Branding
Many have tried to define ‘branding’ in a sentence. Branding legend Marty Neumeier explains branding as “a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organisation.”
I like to say it relates to everything and anything that influences someone’s actions and feelings towards your company, as I feel it’s easy to relate this to a business, and understand how every element of a business, internal and external, makes a difference to the overall brand.
What is brand strategy?
Marty Neumeier is somewhat of a brand guru. American author, speaker, CEO of Liquid Agency. He’s written some of the best selling brand books of all time. He explains how branding has changed over the years, and how consumers no longer simply buy a product based on cost or features, but to feel part of a tribe. Someone could pay 50 times more for a bag with a big brand name, as it says something about their identity.
This means we can’t just produce an attractive visual identity for a company. We have to consider all the elements that result in a customer feeling a particular way. From the inner business runnings, to the full customer journey, the way the staff act, to the visual and verbal tone. If anything jars it can confuse the overall feel which inadvertently affects customer trust.
Brand strategy is becoming one of those buzzwords that can be thrown around and often isn’t executed properly, therefore people don’t always appreciate how effective it can be. I don’t work on visual identities without it anymore. When I have in the past, there’s been a struggle to finalise the design with so many opposing subjective views. However following the strategy phase, it informs the visual and verbal tone so well that when we get to that point it just feels right for everyone.