What is Branding?
It is what your brand believes in and stands for, and how that is represented to the public in all areas of consumer and business interaction. It is how you would like your company to be perceived, evoking an emotional response from your clients, to illicit sales or to represent and create trust and loyalty with your brand. Basically it is what sticks in someone’s mind when they interact with your / product / services / organisation.
“A brand can be described as a company, service or product that has voice and personality of it’s own”.
Using the services of our professional team will ensure delivery of the best branding available to your company.
Where do we start?
By conversing with our clients during a comprehensive consultation, to find out specific information that makes your company special and unique.
We then build on this to form the basis and foundation of your brands visual and corporate identity. It is not simply a case of putting a logo together with some corporate colours and fancy fonts, it is using the concepts, ideas and values of your company to create a visual identity that everyone can associate with and relate to.
This stage is crucial and will pay dividends later on if it is well planned and executed.
What types of branding are there?
Some companies requiring our services already have a set of established guidelines we need to work within. When completely rebranding companies or designing for a new start-up company we are free to fly as far as our creative minds allow.
Brand identity guidelines describe how to use (or not use) branding across a variety of mediums. Logos are normally shown sitting on appropriate backgrounds, in appropriate colours. These guidelines ensure the company’s identity is preserved across any visual device it is applied to; which depending on your company could be several.
These devices may include but not be limited to:
- A logo design
- Stationery
- Marketing Collateral
- Products & Packaging
- Apparel Design
Some larger corporations may also include commercial advertising on television, retail stores, and email communications in the branding requirements.
Branding is not just a logo BUT:
A logo design identifies a brand or product in it’s simplest form.
How Important is Branding?
Taking one of the biggest brands in the world, Apple, you will notice their branding is well thought out and their company has achieved global success. Branding is an important feature of any business and should be used as part of their marketing strategy.
Companies should see branding as an investment in their company, not an expenditure. Correct branding and corporate identity will make your business thrive in the long term. In a simple analogy – Would you decide to fix your own plumbing? Or would you hire a professional to do it for you? It’s the same thing with branding your business and creating your corporate identity.
Initial investment into your brand at the start will bring huge dividends at the end. There are many instances in which people will make a decision on whether or not your brand is suitable for their needs, but branding unprofessionally will certainly hurt your chances of success.