Branding—Who Are You, Why Are You Special?
Brand identity is more than a logo. It is what makes your company unique, and why you are valuable to customers and society?
When people hear the word “brand” they often think of logos, advertisements, or slogans. While these are visible components of a brand, the essence of your company’s brand is unseen and rests in your identity—who are you, how are you different, and why are you special? In other words, what makes your company unique, and why are you valuable to customers and society? Your brand includes everything from visual identity to the values that permeate your corporate culture. Strong, relevant brands engender customer loyalty, clarify an organization’s purpose, boost business value, help distinguish a company from competitors, and serve as the most effective antidote to commoditization.
Today’s most powerful and popular brands have clear identities: Apple, Google, Starbucks. These companies know who they are and what they stand for, and their identities drive everything they do and say. When a company has a strong brand identity, customers know what to expect from it and trust the company to deliver reliable products and services. This trust factor is increasingly important as consumer demographics shift and millennials take over as the dominant customer base.
Brand identity and cocktail napkins
A brand identity is one of those ‘things” that everyone seems to define a little differently. Based on years of experience in brand communications work, I’ve seen brand identities of all lengths, including enormous binders formatted in more ways than one can count. I believe the most effective brand identity is one that can be communicated on a cocktail napkin. If you can’t share it in a simple summary that anyone within your company can understand, process, and remember, then most likely, you won’t be able to get your entire team behind it. When it comes to who you are, why you are unique, what good do you do in the world -it should be clear and straightforward, then your team can get behind it and deliver on your brand promise -most importantly because they know and understand what that is.
