What’s the Best Branding Strategy?
Whether you’re a small business or a Fortune 500 company, branding is important. The biggest brands in the world all have one thing in common: their brand stands out from the competition.
Strong brand awareness is one of the most valuable assets for your business because it provides employees with direction, increases the value of your company on Wall Street, makes acquiring new customers easier and, more importantly, creates loyalty among existing customers.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a small business or a startup with your sights on global domination; learn some of the best branding examples and how to emulate them for a successful branding process.
What Makes the Best Branding?
Many moving parts make a marketing strategy successful. When the entire group pulls ideas together, it creates the best branding experience. Think of a brand as a person. All these traits make your brand identity.
Quick Tips
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- Branding should be memorable.
- Your branding positioning should stand out from your competition.
- Communication with your audience should be open. Through social media, that line of communication is easier and stronger than ever.
- Your brand design should give people an inkling of who your brand is and who you serve.
- Consistent brand messaging should be implemented across multiple touchpoints like packaging design, product design, websites and social media pages (to name just a few).
10 Examples of Great Branding
Each of the ten brands above has some or all of those key points. Why? Because they all work. They’re simple and catchy.
If you’re from the Mahoning Valley, just hearing the brand names YSU, Vallourec, White House and FirstEnergy, you were probably able to immediately picture their simple logos. This is visual identity. On a national level, the golden arches from McDonald’s are recognizable anywhere.
Every time you interact with a potential customer or existing client, you’re defining their perception of your brand. Apple has strong brand values and clients’ cyber security initiatives which its customers are drawn to.
More Than a Name or Logo
Your brand is not just a logo, company name or tagline — it’s a personality.
When done right, branding can help you stand out from competitors who may have similar offerings but don’t have as strong of a personal brand identity. Brand identity and brand personality go hand-in-hand. What does your brand represent and how is it perceived by customers? This goes beyond the company name or logo, it even affects the color palette you choose. Your brand identity design should be cohesive with every other aspect of your brand personality.
(Re)Creating Your Brand
Whether you are creating a new brand or you’re thinking of launching a redesign, there are things you need to keep in mind:
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- Identify your target audience (using market research, not guesswork).
- Define your brand personality.
- Create a logo that represents your brand.
- Use typography and a color palette that is consistent with your brand identity.
- Create a tagline that brings it all together.
Tone of Voice
You’ve definitely heard Nike’s famous slogan: “Just Do It.” While this phrase isn’t directly associated with their logo, it’s still part of what defines their branding as a whole. It sums up the kind of person who will buy Nike products: someone who wants everything they do to be their best performance. The powerhouse’s brand voice is motivating and positive across the board, too.
Keep it Organized
We thrive on consistency. The same goes for talking about anything with branding. Follow a style guide. Many newspapers and magazines use the AP style guide, for example. That means our blogs are uniform.
Create a brand book for writing, formatting and designing everything. This helps keep your brand image in check. The book should include communication and explain your products or services. How should your web design look? Refer to your brand book.
A Vision’s Legacy
For more, should we say, distinguished readers (and graphic designers), remember the UPS logo growing up? How about Enron, IBM and ABC? Those recognizable brands are examples of logos reimagined by Paul Rand, a prolific designer who worked on rebranding efforts for many companies throughout his career.
Why did so many of his choices work? Because he used simple modernist techniques in his approach to design. Sans-serif typography and primary colors were part of his logo design template. One goal of Rand’s was to create a brand look that was easy to read and understand, which heightened the user experience. Years later, those clients are still using a form of his logos, even as part of their social media marketing strategies. That’s pretty badass if you ask us.
Lift Can Find the Best Branding For You
Consider adopting Rand’s style. Going forward in 2023, have fun with bold brand colors and unique (but easy-to-read) typography. Try being a trendsetter like Rand and have fun as you set your methodologies (your set of goals and how you plan to reach them). Serve that Los Angeles-NYC feel right from your local small business.
Don’t get it twisted; branding isn’t easy. Many factors go into creating a successful brand. Lift Marketing is your local creative design agency full of strategists to help create the best branding projects for your company’s brand. Give us a call to get started today!
