Consumer behavior has changed in recent years throughout the social classes and everyone need to change brand design according to this. People now prefer to buy branded products because they perceive them as a sign of class and style.
Brands have become a status symbol that tends to allure the consumers into paying hefty price tags for their products and services.
What Is A Brand?
Technically speaking, a brand is a name, design, personality, or any other feature given to a business to give it a distinctive identity among other businesses that sell the same product.
But for a better understanding of the brand concept, imagine it as a promise of high-quality service first time and every time; it is not just the product, instead of the buying experience it offers. In other words, a brand is a symbol that emotionally affects the heart of its consumer.
A reputed brand enjoys a strong emotional bond with its regular customers. In a nutshell, a brand is not a product that a business offers, rather it’s the emotions attached to the product.
Brand Design Elements
Opposite to the popular belief, a brand is not just the name and logo of the company; it is a creative mix of different elements.
Brand Compass
For a brand to make a difference in this competitive world, it needs to have a strong base that can provide it with a future proof plan for making a name out of itself. The base of a brand lies on five basic principles:
- To have a strong-willed purpose
- To have a clear vision
- To have a mission to accomplish
- To have a set of core values
- To have a bunch of objectives to conquer
Company Name And Tagline
No matter how easy it may seem, coming up with a unique name is not an easy task. It has to be creative and at the same time so simple that can be remembered easily.
Once you are done with naming your corporate baby, you are only halfway there, as the tagline still remains undecided. It is essential to translate your entire brand compass in an appealing one-liner.
Brand Identity
Your brand logo is just more than a graphic symbol, it defines your identity. Good brand design has all the attributes of what the company is about. The effective brand identity reflects upon the brand’s personality and is a graphic embodiment of the brand’s communication.
Your logo is an aesthetic design-symbol that will be stamped all over your company assets, so choose your brand wisely.
Brand Personality
A set of human traits that are assigned to a brand defines its personality. It is the most important brand design element of a brand that gives it individuality. A distinct personality is a key factor that sets you apart from the rest.
Having a distinct personality attracts loyal customers that will share an emotional bond with a brand. It is observed that brands with distinct personalities have a higher Brand Equity as compared to the ones with generic representations.
Brand Voice
The tone with which a brand communicates with its consumers is called the brand voice. It is influenced by brand personality. By studying consumer behavior, one can easily say that brands who set their tone according to their target market get more customer attraction.
The entire communication depends upon the decided tone and is an essential part of branding. The brand voice humanizes your brand and makes it more relatable. The right choice of words helps you grasp the consumer’s attention in a more efficient way.
What Is Branding?
The process of creative evolution that turns a business into a brand is called Branding. The key purpose of branding is to create an appealing perception of the brand. A good branding strategy is constructed by keeping the consumer behavior of your target audience. Your sales are directly associated with how your audience perceives you as a brand.
The buying trends worldwide suggest that people don’t buy products, they buy brands. We live in a world where the purchase decision relies on the exclusivity of the brand, rather than the usability aspect of the product. People like to affiliate themselves with a luxury brand to have a sense of eliteness.
The Branding Process
Branding is basically a perception building process in which you select a target market and build your brand personality around the narrative of that mindset. Good branding is the one that successfully encapsulates and is done by following a structured creative procedure.
Create A Perception
First, you need to decide which target market you cater to; different levels of societies have different norms and cultural aspects. These social elements heavily influence the perception of people.
For example, if you want to win the hearts of Generation Z, build your brand around being environmentally friendly who is open to newer ideas of innovation.
Build Your Brand Design
Now that you have defined your personality, it is the time where you design your entire brand around the perception you have created.
Let’s carry forward the example of Generation Z. Your marketing strategy should come up with products that can make a positive effect on the ecosystem and also communicate your brand message in your ad campaigns.
Deliver What You Promise
This phase is all about Ad campaigns; if you are unable to communicate your brand message to your consumer, then all efforts will go in vain.
Creative and out of the box ad campaigns are a key element for a captivating branding strategy. Without advertising, branding alone can’t hook your audience and it is possible that another brand capitalizes on your initial efforts and gets all the limelight instead.
Consistency Is The Key
The consistent hammering of your brand strategy is a must to create a strong brand recall. Constant efforts are required to keep the audience hooked, a feat only possible by keeping the initial perception alive.
Apple plays along the lines of being elegant and innovative; it can’t afford to launch a product that is deprived of these characteristics.
The Power Of Branding
Branding not only makes a perception, it shapes it as well!
Perceptions are pliable, and with a good branding strategy, a company can shape perceptions for its benefit. You might get surprised, but this is a common marketing practice.
There is no difference between reality and perception for our brain; for us, our reality is how we perceive things. The marketing world has greatly capitalized on this human vulnerability. This means that branding has the power to influence you, even without you knowing about it.
Big corporate businesses invest billions of dollars into their branding strategies for a reason. Perceptions have a tendency to affect your buying behaviors on a subconscious level. Having the power to reshape a perception can make a brand control the consumer behavior cycle.
An effective branding strategy directly hits on human feelings that influence buying decisions. It manipulates the consumer into buying the product by:
Creating A Desire
The emotion that the corporate world feeds on is the human’s desire that never seems to get satisfied. Our needs are limited, but the desire for our needs is an empty ocean that can’t be filled.
A planned obsolescence policy is now being used by the brands to create an artificial need and appeal to attract the consumer.
Linking It With Self-esteem
A strategy is created to link prestige with the brand so it can validate the self-esteem of the consumer. It is a very common practice in the tech world, where companies are continuously coming up with innovative products.
The mobile phone companies launch a new handset now and then and spend millions to create an appealing branding strategy to reach the potential buyer who will purchase the new mobile phone just to keep himself technologically updated.
Making A Bond
The secret weapon of any branding strategy is to create a bond with its consumers, increasing brand loyalty across the board.
The purchasing patterns and consumer behavior suggests that brand loyalty is directly associated with brand equity and brand performance. A loyal customer tends to spend a lot more than the usual customer.
In A Nutshell
According to branding expert Aleena Wheeler,
“Branding is a disciplined process used to build awareness and extend customer loyalty.”
Branding is an effective tool used to lead and dominate the market space by creating a special bond with the consumer. It is a fact that branding is an expensive process, but the added benefits you get make it an investment that is worth it.
If you want to reshape the perception of your brand, we are here at your service!