Branding is not an easy concept to grasp. It often confuses people and, most of the time, small business owners have no idea what the difference between branding and marketing is.
Why would this be important for a company? Isn’t it the same goal?
At Twelve12, we want to share with you some information about branding and our top branding team has prepared the following pointers for you…
Branding is your identity. To make it easier to understand, the logo or graphic attributes of a company, the company itself, and the products or services it offers are often combined whenever we see a popular brand.
For example, if you see a yellow “M” it usually makes you think about burgers, but also a clown, happy meals, and kids. If you see a black horse on a yellow background, you might think about cars, but also luxury, technology, beauty, motor racing, and speed. These two examples are of well-known brands (McDonald’s and Ferrari) and their branding leads us to a palette of qualities that includes the whole company and not just a graphic item associated with a product.
When it comes to branding, you don’t have to do it all at once and you don’t have to keep anything that doesn’t work for your company – even if it has been around for many years. Being consistent, however, with colors, graphics, and messages, is usually the fastest way to achieve branding results. There will be times when some products or a product line needs to be rejuvenated, and changing the core of the branding might be the best strategy.
A very interesting example of this is the Mexican beer “Indio”, originally named after the last Aztec emperor and born in 1893. More than a century later, and now being one of the two leading beer companies in Mexico, the company decided to revamp this old and forgotten treasure. They did this by targeting a younger audience with colorful, smart advertising, turning it into a trendy product with fun and vibrant bottle designs worthy of collectors.
There are different ways to present your branding.
- A symbol is the most common way to begin a company’s branding; it makes it easier to recognize the business and associate it with a product and the company or organization. When you achieve a certain level of recognition and value to your audience, supporting yourself with a smart branding strategy is a good option. (Apple is a good example of this.)
- Branding can also be presented based on a product or a line of products. Some companies have satellite businesses and one of them is the most important; you might want to use your best feature for your branding. Laptops and desktops, for example, usually feature great graphics cards, such as Nvidia or Ryzen, and they have such branding value that they can increase the perception of your brand just by adding their logo to your relevant products.
- Personality is very important for your internet marketing, as you are developing an interactive persona for your company. This is particularly helpful for social media presence.
If you want to know more about how to creatively develop your brand, our Orange County branding team would be happy to help you, give us a call today and find out everything about it at Twelve12.