The terms ‘brand’ and ‘branding’ can be integral to a business’ success – but what exactly do they mean? Does your business have a brand, and does it need one?
Branding gets right to the core of your business’ values. It is about discovering and communicating the essence of your business and what it delivers to your customers.
In effect, your brand creates your business’ reputation and its ‘personality’. A strong brand can make your business stand out from the crowd, particularly in competitive markets.
This guide explains what branding is, how it works and how you can use it to help improve your business.
It shows you how to create a brand, how to budget for it and the different techniques of managing a brand.
You will also find out what the key elements of branding are, how branding applies to different business sectors and the impact design can have on branding.
Table of contents
What is branding?
Branding is a way of clearly highlighting what makes your product or service different to, and more attractive than, your competitors’.
A brand goes much deeper than just your company logo. You could define a brand as a set of associations that an existing or potential customer has of a company, product, service or individual.
These associations can be the result of your own efforts and actively promoted through marketing and corporate identity.
Branding also reflects your customers’ experiences of your business and affects every interaction you have with your customers and suppliers.
The intelligent use of design, advertising, marketing, service proposition, and corporate culture can all help to generate associations in people’s minds that will benefit your business.
Branding is your attempt to harness these associations to help your business perform better.
Any business or organisation can benefit enormously by creating an accurate brand, ie one that represents their true values. Therefore, it is important to always be clear about what your business stands for.
Successful branding is about promoting your strengths. You need to be sure that you can always deliver your promises using these strengths, sometimes referred to as ‘brand values’.
You can start by thinking about what your business is good at and what you believe in as a business. For example:
- the particular skills your business has
- your high-quality customer service
- the best value for money you provide in your marketplace
- your innovative approach
Every business wants to be a customer’s first choice. Building and managing a brand can play a significant part in making that happen.
Why does your business need branding?
Effective branding can elevate your product or business into something unique, instead of being just one commodity among many similar others.
Standing out from your competitors is particularly important in competitive markets. There is a range of methods you can use to make your product stand out.
This can be as simple as using a colour in your design or packaging which your competitors are not using and which creates an impression in the minds of consumers.
Remember, consumers choose products and services using emotional as well as pragmatic judgements. So, you can use your brand to create a real point of difference.
How a brand can add value
Experience shows that customers expect to pay more for a branded product than for unbranded products.
Would you expect to pay the same for a can of a supermarket’s own lemonade as you would for a brand you recognise?
You can apply your brand to a whole range of your other products or services. This will allow consumers to associate each product in your range with a consistent set of values which they know.
Also, if you want to extend your product range, consumers’ perception of the new offering will be enhanced by your existing brand.
By consistently applying your brand attributes your business can move into new market sectors without changing your core brand identity.
A strong brand can also add value to your core business. A company that offers equity shares needs to have a strong reputation – a recognisable brand communicates what your business stands for as well as what it offers.
With a strong brand, consumers can see added value in any new services you create because of the association of the new services with your core brand.
However, this can also work in reverse, because if consumers don’t like your brand in one product area, they’re less likely to choose another of your products or services.
As branding is one way to increase public recognition of your business or product, it can help you engage with customers and create a connection. F
or more information, see the page in this guide on your brand and your customers.
To read case studies on how branding can help improve your business, download the power of branding: a practical guide from the Design Council.
Branding – the key ingredients
There are four key elements in a successful branding project:
The big idea
The big idea is the starting point for any branding project. It is a summary of your business’ or product’s ‘personality’, and what makes it different.
To find your big idea, you must first look very carefully at your business and the marketplace you operate in. You need to ask yourself:
- What are we offering?
- What makes us different?
- How can our business stand out?
- What do our consumers want or need?
- Where is there a gap in the market?
You may find it helpful to get an outside perspective, perhaps from a management consultant, business development consultant or design consultant – although there will be a cost attached to this.
Vision
Your company vision is an understanding of where your business is going, or where you want it to go, so you can plan your journey.
Your vision may be large scale – such as switching the emphasis of your business from one core area to another – or simple, such as offering an existing product in a completely new way.
Read more about IKEA’s brand vision and values
Values
Values summarise what you believe in as a business, and clarify what your business stands for. Your values are an important part of how people see your business – however, it can be tricky to communicate values.
Branding and design consultants can help you communicate your brand values effectively, for example through language, advertising, graphic design, staff training or the materials used in product manufacture.
It is vital that any values you portray are genuine and evident in the way your business operates.
Personality
When you start communicating your brand to consumers, you will also be expressing the personality of your company through the tone, language and design you use.
Your brand personality is about how you want your business or product to come across, so it’s vital that these personality traits are appropriate to your type of product or service.
You can convey your company’s personality through:
- graphic design and your visual identity
- the tone of voice and the language you use
- your dialogue with customers and how they can contribute ideas and get involved
- customer service and how staff are trained to communicate with customers
Brand management techniques
Once you have established what your brand identity will be, you have to decide how to get your message across. You can do this through advertising, events and staff training.
However, the following techniques are also worth considering:
- Storytelling – telling your business’ story through corporate identity, packaging, stationery, marketing materials etc.
- Credibility – your brand’s claims must be credible and appropriate to your values.
- Differentiation – presenting a point of differentiation from your competitors.
- Engaging with customers – if you stand out from the crowd for positive reasons and your tone of voice and communications are credible, customers will look at what you have to offer.
- Focusing your product portfolio – shifting your focus onto a smaller number of key products or services may make your offer easier for your consumers to understand.
- Multiple brands and brand ‘stretch’ – if your company operates in more than one sector you need to consider how you present the business in each area. You could apply a single brand identity to other products or services for the areas you operate in – this is called ‘brand stretch’. However, sometimes it may be more effective to develop a completely distinct brand to meet new markets.
- Endorsed brands – you can create a new brand in its own right but use the ‘parent’ brand of your main company to endorse the new brand. An example would be Playstation, a powerful brand in its own right but endorsed as Sony Playstation to build on the established reputation of Sony.
- Reinvigorating your brand – keeping your communications fresh is essential, and you don’t necessarily have to start from the very beginning or reconsider your big idea, vision or personality.
- Naming – brand names are important in setting the tone and personality of your brand, and a key element in marketing activity. Your brand name should reflect your overall brand strategy. Ensure you check that names aren’t already in use and protected by law.
- Consistency – you should build the same attributes and characteristics into all areas of your business’ operations, all stemming from your ‘big idea’ – see the page in this guide on branding – the key ingredients.
- Hire a designer – you can hire a designer to look at the current state of your company and explore possibilities for developing it.
Branding for different sectors
Although the audiences, competitors, delivery and service aspects of branding in different market sectors may vary, the basic principle of being clear about what you stand for always applies.
Start-up businesses
At the start of a new business you can launch your product with a brand that challenges the conventions of the sector – often called a ‘challenger brand’. This is much harder to do once you’re established as you have more to lose.
You must think carefully about how brave and ‘rule-breaking’ your product or service can be by assessing the market sector from the outside, looking at the different players, opportunities or gaps in the market.
Another benefit at start-up is that the business is likely to be small and, therefore, more responsive and adaptable, with no existing processes that have to be changed to create a new brand.
Business to business (B2B)
The principles of effective branding apply to the B2B sector in the same way as they do in customer-facing businesses. B2B businesses market products and services directly to other businesses rather than the public.
They too need to use branding to differentiate and create a distinct personality, even if that personality is more corporate and businesslike in its tone.
Service businesses
You should consider how your brand is reflected in how your service is provided and how your staff interact with customers.
Service brands are built on the people who deliver them, so staff need to be trained to understand the company’s culture, its ‘promise’ to customers and how they will put this into practice.
Your brand and your customers
Knowing what your customers want and how you can deliver it is an integral part of the branding process.
You need to know what drives your customers, and what makes them buy. In most cases, it’s not only about price or performance.
Researching what customers want
Ask existing customers what they like about doing business with you and ask potential customers what they are looking for.
If your brand values are in line with what existing and potential customers look for when they’re buying, you have the beginnings of a useful brand and you’re ready to start building on it.
However, if they’re not, you’ll probably need to reconsider either the benefits you offer to your present customers or whether you’re targeting the right people.
For example, a clothes shop that has high fashion as a brand value can capitalise on it if its customers and potential customers want to buy the trendiest clothes.
However, if its customer base is made up of elderly people, those brand values may not be in line with customers’ buying needs.
Communicating your brand to customers
Once you have defined your brand values and your customers’ needs, you can start to build your brand by consistently communicating your brand values.
Remember that every possible contact you have with a customer or potential customer needs to reinforce your brand values, including your logo, business name and product packaging.
If all these are consistently in line with your brand values, your brand will be strengthened. But if they are not, your brand – and your business – could be seriously damaged.
Get regular feedback from satisfied customers to check that your business is consistently delivering on the promises your brand makes.
Ask dissatisfied customers or former customers for feedback as well – you can gain valuable, and sometimes more honest, information from them about how your brand is perceived.
You should remember that your customers can change too.
For more information on reviewing your brand to meet your customers’ changing needs, see the page in this guide on brand management techniques.
Your brand and your staff
All of your employees will play a crucial part in managing your brand because they can affect what customers and colleagues think of your business.
Therefore, it is important to ensure that they understand your brand and believe in what it stands for. If they do, their actions will communicate this to other colleagues and customers.
Employees can become emotionally attached to brands, allowing for strong loyalties and even a sense of ownership.
This can help maintain employee motivation and increase your sales, but it can also cause problems if you don’t consult them as your business grows.
For example, a jewellery company’s ‘Elegant’ range may be beautifully produced, stylishly packaged and glamorously advertised in glossy magazines. Its brand values could be ‘classy, special, and elegant’.
However, if their staff are rude or unprofessional on the phone, customers won’t think about that jeweller’s elegance – they’ll think about their staff’s rudeness. As a result the brand – and possibly the business – will be undermined.
Keep your employees involved by setting up a suggestion scheme, or regularly taking the time to discuss your brand and how your business is performing.
Continually reinforce the message that what they do is important and explain why. Make sure they know that if they break the promises your brand makes to customers – even just once – this can damage the brand and your business.
What your employees should know
You should create a document setting out your core company values and benchmarks for how you want to operate and be seen to operate.
It should encapsulate the purpose of your business and why you think you are different from your competitors. You should communicate this to your employees to ensure you are all working towards the same aims, and review it regularly.
Budgeting for a brand
As you’re building and managing your brand, it’s also a good idea to set a budget. This will help you to avoid spending unnecessarily and to prioritise your branding spend.
Your brand should encompass most areas of your business, from stationery to how you deliver your product or service to customers, so defining a budget can be difficult.
The key areas you could budget for are:
- design needs, such as a logo, signage, business stationery or product packaging
- changes to your premises
- your advertising
- time you’ll need to spend training employees
- any resources you’ll have to provide for employees to enable them to carry out what the brand promises, eg customer service costs
- keeping your company website updated
You don’t need to do everything at once. As long as employees understand and deliver what your brand promises, it stands a good chance of success.
You can create stationery, logos, packaging and advertising quite cheaply if the budget is tight. However, it is a good idea to think about your future growth when devising your image, as changing it later can prove costly.
You may also find that customers and employees will have already built up a relationship with your brand, which can then make it more problematic to later change.
