Brand, what this word ignites in your mind? An experience, a visual, colours, some story, some characters that ruled the brand story, a catchy logo, or maybe a cheeky tune or a line that didn’t leave your tongue humming all day long.
A brand is the sum total of all these elements that is perceived by the public about a company or product. Branding aims at building emotional connections with the people, demonstrates the values and beliefs a company or a product stands for, and shapes the journey of how it is viewed and remembered.
What is branding?
Branding is creating and managing a brand. Right from developing the name, deciding the colours, logo, design, and overall identity that differentiates a product or company from its competitors. To build effective branding, effective and strong brand marketing plays an important role. It encompasses strategies and tactics ranging from building key messages, advertising, customer service, content creation, and more to communicate the brand’s values and messages to the target audience.
For instance the recent campaign where Marvel and Coca-Cola rolled out Coca-Cola x Marvel where limited edition Coca-Cola pack designs featuring 38-character illustrations were rolled out.
Why is branding needed?
- Market differentiation: Branding creates a strong impact in the mind of your target audience and captures their attention enabling them to choose you in the multiple line-ups of the products competing for attention. Though marketing might sell your products, it is branding that is putting you at the forefront. Brand marketing showcases your brand’s personality, and story. Messaging plays an important role in building your brand and making it memorable.
- Strong brand identity: Brand marketing strategy should incorporate elements such as research about
– Target market
– Target audience definition with different personas
– Clear and consistent branding messag
– Using the right martech stack to distinguish your business from the competitors.
These elements aid in simplifying the branding needs and building up a strong brand marketing strategy, thus enabling to roll out a strong brand identity.
You sure can identify this brand.
- Building trust and credibility: Maintaining brand communication and positioning in line with the key branding elements and values is crucial for achieving brand consistency. Unified messaging and consistency in visual elements should communicate brand values, strengths and benefits. From social media to print to email, a uniform brand voice and visual style must be integrated.
Branding vs Marketing
A brand is not a logo, packaging, or advertising, nor is it a product. It’s the character that drives the product. It’s about creating and disseminating a feeling, an emotion that you experience when you see a particular element. Branding is about a progressive story that connects your customers to your core values and converts them to loyalists and evangelists.
Think of marketing as an actor that drives the action and excitement with the trailers and posters to start gearing up the sales for the character the movie (i.e. the product) possesses i.e. the brand. There is never a successful marketing without the branding. How many of you will buy a product just because they are giving you Buy One Get One offers? A deficient branding with over-sufficient marketing strategy is bound to cause costs doom with dismal returns and it holds true the other way round too.
The 5-Step Brand Building Strategy
Building a successful brand is crucial to developing your business, right from creating the logo, to the key message, to designing the visuals, and marketing using brand marketing strategies. Let’s dive into the 5-step brand building strategy
- Building story:
Every brand has a story, the why of creating, the reason, or the problems you set out to solve. This aids in aligning your target audience to your core mission and vision statement. According to Harvard Business Review, emotional connections drive brand loyalty. An authentic and compelling story requires you to be transparent about the challenges and the values of your company.
Sugar Cosmetics was started when Vineeta and Kaushik realized there was a gap in the affordable and high-quality cosmetics market for Indian women. They set out to build Sugar a brand that has inclusivity for women of all skin and types. Their strong social media presence with a loyal customer base has fuelled the company’s growth manifold. The tagline “For the Bold and Free” also adds to the brand’s identity and the key message across all the visuals and platforms.
- Defining target audience:
A lot of products aim to capture the attention of potential customers, but what sets you apart is your ability to clearly target the audience you want to reach. To achieve this, you need a thorough understanding of who your audience is and what they desire. Your branding efforts should resonate with your targeted audience to build awareness, recognition, and trust. If your audience doesn’t connect with your brand, these elements will not be effectively achieved. Creating an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and buyer personas is crucial in this process. These tools help generate significant value by guiding the creation of personalized and targeted brand marketing campaigns.
- Establishing unique values, qualities, and benefits:
What sets your business apart from others should be reflected in every element of your organization. Building your brand requires you to establish the unique values and qualities your product will provide to the customers, your mission statement i.e. your reason for being in the market, core beliefs that can never be compromised, positioning strategy of how you do what you do, and all other elements that are vital to building a brand marketing strategy.
DOH TAK KEH is a very cheeky home grown brand with catchy visual elements.
- Building visual image:
Strong brand identity is the critical element of any brand marketing strategy and that comes from consistently maintaining every aspect of the branding. The solid brand book consists of every visual aspect right from logo to designs to colour palette to packaging and social designs that could have psychological effects on your target audience. Consider what emotions you would want to evoke from your design choices that can create an impact in the minds of your target audience and lead them to the end action you are aiming at. Some of the brand assets are:
- Logos
- Tagline
- Typography
- Colour palette
- Voice of the brand
The branding guidelines should be set enlisting the composition and usage for these brand assets. The assets in uniformity should create a cohesive feel.
boAt Lifestyle has vibrant and energetic colors that reflect the dynamic and youthful nature of the brand.
- Marketing the brand:
Last but not the least, market your brand well. Your brand won’t work until you do. Once finished with designing and creating your brand it should be integrated into every aspect of your business. The marketing materials, platform interface, website, social media profiles, website messaging, and copies should all be integrated well with the visual branding elements. Branded content and visuals should be consistently created and reflected in all internal and external interactions.
Let’s sink in the branding boots
Crafting a compelling brand identity is both an art and a science. By understanding and applying the principles we’ve discussed—whether it’s defining your brand’s core values, developing a cohesive visual identity, or consistently communicating your brand message—you set the stage for standing out in the myriad brands grabbing eyeballs.
Looking to boost your branding and digital presence? Spinta Digital, a full-service digital marketing and branding agency based in Chennai, specializes in helping brands elevate their online visibility. Visit our website at Spinta Digital or reach out directly to schedule a consultation here.
