A common misconception amongst new business owners is that once they have their logo, their branding is done and dusted, unfortunately this could not be further from the truth. Your logo is only one part of a brand and if you want to remain relevant over time your brand journey is never really over.
This may be more easily understood if you look at what a logo is vs what a brand is.
A logo is a identifiable mark that represents a business/organisation.
A brand is more than a name or a physical feature, it is the perception that customers have about a product or service. It’s your promise to your audience. In general terms, it’s an idea or image of a specific product or service that consumers connect with.
Whilst in the order of things a logo usually comes first, the trick is to then grow your brand from there.
When establishing your brand first work out what the vision, values and personality of your company is. You could ask yourself;
- What’s your big idea or goal?
- What do you stand for?
- Where are you going?
If you struggle with this, another way to approach it is to think of your business as a person. This is to say, if your business was a person would it be formal or funny, masculine or feminine, young or mature etc.
Whilst your doing these exercises its also a good time to consider your brands audience and define them. What’s their age, gender, occupation, location and personality traits. When doing these exercises, also remember that this is not about defining you or describing what you like, you need to put yourself in the shoes of your potential buyers to see what they desire.
Once you have a an idea of these concepts you can get on to applying these concepts to to your brand extension or brand elements.
These are just some of the elements of a brand:
Name
Tagline e.g Just do it,
Logo
Core strategies and values.
Colour/s
Style of imagery
Brand promises
Brand artwork
Sound
Smell
Tone of voice
Mascot
Ideally, over time your target audience will be able to identify you when they see a certain colour (cadbury’s purple), hear a particular phrase (would you like fries with that?) or see a brand mascot. A well rounded brand will keep it versatile, fresh and give you more opportunities to surprise and delight your audience.
Just remember, as said at the start, your brand journey is never really over. A brand should evolve and grow over time, Coca-Cola does not use the same language and advertising messages today that it did in the 1950’s. It’s band has continued to develop over time, so that is is still considered relevant today.
