Here’s What Branding Is & Isn’t
Chances are if you’re researching starting your own business, you’ve been seeing all kinds of articles about your personal or business’ brand and how to define it. It sounds buzzy, but is it as easy to formulate as all the blogs, articles and experts say? It depends.
Branding is more than a simple word or phrase.
Sometimes it’s easier to use the process of elimination when defining something so large and over-arching. So let’s get this out of the way…what branding isn’t. Branding is not just your website or logo, it’s not just your color palette or any other “fill-in-the-blank” branding-related word here. In reality, branding is so much more than just a simple one-word definition.
The biggest misconception is that branding is your logo. Let’s break this down for a minute, shall we? Think of a few brands off the top of your head that you really respect or feel are doing a good job. To me, a few that come to mind are Delta and Starbucks. Sure, we can all picture their logos - the red triangles or the mermaid princess, but they’re so much more than just their logo representation. They’re putting out content that doesn’t just plaster their logo across everything. Instead, they’re showcasing exotic travel locales or exciting caffeinated beverages and coffee shop ambiance photos. These stylized representations of their companies are consistent with their company moods and colors.
These supporting visuals of their brands effortlessly insinuate their company values and speak to the ideal customer they want to attract, both subconsciously and consciously at times. As time goes on, and you learn more about a company, you’ll continue to make observations about their brand, and the less you think about what their logo actually looks like. Eventually, you make a decision on whether you’ll become a customer of theirs, and their logo becomes just a frame of reference as you think about your ongoing relationship with their brand.
If their website or social channels were all just posts and photos blasting out their logo, you likely wouldn’t have been as interested in engaging with them and becoming a customer. That’s because branding is more than just your logo. Your logo is certainly an important element of your branding, but it’s just that - a piece of the pie.
Branding is not just a logo, color palette, or website. It's the representation of a company's values and identity that speaks to its target audience. Brands like Delta and Starbucks showcase exotic travel and coffee experiences, aligning with their company values and moods. As we engage with a brand, we form an emotional connection and decision to become a customer. A logo is only a reference point in this relationship. True branding goes beyond surface-level elements and encompasses the overall experience and perception of a company.
What Branding Is
A company's brand identity is a crucial aspect of its overall image, as it conveys the company's values and message through various visual and verbal elements. This includes elements such as a logo, color scheme, typography, imagery, and messaging. The goal of a well-crafted brand identity is to shape the perception of the company in the eyes of its audience, and its success is largely determined by how well it resonates with that audience.
How Branding Works
Don't confuse what you want your brand to be with how it's actually perceived by clients or customers. You can take control of your brand's image by ensuring its portrayed cohesively across all touch points. This means keeping it consistent, unified, and well-implemented. Before releasing anything to the public, you should make sure it aligns with your brand and its values. A little editing goes a long way in maintaining the integrity of your brand.
For Dssentials, we’re a husband and wife duo, so despite the fact that I (Emily) do a lot of the creative work, and spend my time on social media interpreting the trends, while my husband does a lot of the sales and operations, I avoid branding our business with all the cliche “girl boss” type content. It’s more than just me doing the work here, and our brand needs to represent both of us well and equally - hence why we don’t have an overly girly website, color palette, and our social channels reflect us both.
What It Includes
At Dssentials, our approach to creating a brand identity for clients involves a comprehensive analysis of the target audience and the company's purpose. This includes not just the development of visual elements such as a logo, color palette, and typography, but also a thorough examination of the business and its goals. If necessary, we may suggest changes to better align the brand with the target audience and ensure its success. The ultimate goal is to create a brand identity that accurately represents the company and appeals to its ideal customers, turning them into raving fans.
A strong brand identity is more than just a visually appealing logo. It conveys the essence of a company's values, mission, and target audience. When creating a brand identity, it's important to consider its longevity and impact on customers. At Dssentials, we approach brand identity development with a focus on education and understanding, helping our clients establish a cohesive and meaningful representation of their business for long-term success.
What This Means For You
If you’re a person who skims articles (who doesn’t these days?!) to the end to get to the point, let’s break it down. Branding isn’t just your logo. It’s everything you put out into the world as it relates to your business. All those touchpoints work together to build loyalty, trust and recognition.
Sure, your logo is a piece of the pie, but your brand also is your brand voice in your social captions or website copy, what your feed looks like as people scroll, and how your images look on collateral. Outside of the visual, it also includes big picture things like what your mission is, where you see your brand headed, and defines who you want to serve. This all gets tied together with a nice pretty bow in a memorable way to create that intangible “brand.”
It’s a more time-consuming mission than just picking some colors and a cool logo, but you’ll be glad you took the time in the beginning to think and clearly define what you want your brand to stand for. Once you see it all start coming together, you’ll gain momentum and create the solid business foundation that will put you on the path to success.
If you’re looking to achieve this for your business, hit us up! We’d love to see if your business is a good fit for our collaborative, elevated style. Because nothing makes us happier than seeing you succeed.
