If you’re thinking of reviewing your brand, its audience, its values and how it presents itself to the world, these are the points you need to keep in mind.
Why?
The first step is work out why. If it’s a new company it’s obvious, but if you’re established do you want a refresh or complete brand overhaul? Your choice will have a significant impact on the success of your brand. If you think your identity is looking dated in comparison to your competitors, but you’re keen to conserve cash, a refreshed colour palette and new font might do the trick. But without truly understanding the following points you could just be throwing money down the drain, and looking at the whole process again in six months.
Know your audience
This is fundamental and it’s not just about your existing audience. You may be looking to reach a new audience, or there may be an audience you haven’t considered, so defining and understanding them is the first step to creating a unique and powerful brand.
You can’t be everything to everyone though (too many brands want to target ‘everybody’!) so make sure you know who you’re talking to. Once you’ve got this down, look at how other brands in industries different to yours are communicating with them. Finding new ways to talk to your customers can often be influenced by other industries.
Something else to think about: how you would like your customers to talk about your business? Imagine you overheard someone talking about it – what would you like them to be saying? Happy customers are your greatest form of advertising!
Understand your competition
Who are they, where are they, what are they saying, what do they look like, who are they targeting, how are they operating, what do their customers say about them? Essential knowledge which will influence how you operate, and give your creative team a steer on how not to be like them.
Be clear about your proposition
Why do you do what you do, what is your USP? Not all brands are lucky enough to have a product that no one else makes and that everyone wants, but every business has something that makes them different. This is often called ‘the sweet spot’, the thing you have or do that your competition doesn’t.
It might be how you operate (your speed, your choice), the customer experience, your internal ethos, or your environmental credentials. Whatever it is, make sure you always deliver on it. The most beautiful brand design in the world can’t save you from unhappy customers.
Then, test your proposition against the audience you have defined. Do they align? if yes, great; if not, why? Your audience and your proposition must align, you’re going to really struggle to sell meat to vegans for instance.
Get brave and get creative
Now comes the fun part. For us this is about experimentation. Taking the knowledge we have gathered to create an identity for you that aligns to your audience and your proposition, and makes you stand out confidently amongst your competitors. It’s not about being different for the sake of being different, but about making sure you have a voice and an image that is undeniably you.
We often talk about how brave a client is, or is likely to be, and we’re lucky to work with lots of brave clients. But there is definitely a ‘brave scale’ and this is mainly led by industry. For example, what is deemed brave by the hospitality industry is likely to be very different to the healthcare industry. It’s our job to understand this and extremely important for you to think about when briefing your project.
PS
Great creative doesn’t happen without great partnerships. We work closely with our clients until we become part of their teams. Because of the processes we go through, we get to know them and their businesses. This leads to open conversations and trust, which leads to work everyone will be invested in, be proud of and most importantly, that works!