like Toys-R-Us (god rest Geoffrey the Giraffes soul) for instance, they don't have a logo, simply the brand name in an eye-catching font and the quirky mirrored letter'R'. If you are going down the route of an icon or image try not to use photography as this will limit where you can use the logo, photographs are ALWAYS rectangular in the first instance. With an icon however, you have a lot of freedom, maybe the icon represents exactly what you offer; such as Rightmove - their logo is a house. Or it could illustrate the brand name, such as Apple - their logo is literally an apple. Or Lacoste - their logo is a crocodile... I researched this, thinking maybe Lacoste translated to 'reptile' in some sort of language, nope! The illustration was born simply from a nick-name that the founder had before creating the brand, and thats how easy it could be to create a logo (apparently).

Choosing a colour scheme - It is important to create a colour pallet that you will refer to whenever you create ANYTHING visual for your brand. It is no good to simply say, 'All my text will be grey and my images mostly yellow' What shade of yellow? Here you will need to define the shade using CMYK, RGB and maybe Pantone codes - the recipe if you like for exactly how your shade is created. You will also need to chose other colours for when yellow is not an option. Where would EasyJet be for example without its iconic shade of orange? C0 M66 Y100 K0 - This simple but effective buildup of colours represents the company's brand, from this they have created a whole family of smaller businesses such as EasyProperty and EasyHotel, identified by this same striking orange in exactly the same shade. Coca Cola as well, the colour buildup for the famous red that features on everything from their trucks, to adverts, to the product itself is C4 M100 Y95 K0. A Coca Cola executive once quoted; "If Coca Cola were to lose all of its production related assets in a disaster, the company would survive. By contrast, if all consumers were to have a sudden lapse in memory and forget everything related to Coca Cola, the company would go out of business." This represents how truly important strong brand recognition is and the power of consumer backing.

Finalising your designs - The key with design is consistency, you can do all the research you want into which designs work in your industry and which don't, but the fact is that as long as whatever you do you are consistent, you will start to create a family of products, adverts, signage, campaigns etc easily identifiable to your brand. Apple is a fantastic example here, simplicity is key for me, particularly in an industry such as Apple's where you let the products do the talking. Apple's advertising, packaging, website, stores EVERYTHING is simple and plain, almost clinical, promoting a modern and clean brand. Whereas with a brand such as Ribena, their 'you cant get more Ribena-y' campaign relies on the use of busy colourful adverts. (I know, the connections are getting a little loose here, but stick with me...)

Choosing a font - When it comes to selecting a font to use throughout your marketing, website, literature etc, you might not see the importance of it, but think about it, if you see a menu written entirely in Times New Roman, alongside the exact same menu for another restaurant in something like Gill Sans, which one are you more likely to eat at? (Personally i'm making my reservation at Gill Sans Terrace and sending the food inspectors into Times New Roman Bistro, YUCK!). Many of the larger brands create their own fonts and patent them, YouTube, Google and BBC are examples of this. But i dont have Thousands of pounds to employ someone to design a typeface for me? Have a look online, you will be amazed how many fonts there are in the world, also how many free ones are out there (take a look at GoogleFonts for these). The most important thing to remember is to ensure you have the correct permissions to use these Fonts before you use them.

Whereas all of the above elements are predominantly visual, other parts of branding share the same focus, differentiation, but can be idealistic, meaning, they are things that evoke a thought process by the consumer rather than just being aesthetically pleasing. Take a look at the set of associations i have put together below, you may not have thought of some of them when it comes to representing your brand...

Utilising sounds - This isn't always a necessity, but could be useful if you are planning on creating online or television advertising, I'm not just referring to having a 'jingle' or a song that people associate you with, it could literally be a sound or a few beats that you would hear and instantly think of one brand. Lets take Microsoft as an example here. We all know the un-mistakable sound of a Microsoft PC starting up, or shutting down. This sound has changed very little, if at all over the years and has maintained a staple in creating an iconic brand in the technology industry. What about McDonalds? I think you would be hard pushed to find someone in the UK or USA that couldn't tell you what five syllable sound comes before the words; 'I'm lovin' it'...  

Service levels - Quality or efficiency? These are often the two things companies have to make a choice between, you can of course strive for both, but ultimately in the beginning you will make a choice whether consciously or not. Am i going to provide a really good service no matter how much it costs me/how much time it takes, or will i provide a really quick/cheap service no matter how the quality turns out? You probably don't associate this with a how a brand presents itself, i think it is more of a behind the scenes thought that happens, lets look at a fast food chain for example, you do'nt necessarily go there because you love the food (i do) you go there, because it is quick, in-n-out, no messing, no check backs to see how your getting on with your meal, probably little exchanging of niceties at the till, this isn't because the brand have made a decision to provide a bad service, they have just prioritised a quick service, therefore this is what consumers associate the brand with. Whereas a top restaurant without a franchise may be focused on providing the highest quality meal they can, therefore you are expecting to have a fantastic meal and don't think about the price or how long it takes to arrive, this is the brand service you take away with you and how you remember your experience.

What are my values - How do you want your company to be represented? Do you take pride in your staff? John Lewis for example make their employees 'partners' in the business. Do you look after the environment? Queue every pub/bar in the UK right now (I love turtles but i bloody hate paper straws). Are you doing something for charity? Some organisations have charitable aspects to their business. Or maybe you're main priority is simply making money no matter the consequence. These values will all contribute to part of your brand, as they create a persona for your company, and whether these are under your control or not, they all influence how the consumer receives your brand.

Tone of voice - What angle are you taking to communicate your product/service? For instance, Hotels.com have tried to convey a comedic value in their 2018 television adverts, with the use of Captain Obvious and their 'winning' slogan, whereas Trivago.com who offer a similar service go for a direct informative approach. For this point it depends what service you are offering, again, explore what has worked for oter similar companies before deciding this. Whereas with most of the above elements if you change your mind you could consider a re-brand, with your tone, and even audience to an extent, it is important you decide on this early on as it will difficult to reinvent yourself when a company directed at children having a laugh and a joke, to an adult business (not one of those) with a serious message. Polar opposites i know but this is to illustrate how consumers will expect to receive your brand in one way and will become disengaged easily if this starts to change to drastically.

All in all i think what you should to take away from these points is that individually, if you took each of these elements out of context, they would make no sense, but mash them all together and you create a brand, a family of components that compliment each other and combine to create an identity. It is also important to note that you don't need every component to create a brand, as mentioned in the beginning having a logo and colour scheme is still technically branding for your company, but in order to strengthen, improve and boost a brand, it is imperative to at least understand and explore every element. 

So there we have it, content that started as a few bullet points that i thought maybe i would just end up sharing in a status update has become an article of approximately way-too-many-and-one words. I hope you have learnt something worth while from this, and if you haven't, thanks for making it this far, you're a champ.

Holly Hibbett

Project Coordinator

NB: I've read a few conflicting articles on the difference between brand and branding, for the purpose of this article when i refer to these terms i am referring to a company's identity as a whole. 

All wording, graphics and references are my own, aside from the Coca Cola quote (obviously...), please do not use my content without permission.