Make Your Brand Design Brave
Why your brand needs to stand out?
If we were all made the same, life would be very boring indeed. Picking teams to play sport wouldn’t matter, the outcome would always be a draw. Our friends, clothes, houses, cars, and products would all be the same. Blending in and going with the market may seem safe and secure. But how would we ever tell each other apart?
When there’s no difference the choice doesn’t matter. The choice your customers or your future customers make should matter very deeply to you and your business. If you’re the same as your competitor why should a customer pick you and not them?
Henri Cartier-Bresson (the famous French street photographer) had a phrase:
“the decisive moment”.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
This decisive moment applies to you and your customer’s decision to purchase. You need to weigh your selling points, your visuals, your text, and your brand personality as much in your favour as you can. Any positive difference you can make to stand out from your competition will give you a competitive edge, giving your customer a reason to pick you and not your competition. Not standing out is a risk, none of us can afford to take.
Start with a good brand blueprint
Start with the underlying thinking behind your brands’ offering/selling points. This needs to be correct, inspiring and unique. This is the most important thing for your brand. If this isn’t correct then everything else is a complete waste of time and money.
But where to start? Try asking the following:
- What makes your service/product unique?
- If you’re not unique then what can you say about your service/product that your competition isn’t saying about theirs?
- If all the services/products in your sector/industry are pretty much the same. Can you offer them in a different way? Or add extra value.
Keeping you brand consistent
That’ll do. That’s good enough. No one will see. It doesn’t matter. If you ever find yourself using any of these statements, STOP. Sit back and think, if I was one of my customers would I want adequate? Or would I want excellent?
Good brand communication is about keeping the visual and literal as consistent as you can. By this, I don’t mean saying the same thing in the same way. What I mean is getting to the DNA of your brand and its personality.
Thinking of your brand as a person
Think of your brand as a person you can have a conversation with. It might be easier to imagine someone you know who has characteristics similar to the ones you would like for your brand. What statements ring true for that personality and what don’t? Keeping this in mind and striving for it in all communications is what builds consistency of tone and brand strength.
Just a note here brand communications aren’t just visual and literal, online and offline. They are you, your workforce, your service, your product, your building. All points of contact and interaction with your customers and suppliers. Consistency needs to be complete and across the board.
MailChimp does this perfectly, take a look at this link for further reference: https://styleguide.mailchimp.com/voice-and-tone/
Using creativity to enhance not take away form your message
If you have your brand uniqueness and personality correct. You now need to make your communications as interesting as possible. Good creativity can make your message memorable, stand out from the competition and above all enhance your message. Take a look at a direct mail design project we completed for one of our clients to illustrate this point.
My point here is that visual and headline draw you in to find out more and creativity has been used to enhance the sales message.
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