Branding is a very powerful thing. We've all been there, you're on your phone, or driving around and you catch a glimpse of them. It might have been the "Golden arches" or "The Colonel". Either way, it's made you hungry and the branding has been successful once again.
Of course there are many more brands for many other companies that work just as well as fast food logos. Here is a break down of the elements that go into a logo and the brand behind them.
Breaking Down Branding
Branding is made up of many aspects. So in order to understand the whole picture, we need to understand what parts go into a brand and how they all come together to create a brand that works.
What is Branding?
In it's simplest form, your branding will be how the general public, and more specifically your customers, will view your company and it's products/services. It may be the first time they have come across your brand, or perhaps they are already a loyal follower of yours.
No matter how many times you have sold to the same person, their opinion of you always matters. Your brand needs to have a good reputation to everyone who interacts with you every single time they do anything from buying your products, to ringing your customer service. One bad experience can spread like wildfire online through social media, so it's better to not take that chance and make sure every customer is satisfied every time.
How is Good Branding Achieved?
Other than your reputation with your customers, your branding is made up of lots of different advertising material. This can include where you advertise, how you advertise and how consistent your brand theme is throughout them all. If all of these parts work together and you have a good reputation, you could end up with a similar reputation to company giants like McDonald's or Starbucks.
How to Advertise
Whenever you create an advert, it not only needs to accurately reflect both the product or service you sell, but should also fit in with everything that makes up the visual presentation of your brand. These include, the logo, the colour scheme and your slogan if you have one.
Breaking Down an Aesthetic
Every brand that has a logo already has an aesthetic. Whether all the aspects that go into it work together or not is another matter. Dissecting each part of an aesthetic bit by bit, enables you to use the knowledge to inform your decisions on your own brand identity.
Choosing your Logo
Your company logo should be instantly recognisable to anyone glancing at it for a couple of seconds. There are several factors that go into a logo, each of which should be carefully considered.
• Colour
The colours that you decide to use within your logo convey information and can make people think certain things about your brand as a whole almost immediately. The things we associate colours with normally apply to logos as well. Red being fiery and passionate but also angry. Green being growth and a neutrality among emotions in colour.
Think carefully which colours you use within your logo and branding. If you use multiple colours, make sure they go together and don't clash as this could make your logo hard to read and instantly put off new customers.
• Typeface
The typeface of the wording in your company name or slogan can have a huge impact on your clients. First and foremost, the legibility of your logo has the most significance, since if people can't read your company name, how will they ever tell people how good your service is?
You should also consider what the typeface and what impression it gives, such as using Comic Sans for Primary School. This works because the typeface looks slightly childish and fun as apposed to a more serious standard typeface.
• Symbols
Most Companies have a Symbol within their logo or along side the words in their logo to help distinguish themselves from anyone else with a similar name or similar colours in their line of work. This can really help from a recognition stand point. If your Symbol becomes recognisable enough, you can in some cases exchange it for your whole company logo or eventually change the logo to just the symbol. If you attain a point where just a logo is enough for people to know your brand then you have made a successful symbol.
Should You Have a Slogan?
A slogan isn't necessary, but it can certainly help people remember your brand if you create a catchy enough jingle you recite your slogan to it. A jingle to your slogan can sometimes be an earworm and have people remembering your brand for their entire life if they remember your little jingle that accompanied it.
A slogan can also give customers a much better idea of what your product or service is about without needing to find much more information about you. According to Chron., a slogan can "cut through the chatter and get consumer attention quickly. While a paragraph-long explanation of your product might give potential customers plenty of information, a punchy slogan cuts through the clutter and creates a memorable image in the customers’ minds."
Where Should You Advertise?
A better question would be, where shouldn't you advertise? Mostly every type of place to put an advert would be a good one, however it does depend on your target audience and your budget. Places to advertise can range from Billboards to your own packaging of your products.
• Billboards/Physical Posters
Posters can be bought in bulk for much lower costs and can be seen by anyone providing they pass by. They do however force you to actually put them up somewhere which can take a lot of time.
Billboards are a staple when it comes to advertising. If someone is stuck in traffic and they see an advert for something for long enough, they may just end up convincing themselves to buy it just from enough exposure to it. Electronic or not, Billboards can certainly get expensive dependant on the location of the board and how desirable that space is to advertise on.
• Your Website/Social Media
These are both ideal spaces to put any advertising for anything you could want. Not only can you advertise in any way you wish, but you can also do it for very minimal costs or for free!
Showing exactly who you are and how you handle yourself through your adverts on your website is an excellent way to attain more clients being enthused to buy whatever you have to offer.
Your social media is possibly even better than your website to advertise on, Providing you follow the guidelines of whatever platform you are posting on and making sure to choose appropriate ways of advertising dependant on the platform you use. For example putting more vibrant and less text based posts on Instagram would be better than lines and lines of information probably better suited for your website.
Having your products on social media also means you can easily tell how in demand your products and services are dependant on how much they are shared around or how much engagement you get. it can also highlight areas where you may need to improve aspects. If one advert gets many more likes and shares over another, why is that? Always take the time to analyse and improve your adverts to keep gaining steady growth for your business.
Social media can also bring in the aspect of interactions with your customers via comments. If a customer comment's giving you good rapport, reply to them, thanking them for their review of your service. This not only keeps that customer using your brand, but shows new protentional customers what they are missing out on by not using your service.
• Your own packaging
This of course, only applies to physical products, but this is a major factor if you want people to buy what you're selling. Your box has to be eye catching and informative, as well as show off your product in the best possible light in most situations a customer could think of. If a passerby has their eye caught by your well crafted packaging, then the packaging is a success.
This article should hopefully have given you a good glimpse into how many aspects truly go into making and curating your brand. Trial and error are going to be your friend when figuring out your own way to peak brand identity.
If you want to find out more about how Responsive Web Design could help you with your own brand identity, contact us for more information.
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