Why brand matters

It’s a common misconception that a logo is the extent of a brand. Often when people outside the marketing industry say they need some ‘branding’, what they think they want is a clever little visual device and their business name in an attractive or quirky typeface. 

Genuine branding however, is a far more nuanced and complex creature. Your brand is what you want the world to remember when they experience your product, your marketing, premises, uniforms, stadium signage… the list is endless. And although in most cases these definitely will include your logo and tagline, it doesn’t begin and end there. In fact, if your branding is effective enough, your logo may be obscured, yet your communications will still be recognised as representing you and your product. 

To understand effective branding, it’s necessary to differentiate between brand philosophy, brand architecture and brand positioning. The development of your brand should begin with your brand philosophy, and that will inform your brand architecture and positioning.  

Brand Philosophy 

To simplify, your brand philosophy starts with establishing these three foundations – who you are, what you do and why you do it. To further refine your brand philosophy, and help you establish your Unique Selling Proposition and your brand position, then ask yourself “Do I have competitors? What do I do that they don’t? What do they do that I don’t?” 

It should go without saying that the answers to these questions must be brutally honest, but it’s always surprising when companies large and small consider their brand philosophy as a statement of ambition. When they say, "We are helping our customers to achieve more every day", is that their customers' actual experience, or simply how they'd like to see themselves? Your brand position depends on what you are and what you do, not how you want people to think of you positively. For example, a company that boasts of having amazing and responsive service, blatantly betrays that statement when their customers are kept on hold for forty-five minutes on a helpline or made to stand in a queue where there are empty service windows. 

Furthermore, frequently you’ll see alleged ‘Brand’ statements on buildings, vans, adverts, what have you, that will say something like “Service and Quality Every Time!” or something equally banal. This kind of statement says nothing specific about what you offer, it’s what any company, anywhere, any time would say about themselves, and Service and Quality Every Time would be expected of you regardless. No company would ever put on a billboard, “We’re Mostly Not Crap.” 

Brand Architecture 

Your Brand Architecture is the visible, aural and physical manifestation of your brand, and must be developed in alignment with your principles and products. Here’s where we start talking logos, colour schemes, taglines, fonts, tone of voice, imagery, and then things like premises, signage, vehicles, livery, packaging and of course, advertising. 

Logo 

For example, if you’re starting a finance institution, you’d be looking for a logo or logotype that embodies permanence and trust as a fundamental step, but your unique brand foundation may include being part of the community, or nurturing small savers and small business, or being particular to farmers or tradesmen. Your logo designer should have an appreciation of your brand principles, before a pencil, mouse or keyboard is even touched. 

Colour palette 

In this instance, the choice of your brand colour may be shades of blue if you plan to service the corporate world, as that traditionally conveys integrity and steadfastness. It subconsciously gives your clients confidence that you’ll protect their investments and will still be here tomorrow. 

For an Agribank, deep greens may be more appropriate or red-browns to symbolise the soil. It’s about building that essential connection with your customer in their language. By contrast, toy manufacturers and resellers lean into bright colours as obviously they engage children, and scream fun from their packaging to their marketing. 

Taglines 

Do you need one? If your brand principles are self-evident, or your product targeting obvious, there’s an argument that a tagline only adds superfluous messaging, or may be vacuous like the example we covered above. You don’t need to tell a child to have fun with a toy that already looks like fun. With effective marketing, good products sell themselves. 

Font

Sounds obvious, right? But often, particularly when small enterprises attempt to brand themselves, ghastly mistakes can be made in the choice of typeface. Choose your font carefully. Ask yourself, does this absolutely suit my brand? Fonts have a subconscious triggering mechanism like any other element of graphic design. People respond or react emotionally to typography, whether they know it or not. 

If you have a serious product or brand, funeral services for example, you won’t get far with Comic Sans. It would make me laugh, but I doubt my family would use you to send me to my final reward.  

Likewise, if it’s a sweet snack, or a pre-school toy as above, you won’t be going out with a Blackletter font that looks like 18th century Germany. These are extreme examples, of course, but it proves the point that typography matters more than people may think. Don’t choose a typeface that you like - choose one that works. 

Tone of voice 

Essential to your brand architecture is your tone of voice. It must match the audience that you’re trying to reach so that an elemental connection is made. Consider this - without realising it, we adjust our own tone of voice and vocabulary to suit the company in which we find ourselves at any given time.  

When you’re among friends, you’ll be much more relaxed, possibly swear more, and be less guarded in what you say and how you say it. In more formal environments, like a client meeting or a job interview, you'll be trying to give the best impression of yourself as a professional, which has a language all its own. So it is with the language of your brand. Think deeply, empathise with your market, and refine the way in which you engage with your customers, in visual, written and verbal communications. 

Imagery 

Images are incredibly important to support your brand proposition. Attractive illustration and lovable characters may match your product profile better than actual people, as in the case of most cereal boxes, but you wouldn’t use them for luxury perfume marketing.  

Be aware of diversity in multicultural markets, but selective as well. A stock picture of a person driving a left-hand drive vehicle on the right side of the road in an obviously American urban environment will not be a cultural fit for regional Australia, and will look careless, inaccurate and disingenuous.  

Marketing 

When all of your branding elements are firmly in place, you’re ready to launch your product or brand, and showcase all of your relevant marketing touchpoints. I’ll go over the difference between marketing and advertising in a future article, but in the meantime, advertising is only one of your go-to-market strategies. As I alluded to before, your corporate reputation and ethics, premises, uniforms, and most especially your customers’ every-time experience, must also be carefully considered to reinforce your brand, and therefore sell your product. 

Brand positioning 

So, you have your brand and your products, your target market in mind, your marketing strategy, and you’re ready to elbow your way into the commercial maelstrom. What about your brand position? The holy trinity of successful brands is their understanding of brand philosophy, architecture and positioning, and how they inform each other. 

Your brand position is the unique space you occupy in the market. Are you the market leader, or the hungry challenger? Research is invaluable in this area. It’s fine for you to think "I’m the best and my product will rule the world because it’s my product, and I invented it, and it’s better than anything that came before or will come after, because I'm amazing, and the market has been waiting for me to come along…", but you must honestly assess the value of your offering in what is usually a crowded market.

Confidence is good, hubris is bad. Research the market to see how the public sees you. They don’t know you and owe you nothing, so their impartiality will help you understand your position.  

If you’re the market leader, act like it. Your brand and coms should convey confidence, assuredness, experience, but never rest on your laurels. You still need to constantly evolve your marketing activities and delivery systems to maintain your superior position.  

Ensure your products are leading edge at all times, continually invest in R&D, don’t buy and then sell inferior items just because they’re cheap in the global manufacturing market. If they’re cheap there’s a reason, and it’s because no-one else wants them, including your customer. Most importantly, don’t take your existing customers for granted today – they might not come back tomorrow.  

Conversely, if you’re the keen competitor, act like it. Be brash, be disruptive, try new and interesting things in the market, make the incumbent seem idle and out of touch. Grab attention for your brand and take the top-of-mind position from the existing monolith. Be creative and inventive in everything you do and pursue your market with passion.  

Above all, ensure that what you’re bringing to market is worth the hoopla you’re making. With apologies to vegetarians, there must be both steak and sizzle. 

In summary

These are just some, and I do mean only some, of the considerations of effective brand building. Some people can study brand development for literally years. It really is worth it to engage a reputable brand agency, and I hope that this piece will help prepare you to have that conversation, and therefore know what to expect. 

One thing must be remembered, however. The most beautiful, well executed branding won’t save a bakery that sells stale bread, or whose staff are rude. A hotel with a magnificent foyer will still fail if the rooms are dirty. Whether your enterprise is large or small, an honest, consistent brand that delivers quality products in convenient ways is the best pathway to success. Good luck!