What even is a brand anyway? Exploring the Essentials of Branding: Identity, Strategy, and Value
If you’re a creative business owner you probably know you need to have a brand. The word ‘branding’ is used a lot and it’s a word that a lot of people are familiar with but what does it actually mean?
Branding is a really abstract concept and there are as many different definitions as there are designers so on today’s episode of the Following the Creative Spirit Podcast I’m going back to basics and chatting about what even is a brand anyway.
A brief history of branding
Where does the word ‘brand’ come from? Historically, ‘to brand’ meant ‘to mark permanently with a hot iron’. The term ‘brand’ first emerged over half a century ago as a way for cattle ranchers to identify their livestock. As the cattle moved around and mixed with other cows it was easy for their owners to identify which ones were theirs. So the earliest definition of the word ‘brand’ was a permanent mark of ownership.
It wasn’t until the 17th century that a ‘brand’ also referred to as a mark of ownership made by branding a product. Which usually referred to, what we would recognise as, a logo.
Then, in the late 1800’s with the arrival of the industrial revolution, mass production, and an increase in packaged goods brands became important ways to differentiate different packaged products and that’s when we see the arrival of brands like Coca Cola and Campbell's Soup which are still around today.
For example, if we look a bit more closely at Coca Cola, in order to get people to purchase a Coke, they needed people to be able to distinguish a Coke from all the other fizzy sugary drinks available. And they did that by adding their mark - and in Coke’s case their iconic bottle design that hasn’t changed all that much over the years. And so the word ‘brand’ came to be used as a way to refer to non-generic products that described the source of the product. In Coke’s case, it indicated that their particular variety of fizzy beverage was made by coca cola in one of their factories, using their unique secret recipe.
And by the 1950s ‘branding’ began to encompass slogans, jingles, mascots and advertising campaigns. And marketers began to take a more emotional approach to branding. As lots of companies and competitors were basically selling the same thing, marketers had to figure out how to differentiate themselves in other ways. They started learning about their target market and getting a deeper understanding of their customers’ wants and needs so they could create imagery and messaging that would form an emotional connection between the product and their customer.
A brand is more than just a logo
You might be wondering why I’m giving you a history lesson right now! But the reason I’m talking about the history of branding is because when people think about what a brand is, or when they refer to term ‘brand’, they are using the term to mean a logo, or a marketing campaign, or one of the outdated definitions we’ve talked about that lean on the idea that a brand is just your logo, your mark. And we still have this idea that to achieve brand recognition you need to consistently use your logo everywhere. But that idea doesn’t really work anymore.
Yeah, your brand still needs to be a differentiator, to help your clients choose your products and services and help you stand out from your competitors - but doing that effectively requires so much more than just a logo.
This misconception that a brand is just your logo is something I come across when talking with other small businesses and creatives. It’s seen as something that’s separate from the rest of your business, that’s viewed as an independent element that doesn’t affect or impact the rest of your business. But actually, it’s really important to basically every other aspect of your business.
In fairness, thinking of a brand as a logo is by far the easiest to understand definition - because we all know what a logo is and we can see how other businesses use their logos. And as I mentioned earlier branding has become a really abstract concept that is difficult to pin down.
To further complicate things, as language and usage of the word evolves, and definitions change we have the added problem of the term ‘brand’ being widely used by lots of different people to mean completely different things. And so focusing on the tangible elements of a brand feels like the most accessible thing to latch on to - which is one of the reasons why that misconception is so persistent.
Ok so if a brand isn’t just your logo, what exactly is it?
I’ve got a few definitions from some industry experts that I think are really useful. So let's chat about a few different opinions, then I’ll talk you through my approach. I’ll give you an overview of what the different elements of a brand actually are and what they look like to try and help you understand the different things you need to have in place when building your own brand.
“A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.”
“Brand is the holistic sum of customers’ experiences, composed of visual, tonal and behavioral brand components, many of which are shaped by interaction design.”
“Brand identity fuels recognition, amplifies differentiation and makes big ideas and meaning accessible. Brands are messengers of trust.”
“Your brand is a story unfolding across all customer touch points.”
“Brand is the sum total of how someone perceives a particular organisation. Branding is about shaping that perception.”
“A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organization”
Did you notice how all those quotes are touching on the same thing? They’re all describing a brand as an experience, as a feeling or as the perception your customers have of your business or product. It’s the overall look and feel, style and personality of your business.
And you’re probably thinking right now, well that’s great but how on earth do I create that experience? Where do I even start?! Don’t worry. Let’s chat through the different elements you need to create a swoon-worthy brand.
Tangible and Intangible brand elements
There are 2 main overarching parts to your brand and they are the tangible elements and the intangible elements. The tangible elements include the design and visual aspect of your brand and the intangible elements are your brand narrative or the ideas and feelings your brand is built on.
Your brand identity falls under the tangible elements - the things you can see and touch. I’m starting with the brand identity because it’s the part of a brand that most people are familiar with, but it's actually the part that should come at the end of the brand-building process after you’ve worked out what your brand actually stands for. The visual identity of your brand is actually really just the implementation of everything that’s been established in the narrative process.
So what does your brand identity include? Basically, it’s all the visual bits of your brand: your logo, any logo variations and brand marks, your colour palette, your typography or the fonts that you use, your brand illustrations, icons or patterns, and also your imagery (which is one that often gets forgotten about!). That would include your graphics, the photos that you use, not just the content, or subject of the images but also the style in which they’re shot and the filters they use.
And it also includes things like your business cards, flyers, social media posts. If you sell products it includes your packaging or the decor of your shop, the look of your website. If you are in the hospitality or wellbeing industry it’ll be how your uniform, or your apron looks. If you’re a service provider it will include your free lead magnet on your website, your workbooks and documents. So it’s basically all the visuals and design.
And as I already mentioned, it’s very easy to see these elements, they’re very visible and so most people know that they need these things for their business. But what they don’t see is all the invisible stuff that goes before it and that underpins and informs what it looks like. And that’s the key to creating a strategic visual identity that really works for your business and helps your business to grow.
Brand Essence: your purpose, mission and values
Let’s move on to all the invisible stuff. The way I approach the brand narrative in my process is to break it down into 3 key sections. The first section is your brand foundations - or I like to call this your brand essence. It includes your purpose, mission, values and vision. I call this your brand essence because it looks deceptively simple but we take all the ideas and information and distill it down to a collection of super concise statements that permeate everything, not just your brand but in your business as well. This is definitely the trickiest section but that’s always the thing with simplicity: it’s really complicated to achieve.
I have already recorded an episode in season 1 about how to choose your brand values and how they work with your purpose and mission. And I also have a free guide on my website that you can download and it will take you through 3 very simple exercises to help you work out your brand values - I’ll link to that in the show notes.
But to summarise, your purpose is basically your why. It’s why you started your business and where your passion comes from. So to give an example, my purpose is all about creative self-expression, both expressing myself through my illustrations and art but also helping other creatives express themselves authentically through strategic branding and intentional design.
Your mission & vision statement describes what it is that you do - it summarises the value you provide to your customers and the impact of your contribution. Again, I’ll give you mine as an example which is: To empower heart-led creatives to express themselves authentically through strategic branding and purposeful design.
And then your values are really how you want to run your business, they’re the words that really support the experience you want to create. For me, that’s creativity, passion, authenticity and intuition combined with strategy-led design. And it’s really important that these three things are all in alignment with each other. So if your purpose is to make and sell beautiful, ethically made-to-last sustainable products your mission can’t really be to become the biggest manufacturer of on-trend homewares because it fundamentally contradicts your purpose and will make your brand lack trust and feel really fake.
Brand Magic: finding what makes your business unique
The next section is your brand magic - and just a note - it’s really important to work in this order because each section builds on the previous ones. I know that finding your purpose is really hard and it’s really tempting to skip over it but it’s really important to get the foundations in place before building the house.
Your brand magic focuses on your unique approach and how you can set yourself apart in the minds of your audience. Looking at both your ideal customers and the landscape of other brands in your industry can help you strategically position your business and take advantage of opportunities or gaps in the marketplace.
The first step toward finding your brand magic is to get a clear picture of who we’re directing your brand towards. That involves a mixture of understanding who your dream customers are, where they hang out, what their life is like but also what their problems are. Their external problems, internal problems and philosophical problems - and how you can solve those problems. It’s also important to think about the journey your customer will take from being problem aware, to solution aware and finally understanding you are the best solution for them to becoming a raving fan.
Then it’s time to look at your competition. When looking at your competition, the goal is to set your business apart, not to copy! You want to look at 5-6 businesses who offer similar products or services as you, to similar clients or customers. And make some notes about them, their values, their voice, their style and note how they are similar to what your business does and the ways that they are different from you.
And then it’s super useful to look over everything and see if you can see any gaps, or places that your business would sit nicely into - to carve out your own bit of space in the landscape that your business will be operating in. You might hear others talk about this as your unique selling point, or differentiator.
Your brand magic doesn’t have to be really innovative or groundbreaking. I’ll give you an example from my business again: my approach really forms a bridge between design that’s really rooted in strategy and psychology and more heart-led, intuitive expression and creativity. And that’s not something you see a lot of other designers talk about. But from my point of view it’s something that I’m doing anyway - it’s the process I’ve developed because it allows me to do my best work and get results for my clients but it’s also what I really enjoy - I enjoy taking the strategy and implementing it with beautiful design.
And a lot of creative business owners I talk to are already doing something unique, they have an individual or creative approach. So the chances are your business is the same - you are already magic! You just need to identify it and then start telling people about it.
Brand Personality
And then the last piece of this is your brand persona where you take everything that you’ve discovered so far and work out the best way to communicate that to your audience. It helps to humanise your brand and give it a personality.
In my process, I use brand archetypes to help work out what the brand’s personality should feel like. I don’t want to go into too much detail about archetypes here because it’s quite a big topic - but I am planning to do another podcast episode just on archetypes. The main goal of this section is to work out what personality your brand would have if it were a person. So how would it talk, would it be funny or serious, polite or sarcastic, would it swear or use jokes? And what would be important to it? What are the core things that it wants to talk about - how does it speak about those things? Does your brand use flowery embellished language or is it really simple, direct and to the point?
It’s only after going through all these intangible aspects of your brand that you should even start to think about what most people think of as the brand, which is the visual identity.
But by going through this process, it becomes really clear what your brand needs to look like to help you reach your goals and communicate with your dreamiest customers in a way that drives action and gets results for your business.
So if you think about the personality of your brand, you can start to think about, if they were a person, what kind of clothes would they wear? What would their style look like? Try to imagine what their house would look like or if they were throwing a party, what would that look like? What kind of drinks would be served, what kind of music would be played, what kind of food? Would it be 5-course fine dining or a help-yourself pulled pork roast?
Because you’ve done all the groundwork it becomes really easy to know what the brand’s visual identity needs to look like.
Phew! There was quite a lot of information in there so let’s just have a quick recap of what we talked about.
We learned that a brand is not just a logo - it’s as Marty Numiere puts it’s “a person’s gut reaction about a product, service, or organisation.”
Your brand is made up of tangible and intangible elements that roughly correspond to your brand’s visual identity (logo, colour palette, fonts) and your brand narrative which includes your brand essence, finding your magic and your brand’s personality.