According to the renowned ad man, David Ogilvy, a brand is “the intangible sum of a product’s attributes: its name, packaging, and price, its history, its reputation, and the way it’s advertised.” However, at a more tangible level, a “Brand” comprises of all the elements such as the logo, color pallet, typography, taglines, symbols, etc. that help you differentiate your brand from the others. As per business dictionary, a brand is a unique design, sign, symbol, words, or a combination of these, employed in creating a distinctive image for a product/company. Over time, this image becomes associated with a level of credibility, quality, and satisfaction in the consumer’s mind. Thus brands help harried consumers in crowded and complex marketplace, by standing for certain benefits and value. The methodology of creating a unique and distinguishing personality of any product with the help of various elements is known as branding. Any firm’s greatest asset is its brand. Successful branding is what makes your firm the most recognizable and has the utmost recall value. Firms distinguish themselves with their logos, their taglines, typography, secondary and primary fonts and any form of visual language that helps position the brand and create a perception about it which eventually builds brand equity and business in the long run. So, what are Brand Guidelines? Brand guidelines, or also commonly known as brand style guide, are a set of rules that dictate the terms of usage of logos, brand colors, and any kind of messaging that is associated with the brand. These elements help the brand maintain higher consistency for your firm’s public image, and helps boost sales. Any customer is more likely to buy from a brand that they recognize, as they get an assurance of quality and an understanding of the brand’s credibility. Brand guidelines give you recognition in a cluttered market by visually defining its identity, which makes the customers trust you more. Brand guidelines also define how your brand should be represented visually across various channels such as brochures, visiting cards, leaflets, letterheads, websites, advertisements, etc. It is extremely vital to maintain this consistency across various media to avoid any kind of confusion that could eventually hinder your sales. The market is full of brands and products that are at times similar, and it becomes difficult to appeal to the customer. At such times, some of them might even offer a time sensitive offer to convince the customer, but this does not guarantee any kind of quality. Companies such as Apple, Google, Facebook, etc. have all successfully made themselves stand out in the market, which is only due to successful branding and delivery of assured quality, and have successfully created an overall impression of their products by maintaining consistency. Customers today recognize these brands by just glancing at the logo, colors, typography, etc. Brand guidelinesensure that your brand is recognized by the right people at the right time. These companies have certain guidelines that they follow throughout their communication processes and maintain the most important factor of brand communications – consistency. Brand assets are those indicators that help the customer to identify and recognize a brand easily in the market full of similar products. It includes elements such as fonts, taglines, primary or secondary color palettes, text spacing, logo placement, line indents, background colors, etc. Brand guidelineshelp set these unique characteristics that establish the brand’s presence in the market and make it exclusive. Following are the key factors to why brand guidelines are important: Brand Identity: Any brand’s identity involves the brand’s mission, vision, core values and their personality traits. It is extremely necessary for a brand to integrate their identity through messages across the various mediums at all times. A brand identity, or also knows as a corporate identity, forms a decisive image in the minds of the customer on the basis of past experiences, or simply its appeal. Brand guidelines are a comprehensive manual or guide that explains how the brand elements are to be used internally and externally, to ensure complete uniformity throughout the communication processes and substantially increase your brand credibility. Portraying a uniform brand identity always helps translate any brand’s appeal into a positive and cohesive image, and also showcases the brand’s mission statement and core values. Brand Recognition: Brand recognition is the ability of the customer to identify your brand and recall its distinctive personality. A company’s branding objective would be that just a glance at the logo, slogan, font, typography, etc. should help the target customer to recognize your brand, and recall it from their memory. Brand recognition is the most important factor when it comes to retaining customers, and is the approximate estimate of how well the target group knows your brand. Whether your brand is communicating through digital media, offline advertising, hybrid advertising or a simple email campaign, effective brand guidelines help you maintain cohesiveness and create a competent, professional image. Brand Consistency: When your brand remains consistent with its marketing/branding communication throughout all the media, it depicts uniformity and the customers receive a positive perception about the brand. Brand Guidelines communicate your company’s design standards to your entire company, across offices and departments. Referencing this manual ensures all marketing efforts are aligned, and makes life much easier for your marketing team, designers, writers and developers as it gives them a solid framework to use and ensures everyone using your branding is on the same page. When brands are inconsistent with their marketing communication and visual designs, it conveys a confused message which negatively impacts customer confidence in your brand. Integrated marketing communications, using the brand guidelines, ensure that the marketing communication is clear and leaves no room for doubt, uncertainty or confusion. Brand Positioning: Firms use various brand strategies with the help of market research and analysis to create an effective perception in the minds of their customers, which is known as brand positioning. The ideology behind this is to create a unique portrayal of the brand and its products and become the go-to brand for customers when needed. Brand positioning involves the brand’s purpose, mission statement, slogan, imagery, etc and most importantly, it’s visual appeal as well. A brand’s visual appeal due to its colors, fonts, and the overall feeling of it has an effective psychological appeal to the customers. Brand guidelines help the firm to maintain visual regularity that essentially help in psychologically positioning themselves exactly where they want in the customer’s mind. Without Brand Guidelines, it’s almost impossible to maintain your brand’s identity and personality consistent. Partner with a strategic marketing and design team to create a brand style guide that will ensure you build and communicate a distinct, cohesive and professional brand. ...read more
By Branding August 31, 2019
Brand identity and Brand image building are two of the most essential components that define a success of a brand in a market. These terms determine what the brand speaks about, and what is being heard by the customers. Although both these terms are two sides of the same coin and helpful to one another, they both derive different meanings altogether. What is the difference betweenbrand image building and brand identity? Why are they so important for the foundation of any brand? Brand Identity A Brand Identity, also known as the visual identity, confines all the visual aspects that you have created to make your brand stand out, or make it unique in a market full of similar competitors of the same niche. It contains the logo, style, colors, typography, accent, consistency in image formats and styles, etc and anything else that helps the customer to differentiate your brand from the others. A brand identity is the message that you want to convey through yourbrand or product. It demands complete consistency when it comes to messaging as this creates the first impression of your brand in the customer’s mind. It requires complete involvement of the firm to create a presentable impression of the brand that has maximum recall value and a concrete brand positioning. It showcases the brand message with the help of all the other visual elements that complement it to create a unified message that helps build your brand value in the long run, using integrated marketing communications. The brand identity also comprises of the firm’s mission, vision, personalities and core values. It depicts the ideologies behind the intent of the brand and promises delivery of assured quality in products and services. The core values of any brand communicate what you believe in as a whole and your shared beliefs and interests to reach the desired target. This at times resonates with customers who share the same beliefs as well. Brand identity is the brand’s voice, something that the brand is trying to say and portray, and the key to building a strong identity is to maintain this same tone throughout the marketing processes to have a unified presence. In layman’s terms, your brand identity is who you are, what you do and how you do it. It depicts your brand’s desires and what the reality is. Consumer trends today have been changing very frequently. They tend to prefer brands that share their beliefs and reflect their values. For eg. A customer is prone to be attracted to abrand that believes in sustainable development of the society, which can be conveyed only through the brand’s identity messages. Brand identity components are diverse in nature and are unified to solidify a brand’s personality and appeal in the customer’s memory, and these factors are some of the key differences betweenbrand identity and brand image building. Brand Image A brand image is a feeling, or what the customers think about your brand. It is the complete perception of your brand to the consumer, or a basic impression of your brand, which is created through brand messaging and brand awareness, and always aligns with your brand identity to create the desired perspective of your brand. A brand image is developed over a certain period of time during which the customer gets to experience and interact with your brand. Every brand works towards creating an optimisticand a strong image in the market. It ensures more customers, which essentially leads to more sales. The market today is clustered with similar products which leaves the customer with uncertainty. A strong brand images ensures the customer chooses your brand over others, and increases the brand awareness with the same. It also plays an important role with maintaining brand loyalty for existing customers. A brand image is superficial in nature, as it relates only to the psychological effect your brand has in the market due to successful branding and the appeal of your brand identity. Amajor advantage of a strong brand imageis the ease of introducing new products. A firm finds it difficult to attract consumers to a new product due to certain factors such as consumer uncertainty, competitor’s marketing, competitive pricing, etc. When a firm has a strong brand image in the market, it becomes easier to introduce new products and focus lesser on marketing them as the consumer already has a positive perception about your brand. Due to this, they would not be hesitant to try your new products, which enhances brand promise and increases brand awareness. A brand image comprises of several brand associations such as features, attributes, quality, performance, services and support facilities. Apart from personal interactions and experiences that the consumers get, it can further be enhanced through advertisements, word of mouth, sales promotions, packaging, bundling, etc. The image of a brand is important because they consumers associate themselves with the brand’s image, which attracts them in the first place. For eg. Woodland Shoes are perceived as adventurous, outdoor, sturdy, etc. Consumers who buy these reflect the same personalities in themselves. Brand image buildingis something that firm’s focus on more and more today. It involves a complete holistic approach that involves PR, advertising,digital marketing, etc. Brands that endorse celebrities find it beneficial to work on brand image building as those celebrities have a mass following, and it reflects in the sales of the product as well. The brand image building process involves identifying the target audience, establishing brand objectives, reflect with relevant messages and create a persona for yourself that is easily identifiable in the market. Brands today optimize various marketing strategies that make extensive use of digital tools such as content development, digital PR, social media and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Conclusion Brand identity is how the brand wants to portray itself to thepotential target customersas well as existing ones. Your firm’s brand identity is what it says you and your background, including the quality of products and services you offer and how they differentiate from competitors in the market. The brand image is basically how the brand is perceived by your target and potential group. The most important task for a firm is to associate the brand identity and brand image as closely as possible. This is because brands want to reach out to consumers in a holistic manner and convince them that their ideologies go hand in hand with the consumers’. This also helps further in branding and marketing strategies. ...read more
By Branding August 29, 2019
The fundamental marketing model has changed. As consumers turn to the Internet for finding information, purchasing, networking and conducting business; associal media grows in popularity- it's all about 'engaging' not 'advertising'. As the pressure increases to improve results yet cut marketing spends, more and more marketers are turning to digital channels to boost overall ROI. The challenge is to reach prospects and customers where, when and how they want to be reached. That does not mean offline methods are obsolete. They can still be effective. To maximize impact, touch points must be identified, depending on strategic objectives, budgets and reach. Case studies show that combining online with offline media delivers 20%+ growth in response rates and brand recall. However, coordinating and integrating both and getting the right balance are the key. So all things considered, it's not about choosing one over the other. The best way to maximize yourmarketing strategy and budgetis by integrating both online and offline efforts to reach various audiences build a cohesive brand, improve brand recall. Here are some practical ways to integrate your offline and digital marketing: Promote online channels offline- Brand presence in any printed/offline media is more than just your logo. Include reminders for people to follow your accounts and website on all creative̢۪s for ads, brochures, business cards, flyers, banners, etc. All print & packaging should include URLs, social media handles and coupon/QR codes to draw your audience to your online channels. Share QR codes- QR codes form the perfect connection between online and offline marketing. They lead customers to your website or social pages. Also, use codes for special promos on FB or website; or to get discounts at your physical site. Digital marketing of events- encourage participation of people, create a buzz, use mix of emails, posts,even paid ads- to attract people & boost engagement. You can even use an event app at the event to capture data of visitors so you get a new database to follow up with relevant & personalized content. Build a mobile app- Everybody is using a smartphone these days, carrying it wherever they go. And they value convenience and ease of use. So if you provide a well-designed mobile app where they can access everything they might need from your business, you will be making good use of thispowerful marketing tool. Through the app you can provide exclusive offers, allow them to leave reviews, include a store locator, even gamify it, providing rewards for certain actions and tracking with hashtags/QR codes. Take offline events to social media- Create contests, run opinion polls, display photographs of offline events, upload your most popular ads, create specific hashtags and encourage customers to share selfies to promote & track campaigns - social media offers many ways to engage with your audience and make them feel a part of your brand. Use hashtags- Hashtags are everywhere today. Catchy hashtags become a brand property, making it easy for customers to join in brand conversations and helping to build the campaign story. Conclusion Nowadays, consumers are bombarded with information from different mediums. So it follows that if you reach out to consumers through multiple channels, your message will have more impact. However, it is crucial to sync your offline and online efforts, and carefully coordinate your messaging. Consistency and cohesion are essential to improve the impact of cross-channel marketing. Companies should partner with a design agency that understands integrated branding and digital marketing communications. You need an agency that has experience inbrand building strategyand the multi-disciplinary skills to handle website & online advertising, content marketing, environment branding and all the other channels that constitute integrated branding. Try Interics Designs, a strategic brand consultancy and multidisciplinary design agency with over 2 decades of experience in image building and brand promotion for leading B2B brands. Interics can deliver holistic service, devising a strong brand building strategy and seamlessly integrating visual identity and communication across offline and online channels. ...read more
By Branding July 22, 2019
Various laws on job advertising have been established to ensure that all people in a society have equal access to jobs. Employers must abide by specific laws during the hiring process. For example, announcing in an employment ad that only certain age groups, cultures or races may apply is deemed illegal. ...read more
Google AdSense is a way for frequent bloggers to make some extra money. Bloggers are able to select and display ads which fit the topic of their blog, and, when followers of the blog click on the displayed ads, the blogger gains a small profit. Installing Google AdSense into a blog can be done easily ... ...read more