Start with your brand. The plan will emerge.
Many people forget the brand’s true reason for being. By definition, a brand is any combination of a unique design, sign, symbol, words, employed in creating a mark that identifies a product and differentiates it from its competitors. In other words, a brand is a visual representation in which people correlate with a company or a product. An effective brand identity is the one in which customers associate with a high level of credibility and quality.
However, powerful branding depends not only on aesthetic design features of brand elements but on the details such as the strategy, message, and emotional appeal that stands behind it. To create proper brand identity, we go deep into the details about your business goals as well as do research on the market and your target audience.
1. Discover
Our first job is to listen (and we never really stop). We kick things off with a brand strategy session. Get everyone at the table together—and on the same page.
Tell us about your challenges. Tell us what you’re trying to accomplish. Even if everyone at your organization doesn’t yet agree. We can facilitate a meeting of the minds, in every sense. This is a super-important part of our relationship with you, because it’s here that we might learn something surprising about your brand, your goals, and your roadmap. We often help clients see that those things aren’t all tracking. Or that a tactic they thought was the way to go isn’t going to take them anywhere. We can spare you wasted resources and hone your strategy so it has a better shot at success.
- Market and user research. What’s the competition doing to promote their brand? Where do they succeed? Where do they fail? How can your brand differentiate? We use the past to form your future.
- Branding Session. We facilitate a discussion with you and your team to get a clear understanding of where the brand is and wants to go. Here we set business goals and brand personality and craft a brand manifesto and positioning that serves as the foundation on which to grow.
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2. Plan
Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere. We’ll take what we’ve learned, build a detailed plan, and walk you through it, so you can see the what, the how, and the why. Of everything.
Where and when can we best reach your audience? Which message and media are most faithful to your brand? Everything we strategize is built against those fundamental questions. Because your brand must be the thing against which all else is measured and valued. The ultimate, solid core we use to shape your messages.
- Market and user research. What’s the competition doing to promote their brand Where do they succeed? Where do they fail? How can your brand differentiate? We use the past to form your future.
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3. Create
Every client doesn’t come to us to rethink their brand, but many have. Whether you’re happy with where you are or you’re looking for a fresh take on your organization’s identity, we build every tactic in your campaign with the highest fidelity to your brand.
If you’ve ever seen a creative execution where the pieces and parts all have contradictory vibes, then you understand the risk of straying from a brand platform. We’ve worked with dozens of clients to refine and clarify their brand assets before we ever execute a single ad. So that when their campaign hits the market, it speaks with one voice. One personality. It’s simply how to be remembered. Well.
- Logo design. Including setting the task, user and marketing research, creative search, choice of style direction, color palette.
- Visual elements of the brand. We test the brand in different sizes and environments, photography styles, tone of voice indicating what and how the brand communicates internally with your staff and externally with the consumer.
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4. Engage
Fewer media are passive and static with each passing month. These days, your audience has feelings and opinions and they’re going to share. Get to them better.
Clicks. Taps. Replies. Likes. Rants. Ratings. Search results. We live in a world of constant feedback and extraordinary analytics. Which is awesome and horrifying. From customers who tweet about you to data that helps you visualize response to campaigns by the hour, there are infinite ways to engage with the connected world. We understand that world deeply and can help you take advantage of it. To respond promptly to public chatter about you. To measure and learn what’s working and what’s not—to adjust for it quickly. And to be good stewards of your brand, wherever it lives.
- A style guide. Including creating a corporate brand style and guide setting right and wrong cases of logo use etc to keep everyone on the same page.
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Your brain is one. Our brain is two. Together we make three.
Competition between businesses is rather sharp. To stand out among the competition in an ever-changing landscape, a company needs to be unique and recognizable by its customers. A strong brand stands behind each successful product. Proper branding is a collaboration between you and us. We call it the third brain.
