Building a better brand…
Illustration: S N Pattenden. If you walk the walk…
Let’s say you’re travelling home after a hard day's graft at Starbucks and an idea pops into your head about starting your own business. Some of the biggest brands in the world were born into industry in exactly the same way. For some, this defining moment is visual, inspired by a colour, graphic or tagline. For others, it’s more empathic, driven by an ambition to better the world, a community, or a sustainable product line.
The truth is, both moments combined provide the ingredients of a successful brand strategy. Remember that time when someone told you coral wasn’t actually a plant? (Actually communities of animal polyps sharing a symbiotic relationship with a photosynthetic algae called Zooxanthellae). Well, logos and graphics aren't brands; they're living components of your brand ecology that make up your brilliant brand ecosystem.
A few suggestions about brand strategy
The main ingredient: Who you are and what you want to achieve is the foundation of your business. Building trust between you and your audience is not achieved by statements and graphics alone. This is why YouTube is so powerful: you meet the people behind the brand; they share their inner ambition, they dare to be vulnerable; they show you what’s happening in the kitchen behind the glossy graphics and logos. I’m not suggesting you become a YouTube influencer, but look at the premise of aligning your actions, words and values, essentially activating authenticity: This is where brand magic resides.
Build your business around a core set of malleable messages. Everything changes; if we stay the same shape, we succumb to change. Don’t do that. Nike started as Blue Ribbon Sports, but Coach Bill Bowerman and the Athlete Phil Knight, the team behind the world’s biggest sports brand always followed their love of… sport. So do, return to that central ethos and brand vision as a guiding compass.
Vision shapes who we are and how we present ourselves. From childhood, our inside shapes our outside, so let your design thinking follow your organisational ethos, and dare to be different; life is too short.
At this stage you’ve done the hard part. Perhaps now consider building a colour palette that reflects your values. I suggest you learn a little about how we respond to colour and why the financial sector, for example, is generally full of blues or reds, (trust and urgency).
“Words without thoughts never to heaven go,”
Copywriting: Shakespeare: “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy,” talks complete rubbish, and frequently made mistakes, yet this early influencer is probably one of the most important writers in human history. So I think it’s fair to let yourself off the hook when building your own brand and attempting literary perfection. We all make mistakes, as you’ve prbably gleaned from this pragraph. Just ensure that you toast the waffle because soggy waffle is pretty tedious.
Consider designing your organisational web pages, reports or letterheads with breathing space, allow your key messages the clarity they deserve. Communications such as campaign updates or economic drivers, such as repeat purchase points on your website require clear transparent messaging, don’t clutter the critical.
When you’ve been running your business for a while and the team is growing organically, consider allocating your brand strategy to a Brand Manager. I think strong Brand Managers have a particular skill built around a career working with and understanding people. These are your team, your stakeholders, your audience, and, at the end of the day, your income. Design knowledge can be learned, but people power is felt.
Finally, your new Brand Manager isn’t an island; they need you as much as you need them, so organise regular catch-ups, not performance reviews to steer the organic growth of your brand and business.