Episode 3: How To Communicate, Manage and Develop Your Brand Identity (contd)

Haven completed the task given in my earlier post; permit me to introduce you to “Brand Management Techniques”.

Once your encompassing brand ‘promise’ is in place, you need to consider how you will communicate it and then how you will manage and develop it over time. When it comes to communicating your brand to the public, there are a few techniques and issues that are worth considering:

1. Storytelling:

An established technique in branding a business is to tell its story through communication elements such as corporate identity, packaging, marketing materials and so on. This can be quite low key, but it paints a picture of the provenance of the company and its products.

2. Credibility:

The credibility of your brand’s offer must also be solid. You must build a solid bridge of trust between your brand and your market

3. Differentiation:

A great deal of branding is about defining and presenting a point of differentiation in the sector you’re operating in. Get this right and your organisation will stand out brightly against your competitors.

4. Engaging with customers:

Part and parcel of creating differentiation is engaging with your customers or users. If you stand out of the crowd for positive reasons and your tone of voice and communications are credible customers will look at what you’ve got to say. By appealing to everyone's sense of individualism and focusing on the value of human interaction and communication rather than competitive price plans or the latest technology, Orange are able to extol the benefits of their service without ever having to mention mobile telephones.

5. Focusing your product portfolio:

If you have a number of different products or services it may help to consider how you can streamline or organise them to make the offer easy for consumers to understand. Sometimes, the logic of internal company structures can dictate how a product offer is organised, but this does not necessarily make sense to an external customer. So think carefully about the best way to present what you do, even if it means setting things up differently from your internal organisation.

6. Reinvigorating your brand:

Whatever sector you work in, keeping your communications fresh is essential. Using designers to help reassess your designs, language or identity every few years should be seen as an ongoing investment in your company rather than a costly extra. All successful companies revisit their communications periodically, even the world's most recognisable brands. But reinvigorating your brand doesn’t necessarily mean you have to start from the very beginning, reconsidering your big idea or vision and so on.

Take Coca-Cola for instance. They are constantly reviewing all aspects of their brand and refreshing them. In 2007 they commissioned design agency Turner Duckworth to produce a range of new packaging designs that would breathe new life into the cornerstones of Coke's visual identity; the classic logo, the contour bottle and the use of red and white. In 2009 they launched a new strap line 'Open Happiness' and in 2013 they created personalised labels for their bottles.

If you're happy with your company's big idea, vision and personality, these things can remain the foundations of what you’re doing - but the implementation of your brand should be refreshed to keep things on track and ensure it remains relevant to your target audience.

7. Naming:

Brand names are an important aspect in setting the tone and personality of your brand, as well as being a key element in marketing activity. Along with design and tone of voice, a name can be a means of differentiation and should reflect the overall brand strategy you’ve developed. Choosing a name can be a difficult task in itself, but it’s made even harder because so many are already in use and trademarked. Be sure to check carefully that any name you’re considering for a company, product or service aren’t already in use and protected by law.

On the whole, a name falls into one of a few types, which can be arranged along a kind of spectrum of attributes.

These attributes are:

-         Descriptive
Names which simply say what the company/brand does. For example:

Ayoola Poundo Yam – without the stress of pounding

Fidelity Bank - we are fidelity, we keep our word

Hypo -  Hypo go wipe o

-         Evocative
Names which suggest associations to the brand but do not try to describe the offer precisely. For example:

First Bank Nigeria – truly the first

Five Alive – feel alive

Always Ultra – stay happy always

Abstract
Names that break sector rules and stand out. They make no clear reference to the nature of the business. For example:

Google – quirky, accessible, positive and suggests curiosity

Guinness - reach for greatness

Mortein – Kills insect dead

8. Consistency:

In branding and brand management a lot of importance is placed on achieving consistency, so that the same attributes and characteristics are evident in all areas of the business’ operations. There is a trend towards encouraging customers to generate their own content or interpretations within a framework of branded elements or templates. For example, The London 2012 Olympics logo was designed by Wolff Ollins with these types of user-generated adaptations in mind.

9. Evolution or revolution:

An important question when undertaking any reassessment of your brand is whether to go for small, incremental changes as a refresher, or to plump for a major overhaul of your company’s or product’s image.

Broadly speaking, evolution is preferable if you are already in a strong position with a solid customer base and you just need to keep up with a growing or developing market. Revolution, on the other hand, might be more appropriate if your customer base is in decline, the market has changed substantially since the inception of your current brand or you have no point of difference from your competitors.

To work through these kinds of questions it is a good idea to consider hiring a designer to look at the current status of your organisation and explore possibilities for developing it.

Examples of Evolution And Revolution

a. Apple: revolution, then evolution

The original Apple Computer logo was a complex, illustrated picture of Isaac Newton sitting under a tree. Company chief executive Steve Jobs thought the overly detailed logo had something to do with the slow sales of the Apple computer, so he decided on a complete change in identity – a revolution of the corporate visual design - and commissioned the rainbow striped logo, which then ran for 22 years. A revolution in branding was needed to kick-start demand for the company’s products. But by 1998, Apple was firmly established as a successful computer manufacturer and so the rainbow identity underwent an evolution to become today's simpler more contemporary monochrome logo.

b. Durex: evolution

Condom manufacturer Durex decided to broaden its appeal by positioning the company as being concerned with sexual wellbeing, rather than just condoms. It’s an evolution of the existing Durex brand that adapts to a changing marketplace and keeps the company’s identity and associations fresh.

c. Lucozade: revolution

Carrying the slogan ‘Lucozade aids recovery’, the product was originally manufactured by a Newcastle chemist as a source of energy for people who are unwell. But its market share was declining in the 1980s, so the company opted for a revolution of the brand, targeting a completely new customer base. Its energy-giving qualities were promoted to the sports performance market and an advertising campaign featuring athlete Daley Thompson used the new slogan ‘Lucozade replaces lost energy’. Product packaging was completely redesigned and sales subsequently tripled between 1984 and 1989.

Join me in the next episode as I share: Branding for different sectors