A brand tells a story about your company. When creating that story put yourself in the position of the customer, think about what you would like your customers to think of when they hear your name or see your logo.
You should also be developing a set of values with a brand story that elicit particular feelings. One way of developing these values is by working back from the unique benefits that your company offers through its products and services. Having gone through this exercise you can then create a unique selling proposition which guides graphical output and media elements. This is a great way of ensuring that you are being consistent to your brand image over time.
Whenever you begin to doubt the validity of a communication go back and check to see if it is consistent with your selling proposition.
If not get rid of it because it isn’t communicating what your company is about.
A great exercise when developing a new brand identity is to consider a brand in the form of a living human being. A concept called brand personality is useful to conceptualise otherwise intangible elements. You develop a brand personality by asking a series of questions that personify a proposed brand. For example, if myth was a person what kind of car would they drive? Would they be male of female? Young or old? You can see straight away how this kind of questioning begins to build a character that can be more easily translated into marketing communications.
Finally, let’s go back and touch on this topic of feelings. Great brand advertising evokes powerful emotions that impact memory and associations that last well into the future. Thinking about the end result of your company messages, what feelings and emotions should your company evoke? This really depends on the type of product or service you are selling doesn’t it. Do you want to make people cry with joy, or fuel determination through aspiration?
Another important thing to consider, when thinking of brand creation, is what stories already exist in the market. Stories and legends that already have human feelings attached to them are ideal brand building blocks. Many companies don’t start their brand building from scratch because they have harnessed the power of existing stories to leverage their own value through association.
