Archive for category Brand Image
What Exactly is Brand Identity and Brand Communications?
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Identity, Brand Image, Brand Touchpoints on October 19, 2011
A lot of ad agencies and design firms refer to “brand identity” as the tangible visual elements of a brand — logo, typography, color palette, design style – the tactile look and feel of the brand. While this isn’t entirely incorrect, it is entirely incomplete.
Perhaps a better view of brand identity is this: a strategically-crafted blueprint for how you want your brand to be perceived among your customers, prospects, influencers, vendors, employees, and other stakeholders. It includes not only the graphic identity but also many other components as noted below and on this previous Touchpointers blog post.
Components of brand identity
Brand communications is the presentation of this carefully crafted identity to your markeplaces, resulting in the formation of a brand image that drives sales. Brand communications isn’t just advertising, social media marketing, website, public relations, trade shows, etc. It’s also the more subtle ways your brand identity takes root like the professionalism of your delivery and set up personnel, the helpfulness of customer care reps, the ease of navigating your phone system, the clarity of user documentation, and many other types of brand interactions — touchpoints — that can positively or negatively reinforce the formation of your brand image. There’s more to read about brand communications here.
Brand identity is strategic; it takes time and careful consideration to develop a brand identity that differentiates and resonates. Brand communications is tactical; it takes place over time (years), working to create your brand image and drive sales. Many businesses jump into brand communications without first crafting their brand identity, which harkens the old-but-true cliche, “without a map any road will get you there.”
Sure, a great looking logo is cool. But have you crafted a complete brand identity and brand communications program? Today would be the best day to get started.
What is “A Brand?”
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Identity, Brand Image, Brand Touchpoints on September 20, 2010
This question was recently posed to a LinkedIn group to which I belong.
Not surprisingly, the responses were varied and, depending on one’s perspective, correct. If ever there was a loosey-goosey marketing term, “brand” is probably it.
The question got me thinking, and I submit the answer lies in one or more of three key areas, depending on who you’re asking:
- The Brand Identity: this strategic platform is developed by internal company management and answers the questions, “what do we want this brand to be when it grows up, and what are the steps we need to take to ensure it happens?” To these brand stakeholders, this is “A Brand.”
- Delivery of Brand Touchpoints: how the various brand interactions with target audiences (customers, prospects, influencers) are delivered will affect what those audiences actually believe about the brand, regardless of what was planned in the Brand Identity. Delivery of the touchpoints should be in sync with the brand identity platform. To those responsible for delivering these touchpoints, this is “A Brand.”
- Formation of the Brand Image: As target audiences interact with the brand touchpoints, they form an impression about the brand — good or bad — depending on their individual experience with the touchpoint(s). To those creating an opinion as a result of these experiences, this is “A Brand.”
“A Brand” is a both process and a result.
It’s an interesting question to post to an Internet social group, but the more important question is what, specifically, is your brand? What’s your brand identity? How synchronized are the delivery of your brand touchpoints with this identity? What’s your brand image being formed this very minute by your target audiences?
Now, those are good questions to answer, aren’t they?
Branding: What We Can Learn From College Football
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Image on September 3, 2010
Thank God, it’s time for the college football season to start; and all the color, pageantry, traditions, fanaticism, and school spirit that go with it. College football offers a complete experience unlike any other sport. And, perhaps, unlike any other brand.
The first college football game I attended was Harvard-Yale at the Yale Bowl in New Haven. I was maybe 10 or 11 at the time, and I remember people tailgating, seeing “Handsome Dan” the Yale bulldog mascot, watching the bands perform, looking at real live college cheerleaders, and using what I thought was a very cool men’s urinal (a marble wall with a horizontal pipe trickling water across the top and a trough drain along the floor).
Years later, I graduated from Auburn University. The game-day experience at Auburn was different from what I remembered at the Yale-Harvard game: a much larger stadium with many more fans, folks dressed in all manner of orange and blue, RVs showing up on the Wednesday before a home game, Aubie the costumed mascot and Tiger the golden eagle, the traditional pre-kick-off buildup chant of “War Eagle!” and much more.
When it comes to branding, college football gets it. Or, at least many schools get it. Close attention is paid to every touchpoint: tv exposure, school colors, licensed merchandise, the traditions unique to each team, tailgating procedures, the marching bands’ presentation, pre-game ceremonies, etc. Each game-day experience is a tighty defined, highly orchestrated series of events. A carefully crafted and executed brand identity, delivered as experiences; brand touchpoints for that particular school. The result of their delivery is the formation or reinforcement of an image by those experiencing the touchpoints — whether it be live or on television.
As you watch some college football this season, what concepts can you borrow for your business team’s branding playbook? Probably a lot. Because really, their delivering a football game-day experience is not that much different from your delivering a sales game-day experience.
One more thought: “War Eagle!”
Your Brand Image
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Image on August 20, 2010
Your brand image. It’s how people view your brand. It’s what they think about it. It’s things like trust, value, quality, features, performance, assurance, status, service, and more. It’s not static, but ideally it’s not constantly changing either. It determines whether prospects become your customers, or move on to the next guy. It holds the key to your success. It’s important.
But do you know what yours is? Are you proactively managing it?
Think about your personal brand image: it’s formed by your family, friends and associates as a direct result of how you conduct yourself in their presence, and by the things they see and hear about you directly and indirectly.
It’s the same for business brands. Customers and prospects will form an impression — an image — about your brand based on their direct and indirect experiences with it. These experiences are your brand touchpoints — individual instances of interactions with your brand that lead to the formation of an image of the brand.
A couple of weeks ago, a local heating & air conditioning company service truck almost ran me off the road. I swore to myself I’d never do business with that company, given the driver’s carelessness which I assumed would carry over into how they serviced my system.
Like many, my image of BP was completly changed as a result of the cavalier attitude of that company’s leadership during the gulf oil disaster.
While BP or the local heating & air company can’t tell me what image I should have about them, they can control how they deliver their brand touchpoints which lead to the formation of a brand image by people like you and me.
How you deliver your brand touchpoints is prescribed as a component of your brand identity – a strategic platform which is created to define how you want your brand to be presented to the world. This includes:
-
Vision and values statement where you define your core, unshakable view and values for the brand
-
Value proposition where you define the benefits of your brand on multiple levels
-
Brand positioning platform where you define how you’re decisively different from your competitors
-
Brand messaging where you define the core brand messages you’ll actively reinforce to your audiences
-
Brand touchpoint plan where you identify, prioritize, and then proactively manage the various brand interactions so they’re aligned with and reinforce the brand identity
The final step is to maintain a constant pulse on your brand image. Depending on your business this may involve monitoring social media sites and reviews, conducting formal research, utilizing sales personnel to report on the word on the street, and many other tactics.
If you have a handle on how you want your audiences to view your brand compared to what the actual brand image is, and if you have an effective management plan to ensure the delivery of your brand touchpoints are consistently aligned with that desired view, then you’re in tall cotton, my friend.
Brand Identity & Brand Image
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Identity, Brand Image on July 27, 2010
It’s not what you say, it’s what you do.
That timeless chestnut sums up the difference in the oft-confused branding jargon of “identity” and “image.”
Brand identity is how the business defines what the brand is all about. It’s what the company defines and says itself about the brand.
The brand image is formed out in the real world marketplace by customers, prospects, and influencers based on their various experiences and interactions with the brand on varioius levels.
Developing the brand identity platform is a considered process, often involving many — and sometimes all — managenment functions behind the brand: R&D, operations, marketing, sales, finance, etc. It’s where the brand vision and values are carefully defined. Where the competitive positioning and value propositions are crafted relative to targeted audiences and their wants and needs. Where the messaging points for the brand are laid out. And where the graphic system is developed. All of this is the “say” part equation. And, it’s all vital because it helps to ensure consistency in the way the brand is presented.
The brand identity is brought to life — and the brand image formed — through the various brand interactions — touchpoints — which should also be methodically considered, prioritized relative to their ultimate role in driving the sale (new or repeat), and proactively managed to ensure delivery that is aligned with the brand identity. Delivery of these brand touchpoints is the “doing” part of the equation.
And it’s this doing that will provide the interactions that will lead your audiences to form their image of the brand and determine whether they ever buy from you (again) or move on to a competitive solution.
If sales are not what they should be, maybe it’s time to take a long look at your brand identity and actual brand image.
Is the brand identity in sync with your audiences’ wants and needs? If not, rethink the identity platform and make the changes needed.
Is there a disconnect between the brand identity and the actual image? If so, look closely at the various brand touchpoints to see where the problem is.
Brand identity is what you say. Brand image is formed as a result of what you do. Master both, and you’ll master success.