What is branding?
A “brand” is the emotional connection associated with your company.
Your marketing, your products, and – most importantly – your actions, all combine to create the concept of your “brand.”
The act of “branding” curates the emotional connection to your brand.
The power of branding is emotional.
People naturally understand the concept of a brand whether they know it or not. My father claims he doesn’t get caught up with brands. Though one day, I mentioned how a friend’s restored ’86 Chevy was really looking good, and he responded, “yes, but we’re a Ford family.” Well Dad, that’s brand loyalty.
Although my dad has factual explanations for his loyalty to Ford trucks, like the gas mileage or the reliability, my friend uses the same exact explanations for their Chevy’s. Neither person could win over the other in an argument. You can’t convince someone to have an emotional connection based on facts alone.
To understand your brand, master the necessary conflict between:
Your own belief of your brand
Your customers perception of your brand
It's your role to join these two forces together as one. You need to understand how people will perceive public statements and designs, while still remaining authentic to the core business beliefs.
More importantly, you need to ensure that every person in your company understands the brand essentials so that every interaction remains true, effective, and successful. Brands begin and end with people’s emotions.
Build Brand Cohesion
To build brand cohesion across your company, you need to articulate your uniqueness through the following elements. Share them throughout your company in the easiest way possible, so that everyone can remember it and then reference it over time.
Mission statement
Core value proposition
Brand attributes/personality
Audience & demographic profiles
Competitive analysis
Description of the design “look and feel”
Brand identity design elements
Colors
At Wimbly Stoke, we describe brands like we describe people.
When we work with business teams to identify the items above, we ask questions about your brand as if we’re asking them about a person. This is an easy way for everyone to join in the conversation, even if you’re not an experienced marketer.
How would your best friends describe them?
What do they believe in?
Why were they motivated to donate to the animal shelter?
Why do they feel more comfortable with earth tones instead of colors that pop?
Brand loyalty is not purchased, it’s earned.
Building brand loyalty takes time. Though, if done well, you will have leagues of supporters that you don’t even realize exist. If your company believes in what you’re saying and doing, then overtime you will build customers that believe in the same things. Just keep going, and don’t give up.
And if you get stuck, just give us a call. We’re here to help.
