The Power of branding – Design Council

What does the word brand actually mean?

A brand is a set of associations that a person or group of people make with a company product, service, individual or organisation.

Some of the associations may be intentional, they may be actively promoted via marketing and corporate identity. For example, a poor review for a new product might harm the manufacturers overall brand by negative associations in peoples minds.

What is branding?

Branding is an attempt to harness, generate, influence and control associations to help the business platform better. Any organisation can benefit enormously by creating a brand that presents the company as distinctive, trusted, exciting, reliable or any attributes that are relevant to that business.

The key ingredients of any brand

The big idea – what lies at the heart of your company?

Values – what do you believe in?

Vision – where are you going?

Personality – how do you want to come across?

The big idea should show what makes you different, what you have to offer, why you are doing it, what is your personality, what do consumers want or need and how you are going to present it. Everything else should feed from the big idea.

Creating a vision for your company means thinking about the future. If you are clear on what your aiming to achieve then it is easier to put structures into place to get there.

Communicating the vision and values through a range of channels. The way in which, the tone, language and design is presented can show the personality of the company.

Different ways to control the elements of the companies personality:

Graphic design: The visual identity – hard corporate identity or soft, friendly caricature

Tone of voice: Is the language you use, formal or relaxed

Dialogue: Can your users contribute ideas and get involved in the organisation

Customer service: What level of customer service do you provide

Many people think that a brand is simply a logo or identity. The logo is however just one manifestation of a brand, although its often a top-level communication, it is seen most frequently and by the most amount of people. Therefore, it should represent all the different ingredients of the brand in a distinctive and recognisable way.