Timothy Sax Timothy Sax

The Marketer's Guide to Developing a Strong Corporate and Brand Identity

Amazing artwork by Isabel Sousa 

Chances are, if someone mentions GoPro, you think of a super-sturdy camera for the adventurous.

Why's that? Because GoPro has done a good job defining its brand. Great brands like GoPro are easy to recognize. Their missions are clear, and they foster that customer loyalty all businesses crave.

A brand is one of the most valuable assets of a business, and it needs to be carefully crafted to ensure it properly and authentically represents the business.

Crafting a brand is a shared endeavor, though. Customers, employees, blog readers (sound familiar?), and anyone who interacts with a business has a role in shaping the brand, which is why we've created a very short survey to see what HubSpot means to you. Because what it means to you will help us deliver on your expectations. (We'll get to that a little later in the post.)

Do you know how your brand is doing? Does your business have a brand identity?

Click here to download our comprehensive guide to effective and measurable branding.

If it doesn't, or your brand isn't as strong as it could be, follow along with this post. Branding may seem like a fluffy concept, but we're going to try to put some structure around it so any marketing team can get started defining their brand strategy.

What is brand identity?

A brand is the "name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's goods or service as distinct from those of other sellers," according the American Marketing Association. Your brand identity is the representation of your company's reputation through the conveyance of attributes, values, purpose, strengths, and passions.

It includes what your brand says, what its values are, how you communicate its concepts, and which emotions you want your customers to feel when they interact with your business. As Jeff Bezos says, “Branding is what people say about you when you’re not in the room."

The Brand Identity Prism

To help illustrate brand identity with a more holistic view of a brand, an internationally recognized corporate branding specialist named Jean-Noel Kapferer created a model he called the "Brand Identity Prism." The Brand Identity Prism illustrates six aspects of brand identity: physique, personality, culture, relationship, reflection, and self-image.

 

Image Credit: Salman Abedin

According to the model, the synthesis of each of these elements is what drives a brand's success. Here's what each of them means:

1) Physique is the recognizable, physical aspect of the brand.

It includes the logo, color scheme, packaging, and the online spaces and communities. If we're talking about Coca-Cola, it's stuff like the logo, the cursive font, the shape of its flagship glass bottle, and so on.

2) Personality is the brand's character.

It's how the brand communicates with the outside world. This might be expressed in a certain writing style or voice, design style, color scheme, and even by way of celebrity endorsements. Coca-Cola's personality is happy, playful, refreshing, and all about sharing and having a good time.

3) Culture is the value system and basic principles on which a brand bases its behavior.

There is an intimate connection between a brand's culture and its organization. Coca-Cola's culture is based around socializing and sharing.

4) Relationship refers to the relationship between people that a brand might symbolize.

One example would be a relationship between a mother and child, or among friends. Coca-Cola symbolizes an equal and friendly relationship among people in a community.

5) Reflection refers to the reflection of the consumer; in other words, the brand's most stereotypical buyer.

While a company might have multiple buyer personas, this is the "top" type of buyer. For Coca-Cola, this might be 15-18-year-olds who value fun, friendships, and sports, although Coca-Cola's target audience is much broader.

6) Self image is the consumer's ideal self.

It's kind of like a mirror the target persona holds up to him or herself. Marketers and advertisers can draw on their target audience's self image to direct their strategy and approach. A Coca-Cola drinker, for example, might see him or herself as social, communicative, and the type of person who seeks adventure and pushes boundaries.

Now that you have a better idea of what brand identity is, let's talk about how it applies to your branding strategy.

Determine Where Your Company Sits in the Market

Before you attempt to define your brand, you need to do some exploration. Take a long look at your company to get a clear picture of its purpose and place. The familiar SWOT analysis can help, actually. Here's what each letter of the acronym stands for:

  • Strengths: Characteristics of the business or project that give it an advantage over others.
  • Weaknesses: Characteristics that place the team at a disadvantage relative to others.
  • Opportunities: Elements that the project could exploit to its advantage.
  • Threats: Elements in the environment that could cause trouble for the business or project.

When you do a SWOT analysis, you should involve everyone in your company, as well as some of your best (and worst -- yes, your worst!) customers. This can be done with a simple survey that asks questions that get at the four points in the SWOT analysis. Or if you prefer, it can be achieved with an in-depth research survey and audit that looks at your brand awareness, usage, attributes, and even purchase intent. They are typically performed by an outside firm ... but more on that later. You can also download our SWOT analysis template.

However you gather the information, once you get it, you should be able to sit down with your marketing team and clearly state your company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Once you have a clear understand of your SWOT, it's time to define your brand.

The Steps to Corporate Identity Design & Development

Developing or refining a corporate identity is a five-step process that aims to clearly define what your brand stands for: its goals, its personality, the emotions you want people to experience when they come into contact with your brand, and a clear conveyance of that identity through a positioning statement. Here's what you'll need to create to do that:

Step 1: Vision Statement

A vision statement describes what you want your company to become in the future. It should be aspirational and inspirational. Ideally, the statement should be one sentence in length and should not explain how the vision will be met. (Don't worry, that'll come later.)

When developing your vision, keep these questions in mind:

  • What are your most important products and services?
  • What products and services will you never offer?
  • What is unique about doing business with your brand?
  • How would your customers describe your brand?
  • Where do you want your company to be in five years?

To give you an idea of what you should end up with, take a look at JetBlue's vision statement:

“JetBlue Airways is dedicated to bringing humanity back to air travel.”

Step 2: Mission Statement

A mission statement defines the purpose of the company. It should be simple, straightforward, articulate, and consist of jargon-free languagethat's easy to grasp. It should be motivational to both employees and customers. When crafting your mission statement, keep these tips in mind:

  • What are the specific market needs the company exists to address?
  • What does the company do to address these needs?
  • What are the guiding principles that define the company's approach?
  • Why do customers buy from you and not your competition?

To give you an idea of what a good mission statement looks like, take a look at The Walt Disney Company's:

“The Walt Disney Company’s objective is to be one of the world’s leading producers and providers of entertainment and information, using its portfolio of brands to differentiate its content, services and consumer products. The company’s primary financial goals are to maximize earnings and cash flow, and to allocate capital toward growth initiatives that will drive long-term shareholder value.”

Step 3: Essence

Say, what? That's right, your essence. This sounds fluffy, but seriously, you need to develop an "essence."

The essence of the company speaks to the intangible emotions you want your customers to feel when they experience the brand. A brand's essence is the representation of the company's heart, soul, and spirit, and is best described with one word. When defining the essence of your brand, consider these points:

Here are some great samples of brands' essences:

  • Volvo is "safe."
  • Disney is "magical."
  • Lamborghini is "exotic."

Step 4: Personality

Just as with humans, a brand's personality describes the way a brand speaks, behaves, thinks, acts, and reacts. It is the personification of the brand: the application of human characteristics to a business. For example, Apple is young and hip, whereas IBM is mature and set in its ways.

What personality do you want to put forth when people experience your brand?

  • Are you lighthearted and fun?
  • Are you serious and all business?
  • Are you down-to-earth?
  • Are you playful or matter-of-fact?

Step 5: Position or Value Proposition

A brand positioning statement, or value proposition, is a one- or two-sentence statement that clearly articulates your product or service's unique value, and how it benefits customers. It must define the audience, define the category in which the brand exists, cite a clear product or service benefit, set your brand apart from your competitors, and instill confidence the brand will deliver on its promise.

When crafting a positioning statement, consider:

  • To whom are you speaking? (Target market, demographic, and persona)
  • Which market segment does your product or service serve?
  • What is your brand promise? (Both rational and emotional)
  • Why is your product or service different from the competition, and why should your customers care?

For instance, Warby Parker has a great brand positioning statement:

“Warby Parker was founded with a rebellious spirit and a lofty objective: to offer designer eyewear at a revolutionary price, while leading the way for socially conscious businesses.”

To help make this easier for you, we condensed these questions into a checklist that you can reference during this process:

 

How to Translate Your Brand Identity Into Actual Marketing

Once your brand is defined and you're ready to take that brand to market with inbound marketing, a new website, content, paid media, and any other element of outward-facing marketing, a creative brief will help you define the purpose of each particular piece of marketing communication underneath your brand umbrella. When writing a creative brief, these are the questions that need to be answered:

1) Define the project deliverables.

What will be the result of the brief? Will it be a video? A website? An infographic? A whitepaper? An email campaign?

2) What is this effort expected to accomplish?

What is the goal of this particular creative project? What do we want to happen after the intended audience sees this piece of creative? What action do we want people to take?

3) Whom are we talking to?

A clear description of the intended audience, which should include demographics, psychographics, as well as how the audience currently thinks and feels about the brand or product in question.

4) What's our message?

This is derived from your brand position and should include a statement that encapsulates the single most persuasive or compelling product benefit.

5) What do we want them to think or feel?

This is derived from the "Essence" step of the corporate identity process, and should describe the emotion you want your audience to feel after seeing this work.

6) What justification are we providing as support?

Explain why the audience should believe your claims. Here, you can detail the benefits of your product or service, why your offering is better than your competitors, and how these benefits substitute the claim you made in #4 ("What's our message?").

7) How is that different from other brands' messaging?

Here you want to set yourself apart from the competition by clearly pointing out why your offering better serves the needs of your audience. Are you faster? Are you less expensive? Are you easier to implement?

8) How does this contribute to the brand's positioning?

Every piece of communication you create must tie back to your brand identity. Here you can explain how this singular effort supports the greater brand promise.

9) Which practical considerations or restrictions are there?

The nuts and bolts of your campaign are explained here. If it's a video, are there length preferences? Are there words or phrases that must be said? Are there things that you absolutely can't say? Are there cost considerations or time constraints?

A creative brief becomes particularly handy when you're working with an outside creative firm or ad agency. It concisely provides the direction needed to create the work, and it ensures everyone's on the same page before resources are expended.

When to Ask for Help Developing Your Corporate Identity

If the above seems like a lot of work, it doesn't have to be. The basic intent is to paint a clear picture of what your brand stands for and how you want it perceived by your customers. However, if the process seems daunting or you feel you could benefit from some professional help, then by all means reach out to a branding agency. Here are some considerations if that's the route you'd like to take.

Have a clear understanding of what you are hiring the agency for and the services you need.

Do you have an in-house design staff, but just need help defining your brand? Have you tried to develop your brand identity on your own but are not confident it's defined clearly enough? Does your research feel sub-standard?

An agency will want to know where exactly you are in the process so they can properly focus their efforts on the areas of need. Here is an RFP (request for proposal) template you can use to formulate your thoughts if you choose to reach out to agencies.

Can you afford a branding agency?

Just like any professional service, a branding agency costs money. On the flip side, just like any professional service, you're hiring experts with a ton of experience who know their craft and can provide expertise you either lack or don't have time to learn. Through the RFP process, you'll begin to get an understanding of what different agencies cost. Be as specific as possible when you detail the scope of the work you're looking for.

Match the size of your company to the size of the agency.

If you're a small or mid-sized business, you should seek out a small or mid-sized agency. While you might find a deeper service offering at a larger agency, you might not have access to the agency's top talent as they will likely allocate it to their larger clients. With a small or mid-sized agency, you're more likely to have direct access to the agency president if needed, as well as the agency's top talent.

Match the agency's area of expertise to your industry.

While any agency worth its salt can certainly learn the ins and outs of your industry segment, many agencies, by design, choose to focus on specific segments and hire personnel with deep experience in that field. Identify which agencies focus their business within your industry, and start there.

Meet the agency principal and everyone who will work on your account.

This is known as the "chemistry test." Anyone can be the best in their field, but if personalities clash, it's a recipe for disaster no matter how capable the agency may seem. An informal lunch, meeting at an industry event, or an after-work meetup are the best ways to get past the professional veneer and experience the true personality of the people you may end up doing business with.

Tying the Branding Bow

Remember: Brand is an evolving asset. It's one that requires continued attention. One that your customers will have a big role in shaping. One that you’ll need to foster. One that you’ll return to, make adjustments to as your business grows or changes.

But overall, defining your brand identity is much like packaging and presenting a gift. You want the recipient to be pleased with the offering -- and that includes everything from the outer wrapping, to the style of packaging inside, to the gift delivery, to the usefulness and appropriateness of the actual gift itself. You want the recipient to understand that forethought and heart went into the selection of the gift, and that it was chosen out of compassion and understanding. And you want it to represent the love you have for that person -- in this case, your customers.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in March 2013 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

 

Written by Lindsay Kolowich

@lkolow

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Timothy Sax Timothy Sax

Strengthen Your Brand

How to strengthen your brand and build value with your marketing strategy.

How to strengthen your brand and build value with your marketing strategy.

 

 

 

Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind. – Branding pioneer Walter Landor.

The physical value of your products may be easy to calculate, but your consumers’ perceptions are what really determine the value your brand and products have in the marketplace.

Because of this, your ability to build value into your brand and communicate that value to customers through your marketing is essential to the long term success of your company.

The benefits of building a good brand

Brand equity is the perception customers have of your products and services based on what they think of your brand. Apple, Google and Microsoft are all considered to have high brand equity.

It’s difficult to assign a monetary value to a brand, but no matter how intangible brand equity may seem, a strong brand reaps considerable business benefitsfrom:

  • Awareness
  • Credibility
  • Reputation
  • Customer satisfaction

Those benefits serve as tools to marketers in the effort to attract that mindful consumer who wants to buy from a brand high in value.

The mindful consumer

In his TED talk, ‘The post-crisis consumer’, John Gerzema asserts that buyers are no longer in retreat (as they were during the economic crisis), but have become what he refers to as mindful consumers.

The mindful consumer is willing to buy, but craves value. In the search for value, they consider factors like:

These factors all play a part in a purchase decision and all are aboutmore than just the product. At the core of their search, customers are looking to form a bondwith a brand they perceive as high in value.

6 ways to communicate brand value

If ‘brands are created in the mind,’ it’s vital to understand how to market your company to positively so as to affect the perception leads and customers have of your brand.

1. Work from the inside out

‘The world is full of boring stuff – brown cows – which is why so few people pay attention,’ Seth Godin writes. ‘Remarkable marketing is the art of building things worth noticing right into your product or service.’

To be perceived as valuable, your brand has to stand out from the herd -be a purple cow. A strong brand is about superlatives: the best customer service, most innovative, the happiest employees.

If you want to build a strong brand, marketing can’t be limited to one department. All areas have to demonstrate value to the customer. The customer experience is the foundation from which you build the rest of your marketing strategy to strengthen your brand.
 

2. Target your brand message

‘You have to find a group who really desperately cares about what you have to say,’ according to Seth Godin in his TED talk How to get your ideas to spread. Godin asserts that building value means finding the crowd that would find your brand and products valuable in the first place, rather than just casting a wide net. This means:

In the 2014 World Cup, Nike and Adidas, who share a target audience, each created a campaign. While Adidas went for the ‘win or lose’ sentiment, Nike appealed strictly to football fans with inside jokes only enthusiasts who follow the sport would understand. Nike’s message was stronger-more valuable-because it was more specific to its audience.

3. Maintain high standards for design

Design is visual communication. How you use colour, shapes and font or organise elements on a website page, email campaign or even a product package will dictate whether or not your brand is perceived as valuable.

How you package your brand affects how your brand is perceived and interpreted. A ‘strong visual branding system’ can make a small company seem more powerful or demonstrate a large company’s strength. Bad design has the adverse effect – just watch this insightful spoof:

4. Give your brand meaning

In the same way beauty is in the eye of the beholder, all value is perceived value. To give meaning to your brand:

  • Make it a status symbol. In Rory Sutherland’s TED talk, he tells the story of a king who, to prevent famine, decreed the potato a royal crop and put guards around the fields to make the previously rejected vegetable desirable. The king changed the perception of the crop’s worth, not the crop itself. He advises that ‘anything worth guarding must be worth stealing.’ You may not be able to decree your products or brand a ‘royal crop,’ but you can strive to create the same kind of perception of your product.
  • Make it symbolic. In the same talk, Sutherland notes that during a war, the wealthy in Prussia were encouraged to give their jewellery to support the war effort. The pieces were replaced with replicas made out of cast iron. Though they carried decidedly less intrinsic value, the pieces came to have great symbolic value to the people of Prussia because of the sacrifice they represented and became desirable during that time period. A modern example would be TOMS shoes. Their business model, built on symbolic value of a TOMs purchase, enabled them to grow into an international brand with several product lines.
  • Connect to emotions. According to Nielsen’s VP, ‘emotional preference is important: while services may be similar, that emotional connection can create the perception that the “connected” brand exceeds customer expectations.’ It means presenting a product, no matter its function, in an empathetic way. Google Chrome achieved this in their Dear Sophie ad. Email is a straightforward product. However, Google used the message to connect with customers on an emotional level.

5. Provide thought leadership and valuable information in your content

Content is a prime way to communicate your brand’s value and continuously increase its strength. Content can demonstrate thought leadership to your audience, helping to build trust, as well as delight customers into becoming loyal brand advocates.

Content that adds value to your brand must be about quality for your audience, not quantity for your company. So, how do you keep your content focused on adding value for the customer?

  • Buyer personas. These semi-fictional profiles representing your ideal buyers should include details of your customers’ interests, concerns, pain points and other details to guide the creation of content.
  • Buyer stories. Again, to create brand equity, the buyers have to realise the value. So content can’t correlate to your marketing goals. It must correspond to the content leads and customers are looking for.
  • Plain language. The language you use in the conference room is not appropriate for content if you expect to add value for the buyer. The writing in your content needs to cater to the audience to whom you are speaking.

6. Build loyalty

Tailored content is the start of a long term relationship. If you continually produce content that interests leads and customers, you can keep them coming back to your brand and build loyalty.

  • Content on social media is a way to delight customers and put them back into the sales funnel for future purchases. Learn what channels your customers are on and the type of content they want to see and then put consistent, tailored content on those channels.
  • Map email campaigns according to what products customers are interested in or where they are in the sales funnel. The more tailored and personalised the content, the greater the value of the email to the customer.

Customers are your best allies when it comes to strengthening a brand. In a connected world where perception determines your brand’s value, having customers on your side gets you the recommendations, reviews and social proof you need.

Strengthen your brand and evolve your marketing strategy

In the end, brand value comes down to distinction: your ability to set your brand apart in the industry. You have to be able to tell a better story and it has to be consistent across all marketing channels to remain strong.

Once you’ve built value into your brand from the product to the campaigns, it’s important to understand where your brand falls on the value scale and to continually adapt your marketing strategy to suit.

Everyone in the company is responsible for developing a strong brand. However, it is your responsibility as a marketer to communicate that value to the mindful consumer who goes in search of a strong, high value brand they want to be a part of.

By Katelyn Piontek on 23 April 2015

 

SOURCE: articulatemarketing

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Timothy Sax Timothy Sax

Hate being a designer?

Hate being a graphic designer? Don’t. Your job is an escape route, not a trap.

Hate being a graphic designer? Don’t. Your job is an escape route, not a trap.

Maybe you’ve been doing your design job so long that you can’t remember why you got into the profession in the first place.

Maybe you’re only working to pay the bills, your mortgage and feed your family.

Maybe you enjoy half of what you do, but the other half drives you crazy, or to sleep. (I’m not sure which of these is worse).

You’ve got that niggling feeling that life is passing you by, and you could be doing your own thing instead of someone else’s.

But quitting your job to start your own company seems like too much of a risk financially.

So now you feel trapped.

Stop. (And breathe…)

Let’s see if we can look at the facts from a different angle.

You’re good at your job, and you’ve stayed in it for years. If one company values you this highly, others will too. Graphic design is a skill that’s in demand, that pays well, and that you can always fall back on. Not everyone is so lucky.

As a designer, you have options. Lots of them.

Find a different job
It’s healthy to switch up your environment every three years or so. (I know, having stayed in my first job for five years. Things started to go stale at the end). Each design studio works slightly differently. You’ll learn new approaches and techniques, and meet new people. That’s not to mention the financial benefits of the increased salary you’ll get if you play your cards right. Negotiate hard if you’re taking a new job — this includes researching going rates and rehearsing what you’ll ask for beforehand.

Switch to a 4 day work week
If you’ve been working at the same company for a few years, you’re in a much stronger position than you realise. The world of work has become less rigid. More and more people are part-time, flexi-time, or job-sharing. I’ve had multiple offers of part-time graphic design jobs over the past three months so trust me, this isn’t a pie in the sky concept. It’s easier than you think…

Ask your employer if you can work four days a week instead of five.

(At the same salary if possible, so that you’re also getting a pay rise).

The worst they can say is no. But they probably won’t, because you’re the best person in the world at doing your job right now, and training someone else to do it will take time and energy. They’ll be falling over themselves to hang onto you.

Go freelance
Being a freelance graphic designer can be great. You’ll get to choose when and where you work, and enjoy more flexible hours and higher pay.

Read my freelance graphic designer’s survival guide, which pulls together everything I learnt during my first year freelancing in London. Yes, there were a couple of times when I wasn’t sure how I was going to pay my rent, but I was never homeless, and I never went to sleep with an empty stomach.

It will feel like a roller-coaster to begin with, but once you’ve learnt how to enjoy the ride, you won’t ever want a full-time job again.

More recently, I’ve realised another benefit of freelancing: it’s great practice for being an entrepreneur. You can starting building your professional network (and your confidence). You can start taking responsibility for financial decisions. And you can do all of this without the risk of committing 100% to a startup that will most likely place huge strains on your finances… and mental health.

In short — you’ll learn things about yourself that you couldn’t whilst working for someone else.

Whatever you do, make time for side projects.

You’ve probably noticed that I didn’t include “Start your own company” in my list of options above.

Big is over-rated. Big is a huge leap from nothing. Big is a road-block that’s holding you back.

I think it’s better to start small.

Use your freelance work — or your current job renegotiated on a 4-day-a-week basis— as a financial pillar, and your new-found spare time to run experiments.

Start a blog (CycleLove has been an amazing networking tool for me). Test out business ideas. Build a tiny product. Organise a meetup group or hold a free event. Play around with some ideas and see what happens.

Not only will it be fun, you’ll be able to work without constraints. No-one will be watching you, so there’s no pressure to deliver anything. Your confidence and skill-set will grow exponentially.

Still want to launch your own business?

Don’t start by dreaming up names for your company.
Yes, you need an original, memorable and ownable name. Something that will be at the top of Google when people search for you.

But your company name isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things.

Don’t start with a product idea.
Lots of designers seem to think that selling t-shirts online is a good way to make money.

Whilst designing and then selling a few t-shirts is fun, scaling this up into a life-sustaining business is another matter entirely. Of course there are brands which have pulled it off — Howies and Ugmonk spring to mind as inspirational examples — but for every success story there are ten failed business that never made it off the runway. (Yup. Been there, done that. Didn’t make any money).

Designing a product… and then trying to work out who it’s for… is doing things back to front.

Start by defining your why.
Whilst your products will change over time, your company’s core values won’t:

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”
Simon Senek: Start with why

Ask yourself these two questions, which are really one and the same:

  • Why (other than making money) does your company exist?
  • Why (other than making money) do you get out of bed in the morning?

If you get stuck, think about companies that you admire. Read their mission statements. Figure out what makes their founders tick.

Whatever you do, don’t switch back to your product ideas just yet. Seriously.

You need to keep asking yourself questions. And your brand needs to have a personality, not just a name and a logo:

  • What are your principles? What do you believe in?
  • How will the world be a better place if you succeed?
  • What do you want to be remembered for? (And what don’t you want to be known for?)
  • How will you make your customer’s lives better?

Whether you want to change your job, or go freelance, or start your own company, remember this…

Your work is never a trap, unless you see it as one.

Nothing is really holding you back, and no job has to be forever.

Celebrate your new-found awareness of what you want from life, and begin making changes to get where you want to be.

How are you going to start?

 

SOURCE: http://greig.cc/hate-being-a-graphic-designer/

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