Your brand is your voice, your personality and your salesperson to those who experience it. It creates a promise and an expectation of satisfaction which must be achieved and maintained. With so much competition fighting for attention, standing out in your marketplace has never been more important.
Brand audit
Over time a brand’s identity can evolve and change, therefore reviewing the materials and touchpoints can be crucial to achieve and maintain a strong and consistent brand. At the core of any brand identity is a defined Vision, Values and Proposition that all materials should reflect, however the crucial question is whether they are actually being communicated and perceived in this way.
An external review of your brand allows it to be looked at with fresh eyes and from an outside perspective.
Brand positioning
The key to establishing a solid brand strategy is to define what you are as a company or brand, as well as what you want to be and where you want to get to. Filtering down to what makes you unique and sets you apart from the competition should be key to establishing this brand position and should help align all aspects of the brand, from pricing through to how you communicate with your stakeholders. A unique vision, values and proposition can help establish how this is represented and communicated.
For help cutting through the waffle, buzzwords and acronyms get in touch.
Brand naming
The name is the core differentiator of the brand. Deciding on a name for your new company, product or service can have a huge impact on the success of the brand both in the long and short term. Therefore as well as reflecting your core vision and values, part of the decision making criteria should involve how it will be used, where it could evolve in the future, will it need trademarking or translating, as well as how it may sit with any sub or mother brands, existing brand guidelines or compares against the competition.
For help establishing your brand name get in touch and we can explore and develop name ideas that align with your brand positioning and strategy.
Logo design
A logo is the focal point within a corporate or brand identity, it forms a core identifier of the brand in its purest form. It can be made up of any single or combination of symbols, typefaces, shapes, punctuation marks, characters or images – essentially it forms a sign for easy recognition of the brand and what it stands for. The role of a designer in developing a logo is to distill through the complexity and contradiction and represent the brand in a simple, clear and unique way.
For help in developing your logo get in touch.
Brand identity
The visual representation of your brand is what is usually associated with a brand identity or corporate identity. It’s the tangible output of the brand and what consumers and stakeholders often come into contact with in the first instance, and as the saying goes “first impressions last”. A strong and distinctive brand identity will set you apart from the competition while providing the flexibility to be used appropriately to your requirements in a clear and consistent way.
To develop a brand that reflects your vision get in touch.
Brand guidelines
Developing a new brand identity is all very well and good but how will you maintain consistency going forward? One of the main reasons brand identities fail is that they become disjointed and inconsistent in their application. Different people within the organisation develop and brief new marketing materials and inevitably these materials are developed with a personal slant and influence instead of following a key set of brand guidelines. Whether it is maintaining the correct colour use or simply writing product names in the correct format, it is essential that a brand is built from the ground up and that everyone understands what the brand stands for, how it should be expressed and buys into the brand’s ethos. After all, employees should be your biggest advocates.
Brand guidelines don’t have to be just for large companies, the level of detail and scale of a set of brand guidelines can be developed appropriate to the brand and budget, for more information get in touch.
Brand development projects come in all shapes and sizes and no two jobs are the same however, with a well defined brief and an established brand development methodology, you can rest assured that the process will be undertaken as efficiently and productively as possible. So whether you need a full brand development, a brand refresh or simply a logo design, get in touch.