Websites: Branding Projects in Disguise?

We have a saying around the Bom Bom office: “Website projects are often branding projects in disguise.”

Why? Websites are large and existential. They’re highly visible marketing assets and often the source of truth for things like visual identity, character and messaging. The process of planning for and building a marketing website demands clarity, excavates deep-rooted beliefs and shines light on ambiguous brand decisions.

And the reality is this: most businesses have an incomplete picture of their brand when they begin a website project. For example, it’s common for marketing teams to have a style guide — a logo, some colors and fonts maybe. While it’s nice to have “ingredients,” an asset as large as a corporate marketing website requires entire “recipes” to support page layouts and content delivery methods. Another common scenario is to have a strong sense of offering, but no messaging to tie it all together. It’s not enough to have a wonderful product if you can’t talk about it.

This is where the patchwork begins. Teams start making necessary branding decisions under the gun of a website’s timeline. Meaningful consensus is hard to come by and, in the end, you’re left with a finished product that’s a less-than-ideal representation of your brand. And you’re stuck with those decisions. Websites are often long-term investments. The typical lifespan of a site is 2-5 years — we even have some pushing the 7-year mark!

So what can you do to make sure that your website isn’t a bunch of slapdash brand decisions in a large trench coat? You can begin fleshing out your brand strategy and clarifying all the necessary components of a mature brand identity. Brand strategy initiatives can often be done internally, but, as we all know, it’s very difficult to be your own client. This is where external creative partners can help. By providing you with the necessary distance and framework, the right creative partner can begin to help you untangle the complexities of your business and form it into something singular and sturdy.

Building a new marketing website forces stakeholders to consider much of the above. In a perfect world, everyone would be committing resources to refining their brand strategy, but let’s face it, marketing teams are constantly fighting for time and budgets. So what can you do if you’re under pressure but your brand’s not yet a diamond?

1. Really commit to discovery. Bom Bom conducts deep discoveries with stakeholders and team members alike, culminating in a comprehensive creative brief outlining problems, solutions and project goals in order to create consensus around a vision.
2. Examine what’s worked and what hasn’t. We'll often audit and leverage existing marketing materials to distill unwritten insights about a brand’s personality, values, offering and more.
3. Try some stuff on for size. We’ll use these insights to push incomplete visual identities into a space with a more comprehensive vision (see our post about stylescapes here).

Are you considering a rebrand or a website overhaul? That’s our jam. Your competitors will be jelly. Reach out to say hello today: [email protected]