What does ‘brand identity’ mean? What is the first thought that comes to your mind when thinking about this term? A vast majority assume that it relates to a logo or slogan. However, there is a need to develop a holistic approach to comprehensively understand brand identity.
In simple words, brand identity encompasses elements such as logos, typography, colours, slogan, packaging and messages, which culminates in establish a unique perception about the brand. Therefore, a solid brand identity is imperative to grow a business into a distinct and successful brand. The following five steps can serve as important stepping stones to effectively build brand identity for your brand:
Research and Strategize
A common issue that budding entrepreneurs face when setting up their brand is an overenthusiastic approach. They avoid market research expecting that their business idea being good alone is enough and with a false sense of security in the belief that they can improvise business processes over the course of operations. Effective market research is vital in self-understanding what the brand/business will shape itself to be such as:
- Who is the target audience?
- How will you be perceived in the market?
- How will you differentiate your brand from others?
- What are the characteristics associated with the brand?
- How will you create a market for your products?
Addressing the questions along these lines will aid in smooth formulation and implementation of strategies while building a brand identity.
Create a Distinct Value Proposition
What products/services is your business offering? Will your products be more dependable than your competitors? Will they be cheaper or expensive in the market? Answering these questions will help formulate a distinct value proposition that your business is offering, which helps your brand to stand out in the customer’s perception.
Choose Brand Name, Logo & Slogan
In the next step, brand name, logo and slogan should be selected in a manner that clearly conveys characteristics of the brand. Moreover, establishing a distinct image of each product is effective over simply attaching the brand’s name.
Embellish your Brand Name
Trivial, yet relevant embellishments to your brand name can effectively establish connection with the customers on a subconscious level. Companies are known to use specific colours such as red or green to signify alarming or environmental causes, respectively. Just an example, when you think of a humanoid honeybee talking about insurances and road safety, what brand comes to mind? Yes, you guessed it right!
Conduct Brand Audit
It is essential to conduct periodic audits to ascertain a brand’s position in the marketplace. An effective way to conduct brand audit is through the use of a business tool called “Perceptual Brand Mapping”. Perceptual brand mapping is the graphical plotting of brands against X and Y axes, each representing the characteristics that influence brand selection. These characteristics can be defined by collecting information through customer surveys and market research. The obtained results can then be assessed with the target objective and improvised accordingly to enforce brand identity.
