Creative Hat » Branding

The Brand Narrative

Ferg — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:58:36 +0000

When it comes to branding, our first question has to be ‘What is the narrative behind the brand?’

The narrative of a brand is summed up in the brand mandate or mission statement: what it is that the business does; what does the brand provide those it serves, and why does it matter? Just as the moral of a story is the core idea or truth that the story expresses, the brand narrative needs to define and express the core truth about the business it represents. It is the motivation and meaning at the heart of the business mandate.

Before a business can summarise its mission statement, it needs to have thought through every aspect of the business that relates to the brand, so that the narrative becomes the integral backbone of the brand and all related marketing. Whether the subsequent marketing involves writing content for the web, creating a brochure, or coming up with a company name or logo, the brand substance, or narrative, must be at the heart of the initiative. All marketing efforts ought to correspond uniformly to the essence of the brand mandate.

Essentially, a brand will connect the company it represents with the people it serves. The brand narrative gives meaning to the identity of the business, and what it does. A brand narrative evolves strategically over time, responding to new customers and changing markets and underlying our critical interactions with customers and stakeholders. Brand narratives are key business drivers. If the brand narrative is coherent and relevant, it will promote customer awareness, trust and loyalty, which in turn produces growth and profitability.

The brand narrative needs to be one that drives key business decisions as well as marketing communications. The primary elements of a strong brand narrative are clarity, character, and consistency.

Clarity is conveyed in the content of a brand; who we are, what we do, who we do it for, why it matters to them, and how it differs from what others offer in the marketplace.

Character is conveyed through the brand personality, which needs to reflect the values that will connect the company with its audience. These values need to be communicated at an emotional level.

Consistency is conveyed throughout all marketing, transactions, communications, actions and accomplishments, so that there is unity and uniformity strengthening the brand presence in the marketplace.

Ultimately, it is the brand narrative that carries the entire meaning of the company it represents, answering the fundamental question of ‘Why?’ Why is it that I am better placed to meet my customer’s needs than anyone else? Why was my company logo designed to look the way it does? Why do my press releases read the way they do? Why would someone choose my products and services over those of anyone else?

Once the brand narrative has been established, and these questions have been answered, the task of creating important communications tools will be relatively straight forward. The key messages that keep the initiatives on point, the speeches and marketing communications that rally investors and potential customers, the copy and design that accurately and powerfully convey the company identity to consumers, will all follow the brand narrative.

Values and Company Branding

Ferg — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 12:17:03 +0000

The competitive element in business plays a crucial part in how a company is run. As with sport, this element is a primary driving force, but one that needs to be aligned with the values of the brand…

Sportsmanship can rightly be defined as ‘when the competitive element within an individual is subject to a sense of fair-play’. When winning becomes more important than fair-play, fairness itself becomes subject to the competitive element, and the principle of sportsmanship is compromised.

It is the same in business. The desire to win over competition in business is a legitimate driving force, but it should never be the focus. This competitive element should drive us to greater performance, and fuel efforts at improving our business initiatives, but never to the detriment of the brand values.

A competitor can rightly be defined as ‘a person or entity which is a rival in the same industry (or a similar industry) offering a similar product or service to your own’. The presence of one or more of these competitors can reduce the prices of the goods and services in an attempt to gain a larger market share, and this directly affects every aspect of competitor conduct. In a competitive environment, the pressure to deliver ongoing consistency for smaller businesses is severe, and new competition inevitably requires companies to become more efficient in their efforts to reduce costs and maximise profitability.

It is these two areas that need attention, and for many businesses, it is the make or break. This is where a company’s brand needs re-enforcing so that it can maintain delivery of its core promise without compromising the brand values. This is why the focus cannot be on beating the competition, but rather on emulating whatever success they have through careful market research. Winning is a by-product of successful principles working together to achieve an end goal, not the goal in itself. If the proper individual business principles are well researched and properly implemented, the success will inevitably follow; but each must serve the whole, and not compromise the brand values or promises.

If a business is clever enough to identify a profitable opportunity, it can be guaranteed that competition isn’t far behind. Eventually someone will find a way to do the same thing faster, cheaper and perhaps even better. The best protection against this is to build a loyal following before this happens, remembering that successful brand loyalty will primarily be determined by the business’s own loyalty to its core brand values and promises.

Superficial Brands?

Ferg — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 11:18:10 +0000

Developing a brand marketing strategy which will elevate the brand above competitors is not quite as simple as it used to be…

Over-crowding in the marketplace is just one of the growing problems for new businesses trying to establish and maintain a new brand. The ever growing concentration of both traditional & online retailers is altering the economics of markets forever.

The fragmentation of conventional media has made it far more difficult and expensive to communicate with audiences, and this, combined with the empowerment of consumers through technology, means that brand strategies need to be aligned with these changes in attitude. The modern marketing environment presents ongoing challenges for those that develop and manage brands in this day and age, meaning that brand elevation is essential to achieving greater margins, increasing shareholder value, and conveying the robustness of the brand.

During the current economic climate, consumer spending (even on sale items), will continue to be driven by a ‘reason-to-buy at all’. This signifies the end for brands with no authentic meaning (high-end or low), as the superfluous markets are the first to go in a recession. Elevating a brand is primarily about securing loyalty by delivering value for money whilst maintaining a good customer care service. Looking after these essential elements will secure credibility for the brand by acting as a reassuring signpost in today’s hazardous marketplace.

The unique meaning of a brand will become increasingly important as superficial brands continue to inundate the marketplace. Awareness as a meaningful market force is becoming obsolete, therefore differentiation is critical for sales and profitability. Brand values which are established as the brand identity must believably exist in the mind of the consumer. More and more brands are finding it hard to keep up with consumer expectations now, and a brand can’t merely claim to stand for something if it doesn’t in reality. Consumers will decide whether or not the brand values are authentic, making it essential for a brand to have measures of authenticity that will promote consumer engagement.

As consumers adopt and employ the latest technologies and innovations, their expectations become higher, and their tolerance thresholds lower. Clever marketers are identifying and capitalizing on unmet expectations. Brands that understand where these expectations exist and meet them, will be the brands that survive and prosper.

Branding Principles

Ferg — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:45:45 +0000

People who work with (and understand) branding principles, would define a brand as a collection of meanings shared by the brand audience. It is the culmination of every element that the public perceives about the company, its products, and/or its services.

Brand is a major factor in public choice. It can also command loyalty, and help a business to soar above its competitors, and ultimately be the deciding factor as to whether a business survives or not during trying times. During such times, a brand specialist needs to research and analyse the right market for the brand, so that it blends with the expectations and perception criteria for that market. He would also need to create long-term brand value, which will in turn build brand loyalty. True brand loyalty exists when customers have a high relative attitude toward the brand which is then exhibited through repurchase behaviour.

It is important to understand sectors within the market which are relevant to the appropriate demographic, and how perception works within these targeted sectors. Getting that right is the foundation of all other related marketing, as it establishes confidence & security

2 major things that need primary consideration when building a brand, are:

1. Clarity about the company position in the market

Positioning is the process by which marketers attempt to create an image or identity in the minds of a target market for a product, brand, or organization. Positioning is the ‘relative competitive comparison’ the service or product occupies in a given market as perceived by the target market.

2. Competitor analysis and profiling

Competitor analysis and profiling in marketing is an essential component of corporate strategy. It is the assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors. This analysis provides the premise and context through which to identify opportunities and threats.

Next month I will be looking at developing a brand marketing strategy, and the identification of core elements and USPs which will elevate the brand above its competitors.

Crowdsourcing & Spec Work

Ferg — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:45:29 +0000

Crowdsourcing in the design industry is a the concept of taking tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing the work to a group of people or community in the form of an open invitation. This means that a given community or the general public are invited by a company (or individual) to carry out a design task, (develop a website or logo concept etc), with the aim of awarding the contract to the winner. The crowdsourcing business model has attracted controversy and criticism from many sources.

Spec Work is the practice of getting designers to work “on spec” which is basically getting them to produce finished work with no guarantee of getting paid. This type of practise is widely considered unethical (immoral even) by the graphic design community, as it expects the designer to commit their time and resources to a project where they may get nothing in return.

“While a client may feel they don’t want to invest money until seeing some work, designers should not have to prove their worth to get a job. Instead, clients should choose a designer based on their portfolio and experience and commit to building a working relationship with him or her. Only then will both the client and designer see the best results.” Eric Miller from What is “Spec” Work?

Pamela Pfiffner, writer and founding editor of CreativePro.com states:

“Finding meaningful work that pays well has always been a challenge for designers. You hustle to attract prospective clients, produce thorough proposals highlighting your suitability for the assignment; pitch possible design solutions; submit a bid for a budget; and hopefully get the job. If you do, you work to develop a good relationship with the client that includes constant and thoughtful communication about objectives, goals, and branding. Based on feedback, designs evolve over time until the client is satisfied. Then you cash your well-deserved check.

But increasingly, this process is being undermined by two client initiatives, one old and one new: spec work and crowdsourcing…” Read more

In an attempt to stem the tide of the negative aspects of crowdsourcing, and bring awareness to this controversial method of business, several groups of designers have begun to post relevant & informative information through websites and blogs. One of these is an organization called No!Spec.

“A grassroots effort, No!Spec formed three years ago after companies began soliciting work through design contests at an alarming rate. Ground central for the movement is the No!Spec Web site, which spells out what spec work is, why it needs to be avoided, and what can be done to stem the tide. These seasoned designers believe that working on spec devalues design as a profession as well as the work and skills it to takes to produce quality work. Advocates of the No!Spec movement say that working on-spec turns design into a commodity.” Pamela Pfiffner

I would advise all professional designers in the industry to visit the No!Spec website and have a good read on the subject of crowdsourcing. On the site, you will find many informative and eye-opening articles and contributions from many peers in the industry.

The posters below bring awareness to the No!Spec movement. The designers are, from top to bottom, Von Glitschka, Rob Gough, and Chad Behnke. For higher-resolution versions of these, more poster designs, and for rules of usage, see No!Spec.com.

Trends & Sustainable Marketing

Ferg — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:41:31 +0000

Trying to work out who leads marketing trends, whilst rationalising the positive and negative effects, is a bit like asking which came first; ‘the chicken half empty’, or ‘the egg half full.’

Nonetheless, marketing trends must be ‘right’, regardless of whether they are dictating or following consumer demand, otherwise advertising would cease to be the biggest industry in the world behind the space programme. So, if these trends are ‘right’, is the customer always right? First of all, I need to make a distinction between ‘the customer’ and ‘the consumer’, since the former needs to consider the latter in many cases.

The statement that the customer is always right is not true at all. It would be more correct to say that the customer must get what they ask for, regardless of whether they are right or wrong. If the customer is also the consumer, they reserve the right to be wrong, so in that sense they are always right. If a customer enjoys the privilege of falsely being right whilst actually being in the wrong, then their money will buy this.

With regard to professional services, the customer generally doesn’t want to be right. Most will want help understanding what gets results, and what is the right way to achieve this. This means that they are (more often than not) willing to listen to the advice of the experts they employ to handle their project. When it comes to creating a marketing tool such as a website, the responsibility of delivering a successful product doesn’t depend on the client being right, it depends on the tool itself being the right one for the job; achieving the target objectives. Fortunately, most clients will understand that their own subjective ideals have to be subservient to proper, established systems of approach.

In short, this means that whilst the designer is subject to the client, the client is subject to the end user, or target audience. So, it is the end user / consumer who is always right, since ultimately they are the ones who pay. If packaging and trends dictate how people buy in a given market, then these perceptions must meet the target audience expectation, and it is this dynamic that must be ‘right’ to accommodate both.

This leaves us to define the context of the word ‘right’. If we are talking about a moral right, then that leads us into the murky waters of advertising ethics, though if we are using the word ‘right’ to define a successful formula for selling, then anyone subscribing to a successful system is ‘right’. This may be the designer, it may also be the client, but it is always the end user / target audience, as they are the ones who are subject to the governing trends.

This may sound cynical, but who is the real cynic in manipulative or patronising advertising? The bottom line is that if a service or product offers real value for money that is the core of real sustainable marketing. There is no moral excuse for cynical advertising, though conversely, there is no excuse for not taking advantage of trends to promote a product or service in this day and age. The key is to deliver value for money in the marketplace, regardless of how we promote our services or products, and whether we take advantage of governing trends or not.

Ethics & Company Branding

Ferg — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 09:37:42 +0000

The concept of branding is to develop the expectations that are associated with the brand experience, creating the impression that this association has certain qualities or characteristics. This makes branding one of the most valuable elements in advertising, because it is the brand that conveys what is being offered in the marketplace, and which part of the market it represents.

Orientation of a company towards its brand is called integrated marketing, which presupposes that the brand correctly represents the company ethos, services and/or products. Proper brand management, assisted by an appropriate advertising campaign, is a successful formula for convincing consumers to place their trust in the products and services represented by the brand. This method generally consists of projecting the brand image and product/service with the aim of assigning a perceived value to them.

The consumer sees the product in an environment (package) that pre-determines its position and value in the marketplace, and will accept this. Obviously, at this point, the consumer is being told to accept the value of the product based on the worth conveyed by the brand, rather than a logical valuation that comprises the cost of raw materials, manufacture, distribution etc. This is where ethics come in, because while it is fair to cover costs without mentioning them in the advertising, some cynical ‘value-creation’ branding-and-advertising campaigns are aimed at inducing consumers to pay hundreds of times what a product costs to make.

For an ethical company, the brand is far more than the margin between the actual cost of a product and its selling price, rather, it represents the quality of a product to the consumer. Because of the many intangibles that exist in business which have to be covered in the costing, the brand is used to convey the overall quality of a product, which naturally includes the quality of the product development and research etc. Failing to account for the work that has gone into a product when determining the end value would set an enterprise at a serious disadvantage, which is where a good brand can help support a higher margin.

Brands are often created to reflect the values of the target audience rather than the values of the company it represents, which is a cynical way to trade. This is where trends are dictated to gullible audiences, but that is for another post.

Correctly used, branding will reflect the positive values of the company it represents, and these are what ought to determine its rank and value in the marketplace. Branded products or services also command higher prices. For example, where there are two similar products, and one of these has no associated branding (i.e; a generic supermarket branded product), consumers often select the more expensive branded product on the basis of a perceived quality of the brand or the reputation of the brand owner.

Logo design & Branding

Ferg — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 14:37:21 +0000

(I wrote this article on commission from Anssi Uimomen – a graphic designer in Finland – and decided to reproduce it here on my own blog)

You don’t need to be a digital artist to be a designer. There are many good designers out there who contract the digital finishing out once the design has been achieved. This article is written for the designer who wants to get into branding, or learn new methods within the field that may help them (note that logo design is not branding, but an element within branding).

I am not going to get into the ethos or psychology of branding here, but rather focus on logo design, which is the cornerstone of any brand. Essentially, the logo works as a symbol which carries the brand, and before a logo is designed, a great deal of preparation is needed. This includes research into the relevant sector, image identity, and core value conveyance, but that is for another post. For the purpose of this post, I have invented a brand, which includes a brand name, a logo, a typeface, colours and a strap line. These are the 5 basic visual elements of a brand, and the sector I have chosen to target is the perfume industry.

The first stage of the logo design, presumes that I have already completed the preparation mentioned above, and that the client and I are agreed on the vision of the brand and the identity we are trying to achieve. Now it is time to start work on a symbol that will represent the brand. If you haven’t done the leg-work, this will be like a writer trying to think of the title for his book before he’s even written the story. Assuming that you have some sort of direction, it is time to start visual conceptualising. This is fancy talk for ’sketching’, which brings me to my first hot tip;

Hot tip 1:

Turn off the computer, and get a pencil and paper. There is no better way to come up with a good design, than to draw it by hand. This gets the creative juices flowing, and gives the designer time alone with the design. The image below is one of the sketches I came up whilst trying out several interesting ideas. Producing hand drawn ideas for the client before going digital is important, but for the sake of this tutorial, let’s say that the client and I have decided on this one.

The second stage of the design is working out your palette. In some cases, this will follow an established part of the company identity, in other cases, the design will lead this. Generally, a brand identity will consist of two main colours at the core, known as the primary and secondary colours. In some instances, there is a single colour, or a full range, but this will largely depend on the industry, as there are certain rules that apply in established markets. For the purpose of this tutorial, I have selected two main colours, and an intermediate one, as I want to use a gradient in my design. In the image below, I have introduced my palette to a digital rendering of the symbol, which will also be in my presentation when I next meet with the client. The reason for this, is to show the symbol in it’s purity alongside the palette, which makes it easier to imagine and exchange for other colours if needed.

The third stage is the implementation of colour into the symbol. It is important that the palette is established before commencing this phase, as it is easy to become distracted by the scope of colour as the options which present themselves when playing around can take you off in another direction entirely. Working shades within a colour is fine, but try to remain disciplined at this stage of the design, which brings me to my next hot tip;

Hot tip 2: Keep your creativity and the disciplines distinct from one-another. If you work out what you are doing in advance, you will be able to remain focused and save a great deal of time. Some people spend a lot of time experimenting with concepts, design and colour at the same time, but the idea is to keep the ‘play time’ to the conceptual level. If you set parameters for each element early on in the process, the project will be more productive at each stage, and the design will develop with more clarity.

The fourth stage is implementing the typeface and company name into the design. In some cases, I will need to design a custom typeface in keeping with the design, but many times an existing typeface will suffice. This part of the process can be as long, or even longer than designing the symbol, as it is in itself a symbol within the brand. There is much that can be said about typography, as it is an art in itself, and many specialise in this field. However, for the purpose of this tutorial, I have chosen a font to go with the symbol. In the image below, I have placed the company name with the logo, which will be included in my presentation for the client.

Finally, I am ready to place the logo onto the product. This is where I get to see the brand in action, and for this, I will mock up an advert, and use the strap line to bring everything together. Packaging is another specialist field, and a crucial part of the branding exercise, but for the purpose of this tutorial we can assume that I have been made aware of the packaging in advance (as this would normally be the case). In the image below, we see the brand in it’s intended environment.

I hope this brief tutorial has been helpful in some way. The truth is, for a good designer, much of the work is done well in advance of drawing or sketching anything. As with most things, the key to designing a successful brand (or logo) is in the preparation and communication with the client.

What is branding?

Ferg — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:53:55 +0000

Branding is the entire process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product or service in the consumers’ mind, through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers.

A brand is essentially a promise. By identifying and authenticating a product or service it delivers a pledge of satisfaction and quality.

A brand can be seen as a set of assets (or liabilities) linked to a brand’s name and symbol that adds to (or subtracts from) the value provided by a product or service. One way to understand it, is as a collection of perceptions in the consumer’s mind.

A brand is very different from a product or service. In essence, it is intangible and exists in the mind of the consumer; developed not only through effective use of communications or appealing logos, but rather through the entire experience that it conveys.

For more information on Branding see also:

Branding Principles

Ethics & Company Branding

Logo Design & Branding

Brand Competition Winner

Ferg — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 06:15:11 +0000

Creative Hat are pleased to announce that we have won the competition to design Motley Health’s Brand. Part of the prize was a valuable back link from Webologist for life (or the life of Webologist), which will help us with our SEO. This is the kind of prize that money can’t buy (unless of course you can afford a big adwords campaign), and we are really pleased to be working with Webologist. The brief was to create a logo that showed a bench-presser and spot to convey weightlifting in the brand.