What springs to mind when you think of the colour orange, white and orange lettering on the tail of an aircraft or oxygen bubbles rising on a dark blue background? Do you find yourself starting to believe that the future is bright, easy travel is the way forward and maybe you should really see what you can do?
The effects created in one’s mind when thinking of these colours and messages, all indicate how much branding can prove effective, as David Thorp, head of Insights group at the CIM, comments, “Products are created in a factory, whilst brands are created in the mind.”
The Wikipedia definition of brand is, ‘a collection of feelings towards an economic producer; a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to a company, product or service; including an explicit logo, fonts, colour schemes, symbols, which are developed to represent implicit values, ideas and even personality.’
However, a brand can also denote a company promise and even represent reputation. Sholto Lindsay-Smith, strategy consultant at Uffindell West, comments, “At its simplest level a brand may be seen as a promise. Another way of looking at it is to see a brand as a person’s associations with a particular product, service or company.”
However, Graham Ellor, director of planning at TDA, sees duality in brand values. “A basic definition is that a brand is two things: a badge of recognition and a promise of performance. It has two roles: to place a word in customers’ minds for recognition and a promise of performance. It has to have a promise.”
If a brand signifies a company promise, jump-starts recognition and plays a part in representing reputation, it is surely an important factor to consider for any organisation. In this respect companies should expect deliverance from a brand.
John Mathers, CEO of Enterprise IG, comments, “Branding should deliver recognition, differentiation, the ability to charge premium prices, the ability to grow relationships and move into new sectors.”
Further deliverance
Richard Bush, MD of Base One, takes this even further, “What advantages do I think branding should deliver? Where do I start? A sense of purpose, direction and cohesion. Motivation. Inclusion in a potential set of suppliers as well as differentiation between yourself and other suppliers. Percieved value. An expectation of better service/lower price/better thinking or whatever your promise is based on. More consistent delivery service, all of which adds up to being considered more often by your desired potential customers. Increased enquiries/selling opportunities. Greater conversion rates, higher margins, higher levels of customer satisfaction: the perfect business.”
Lindsay-Smith at Uffindell West, sees this deliverance in purely business terms. “A brand should deliver significant business advantages, such as increased market-share; heightened awareness amongst the buying market; customer/client loyalty and commitment; longevity and corporate stability; and internal commitment and buy-in.”
Clearly, brand can deliver significant corporate advantages and, as Bush comments, can even lead to the creation of the perfect business. Significant consideration must therefore be given by organisations. Its importance as a factor for inclusion in an organisation should therefore not be underestimated.
With so many factors to take into consideration, how can branding or rebranding be undertaken, avoiding the associated pitfalls? What kind of deliverables can concise branding actually action, how are these identified and how are they obtained? Follow our guide to the different components that comprise effective branding.
Visual ID
Visual identity is one of the most important aspects of a brand. This will involve graphics, a logo, the use of colour, photography, illustration and sometimes objects to represent a brand, a company ethic and what these mean to the organisation both internally and externally. To many, a brand is simply a logo; however, it is much more than this. It has to be representative of the organisation and deliver on a company promise.
Bush at Base One, comments, “The logo and the brand are two very different things. The logo becomes the trigger for the already established associations, so it has to be appropriate to the desired brand image, although it does not need to have any meaning in itself. The meaning is created through association. In B2B the brand has to start from within.”
Rebecca Price, head of brand at Radley Yeldar, comments on the truth needed for a brand to truly represent a company’s worth. “Brand is a nebulous, foggy, intangible thing. The key message is to be yourself: no one can steal that from you. Being yourself is the one thing that you are likely to be able to deliver on: if you create a promise that is not like you, then you are not likely to deliver.”
Straplines or visual promises
These usually follow a brand, sitting below, above or beside a logo wherever it appears. They are often instantly recognisable and can add value to a brand in terms of giving some kind of basic explanation about a company’s values and beliefs; however, are they necessary?
Gary Allden head of corporate marketing at HP, thinks they are. “When you are talking about brand it doesn’t come alive until you describe the character of the brand and when you unravel the levels that people can understand. Every brand needs character and personality.”
However, there does need to be a clear message involved. Price at Radley Yeldar, comments, “Messaging is critical, but a strapline is not necessarily important. You should only ever have one if there is a clear communications need for one. If core messages are capable of being successfully summarised into one line, then that’s good; however, this is often difficult and you can end up with something off-beat or obscure that doesn’t communicate with the messaging.”
Board-level brand buy-in
A brand evidently needs to be understood by everyone working within an organisation. To do this, the most important aspects firstly need to be identified.
Price of Radley Yeldar, comments, “Branding should come right from the top and filtrate down to the bottom. All of the points come back to the same one – the brand is there to communicate a strategy, so it has to come from the board down. It has to touch everybody.”
Bush of Base One, concurs, “110 per cent commitment is required from board-level management and dissenters should be shot (or at least reprogrammed)! This can only be achieved by involving them all (in some way) in the process of brand definition. It should be ensured that they understand it is a strategic decision – it’s not a marketing thing – it’s critical to the future prosperity of the business and it impacts on everyone from finance to the warehouse.”
Staff communications
After a brand has been put in place and has utilised the input of board-level management it then needs to be communicated to staff within an organisation. Thorp of the CIM, comments, “Brands may be created from the top down, but they are sustained from the bottom up. Increasingly, businesses are expecting people to live the brand, to be ambassadors for it at all times. This isn’t something most of us can fake. If we don’t believe in the brands we’re working with, we can’t embrace the brand experience. Companies with employees who understand the brand, who live it, who are motivated by it, and who can enthusiastically promote it through their attitudes and behaviours, can all make the difference. Authenticity is key: a brand built on empty promises won’t deliver and the first people to know the promise is empty are your staff.”
Staff therefore need to understand a brand in order to be its ambassadors, which will need to be communicated in some way. However, what are the best ways of undertaking this communication?
Bush at Base One, comments, “Communication of a brand to staff is an ongoing and continuous need that will involve explicit communications, workshops and presentations. How the management team behave is important; what they say, the decisions they make and how they explain their decisions. By the way, all this can be done without using the ‘B’ word.”
Brand evolution
While a brand can be a concreting factor for an organisation, it will, no doubt, evolve over time and with the company. If this evolution is inevitable, how should it be managed?
Price at Radley Yeldar, comments, “It is important to remember that a brand never sits still. It’s not about sitting down every year and working out how a brand is delivering; it’s about how the brand is always evolving, never letting go of it and always looking at it with a fresh pair of eyes, continually looking for fresh ways of delivering on the brand. To do this there has to be a network of people throughout a business, not just one group of people with a specific role.” While the continual evolution of a brand can be something to manage, brand audits are also an option.
Lindsay-Smith of Uffindell West, comments, “A regular audit is needed to assess the position in the market, the value and strength of the brand, review the competitors and communicate effectively with the market. The methodology for this is: tracking; benchmarking; measurement and evaluation; and a marketing communications audit.”
Working with agencies
Undertaking a branding or rebranding exercise usually involves working and communicating with one, or more than one, marketing communications and design agency. It seems that brand ambassadorship is important when working to develop a brand with agencies.
Bush at Base One, comments on both, “If using more than one agency it’s best to identify the ‘brand guardian’. The agency who you feel best understands what you want the brand to be and what effect each of the other agencies could have on the brand. If using one agency it is important to give them direct exposure to the board as well as responsibility for tracking and reporting on progress internally and externally.”
B plus for brands
While it seems to be a unanimous verdict that brand is important for organisations, understanding, managing, communicating and working with its evolution are all equally as important in the mix.
While straplines are not always vital additions to a brand visual identity, they can add to a brand value, more effectively communicating a brand promise and corporate beliefs. If a strapline or promise is misrepresentative of the organisation it is meant to be strengthening, it can effectively damage visual identity and therefore reputations.
Only by understanding the values of a company can a brand initially be formulated and start to be understood. While a brand is now usually conceived in the business strategy and born in the board-room, communicating the brand values to staff are vital. This can be done in many ways, including allowing marketing communications and design agencies to act as brand stewards.
With so many benefits deliverable to a company, branding can prove vital for the true, accurate representation of a reputation and should be carried out with consistency, vigour and bravery.
