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What will branding look like in 2023?

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By Abbey Bamford

As part of our series of design in 2023, How&How founder and creative director Cat How offers her view on what might happen in branding over the next year.

What do you think 2023 will hold for branding design?

I’m always highly sceptical about ‘trends’ in design. I’m very much of the mindset that fashions fade, while true design (where form follows function) is eternal. A good logo, therefore, should never follow (or be inspired by) a particular zeitgeist. It would not be the purest representation of itself, or the strategy behind it, if it did. So my future trend predictions lie mostly around ‘moods’ or themes that we’ve found emerging in the creative industry as a whole.

Metaverse

I’m seeing a glut of futuristic fonts, impossible 3D renders, and quirky sci-fi gradients emerging as a way of (sardonically?) talking about the known-unknowns of the Metaverse. Part joke, part next big thing… the jury is still out, but I’m really liking the retrofuturist humour.

Light Mode/Dark Mode Websites

We’re increasingly designing colour systems which work in light mode and dark mode as a way of future-proofing the websites of the brands we build. Not only that, but dark mode websites are more energy efficient than light mode ones, which is partly connected to my next point.

Beyond Green

As we’ve been designing more and more climate-tech and sustainability brands over the past year, we’ve found that conventional green as a brand colour is losing traction. Gone are earth tones, soft treatments and hippy-vibes. Eco-branding is moving into a more minimal, futuristic direction with simplified monochromatic colour palettes (see our On The Edge rebrand) which speak more to Gen Z. These new brands want to talk about climate in a minimal, aspirational and future-focused way.

Purpose or Mission-First Branding

After the insecurity of the last few years, people are desperate for authenticity, transparency and honesty from the brands they interact with. They demand more from brands in terms of what they say as well as what they do. Brands have always helped people keep companies accountable, but this has never been more true than today. Brands that misrepresent their products and clash with the values of their audience are quickly swept away.

What was your favourite branding project from 2022 and why?

One of our big pushes last year, as well as in 2023, will be to get more women in design, be this through a scholarship initiative, mentoring or internship programs for young female designers. It goes without saying, then, that one of my favourite design projects of 2022 was from a young designer called Tais Kahatt for Gulp Sichuan Chilli Oil. Such a fun little project with super-simple, but effective illustrations, edgy art direction and a mono palette centred around one punchy, spicy red. For such a young designer I was really impressed by Tais’ craft in bringing everything together. As well as this one, I loved Caterina Bianchini’s new rebrand for Bunch too. Super fun!

By Abbey Bamford

Sourced from design week

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Make Your Startup Stand Out Without Spending a Fortune

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By Joe Procopio

You don’t need consultants but you do need to brush up on your problem-solving.

The line between success and failure in business can be razor-thin, and sometimes the difference comes down to the amount of attention that a company can attract.

Unfortunately, a lot of companies try to attract the wrong kind of attention.

I’m not talking about tasteless advertisements or sketchy funding gimmicks–well, not that alone. I’m talking about wasting effort, resources, and dollars on promoting any kind of attention that doesn’t generate revenue.

It’s a problem that’s exacerbated for unknown companies with unproven products. But unfortunately, a lot of startup leadership tends to believe that attention is a self-fulfilling prophecy. In other words, they think that if they can just generate a lot of awareness around the company, sales become a foregone conclusion.

That’s true. Kind of. And it’s why marketing experts and brand consultants get paid. Usually a lot.

However, it’s true only in a certain context, and that context rarely includes new ventures — even from well-known companies. We were all very aware of CNN+, Google Glass, and the Amazon Fire Phone.

Were those brands powerful? Absolutely. Were those products branded poorly or marketed incorrectly? No, not egregiously so. Should your company emulate them? Most definitely not.

So what went wrong?

Save Branding for Later

The product that “only needs attention” to succeed is a product that is already successful. That may sound a little Catch-22, but that’s because brand marketing is best suited for expanding market reach, not gaining market traction, let alone defining a target market and finding product market fit. Those milestones aren’t random and they don’t happen by process of elimination. Not without spending a ton of money.

Can a terrible brand sink a potentially successful product? Yes, especially when inferior competition has a robust marketing machine behind it. But lack of branding is definitely not a death sentence. Once a product is viable, has found market fit, and is gaining traction, then and only then should a company’s focus be on brand marketing to expand its reach.

Furthermore, brand attention is fleeting attention. As I said, everyone knew CNN+ was coming, everyone knew when it arrived, and 28 days later, everyone knew it was folding.

So if attention is what your company needs, but that initial market success hasn’t happened for you yet, check these other boxes first.

Your Solution Is Your Attention Ice-Breaker

If you want attention, you need a good opening line. Your best opening line is always your solution.

Your solution is not about your company and certainly not about your brand. It’s not your product–that’s just the packaging for your solution. It’s not even your offering, which is just the packaging for your product. In short, your solution is the thing your product does that solves the customer’s problem.

Once you have that defined, that needs to be the core of how you get attention. If your solution is strong enough, you can just talk about it, to anyone, and you’ll get the attention you want. Of course, in the real world, you’ll need branding and marketing to connect the message to your company and amplify it.

But don’t spend time, energy, or money on that branding or marketing if that message is just going to result in a shrug.

Your Product Is Your Attention Land Grab

The customer’s problem is the thing they want to throw money at to make it go away. And if the first layer around the customer’s problem is your solution, the next layer is the product, the thing that houses and presents the solution.

Spending time and resources here can make a world of difference out on the market.

But beyond just awareness, a great product also generates outsized viral attention. And since there’s no better and cheaper way to acquire a new customer than via an existing customer, giving existing customers something to crow about will provide the highest return on any attention it generates.

And then finally, an existing customer base is also the easiest to convert to upgrades and even new products and product lines.

Low Price Attention Begets Low Results

The final layer out from the customer is your offering, which is your solution packaged in a product for a price. But the attention that’s gained by a low price usually results in low conversions, low margins, and low lifetime value.

For every company leader I know that wants to be the low-price leader, very few of them make purchases based on price alone. Furthermore, the products they buy when price is a factor are usually commodities, and the buyers are often hard-pressed to remember the name of the company or the brand attached to it.

And even when you win on price, you only win until a competitor undercuts you.

Standing out isn’t just about amplifying a message, it’s about amplifying the right message to the right market. You can use one large megaphone or a bunch of smaller ones, and you can spend a lot or a little along the way. Just don’t waste that spend on messages that don’t land and markets that don’t produce.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Joe Procopio

Sourced from Inc.

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Good marketing needs a good story: Creators on effective branding

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Sourced from YOURSTORY

The highlight of various panel discussions that took place at Brand Residency 2022 was that startups need good marketing with a strong story to stand out.

We live in an age of data and information abundance. There’s not a single industry that will not benefit from the use of data, so much that it is as integral to a business as oil is for an economy. And then there are social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter, which are treasure troves for brands building an online presence as they help create awareness. So, the tools and resources are in place and good marketing is all about using them smartly, putting the consumers at the forefront.

This was the common thread of thought at Brand Residency 2022, an initiative of YourStory’s Brands of New India, where marketing executives and content creators threw light on what goes behind marketing a brand effectively. For direct-to-consumer (D2C) startups, good marketing means good business, because consumers tend to relate better to smart advertising and catchy jingles, backed by a good story. Ultimately, a good story is what will sell.

One size doesn’t fit all

Ayush Wadhwa, Founder and Creative Director, Owled Media, said the biggest mistake brands make is adopting the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. Especially on social media, several brands tend to post one video across platforms. “Short videos on Reels do better on Instagram while longer narratives perform better on YouTube. Brands need to understand their target group’s needs,” said Ayush, on the second day of Brand Residency 2022.

He also explained why advertising needs to be personalised. “Brands make the mistake of using the same messaging across all kinds of advertisements. It’s important for new-age brands to have the right message on different platforms and for each touch point,” he noted.

Ayush Wadhwa

Ayush Wadhwa, Founder, Owled Media

Manish Pandey, a brand consultant and a content creator, shares a similar sentiment. He spoke about how content creators are fuelling the growth of startups, which is why influencer marketing is a top marketing choice for startups. He said brand building is as important for creators as it is for startups. “Take Ranveer Allahbadia (BeerBiceps) for example. He started with fitness videos on YouTube and now runs his own talk show with guests like actor Shahid Kapoor and spiritual leader Sadhguru. There has to be give and take of knowledge through your content,” he said.

Neel Gogia, Co-founder, IPlix media, said, “Every brand has a different purpose. Every platform has a different purpose. We decode influencers and brands on various platforms based on the need and category required.”

Creating a narrative

Prafull Billore, Founder, MBA Chai wala, elaborated the importance of sharing the brand’s story with the customers. Speaking from first-hand experience, Prafull noted that the audience connected better with the brand when they heard personal stories. “Share stories of your entrepreneurial journey with the world. You will be surprised to see how everyone loves passionate storytelling,” he advised young founders.

Prafull Billore of MBA Chai Wala

Prafull Billore, Founder, MBA Chai Wala

He also emphasised the importance of building a consistent network. “Entrepreneurs must remain in touch with old friends and acquaintances. This will not only help strengthen your network but will also show that the brand is true to its roots,” he said.

Anubhav Dubey, Founder, Chai Sutta Bar, said, “It’s the story that connects more with users when someone starts a new business.”

Consumer-focused and personalised marketing is the way to go. This is the secret sauce to building a successful D2C brand.

Edited by Swetha Kannan

Sourced from YOURSTORY

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How To Build A Brand in 10 Days: Tips and Tricks for the Digital Age

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With the rise of social media, our increasingly digital world has completely changed the landscape of how we think about branding today.

The concept of branding has almost always referred to a business name and logo. But times have changed, as we all know, in this digital era with lots of noise.

Consumers today are always connected, meaning brands have had to find deeper ways of connecting with them. Social media has given the world access to every success and shortcoming, with users openly promoting or denouncing brands to their followers. Wendy’s social media branding strategy has famously caught the attention and adornment of millennials and Gen Z with their quick-witted roasts of customers and brands on Twitter. Many companies have tried to accomplish brand recognition with similar strategies, only to miss the mark and have their brand trend for all the wrong reasons.

Branding strategies have had to grow and adapt to the digital age, so here is a ten-day crash course.

Day #1 — Set the groundwork

To effectively perform in your industry, you need to know your industry. Researching the brands of other key players in your sector is a great first step in your branding journey. Compare the offerings and branding of your competitors, accounting for everything from their visual aesthetic and marketing efforts to their customer feedback channels. Looking at local brands can help you define yourself in your current market, while large name brands can give you a benchmark to aspire to. Market research is an integral part of the branding process and will considerably affect the direction you decide to take once you’ve produced a tangible concept.

However, don’t just pay attention to the success stories. Consider cases where brands have failed. Compare the changes made when companies have launched a rebrand. Seeing where others made mistakes may prevent you from making similar ones in the future.

Day #2 — Define and differentiate

It sounds simple, but to be a successful brand, you need to be able to differentiate yourself from the competition. The way to do that is through defining yourself and your brand. What makes you different from your competitors? What services do you provide that other companies do not? How do your mission and values compare to other businesses in your industry? Answering these questions is key to carving out a spot for yourself among your competition.

Bernadette Jiwa, a brand strategist and blogger at The Story of Telling, says, “The difference between a good idea and a commercial success is context—The understanding about who the product or service is for, what they really want deep down and why they will care about this, more than that.”

Day #3 — Identify your audience so you can identify with them

Write down the detailed demographics of your target audience and other questions you want to consider when developing a brand for that audience.

How old are they? What gender? Are they wealthy corporate types or middle-class and family-focused? Where do they live and shop? What is it that they need? Is another company currently filling that need?

The more specifically you can identify your audience, the easier it will be to create a brand they will relate to. Karena Dawn and Katrina Hodgson of Tone It Up started by creating a YouTube channel to share their love of fitness, and today, they share over a million followers. Their ability to connect with their community was pivotal to their success, recognizing that they provided a service for consumers like themselves. Those customers recognized this connection and have now become the brand themselves, conducting worldwide meetups and creating trending hashtags on social media.

Day #4 — Find your voice

Once you’ve found your audience, you need to develop the voice that you will be speaking to that audience.

What channels do you want your brand to speak to customers through, and how do you wish to communicate to those customers? Perhaps the wealthy, corporate types prefer a more professional or service-oriented voice, whereas young, recent graduates may engage more with a conversational or friendly voice. It’s essential that your brand voice can communicate effectively with your target demographic and entice them to keep the conversation going.

Day #5 — Personality, please

Your brand represents you, so show your personality through your brand. Consumers today don’t just want the same old service from a company presented the same way as every other company. They expect their needs to be met but want those needs to be tailored to them through relatability and personal interactions.

Try looking at various personality spectrums and think about which end you want your brand to fall on. Do you want your brand to give off fun energy or stay stoic and serious? Are you looking to be modern and cutting-edge, or classic and traditional? Are you interested in accessibility for all, or is exclusivity a part of your brand’s desirability?

Day #6 — Share your story

Consumers are real people and want to be able to relate to real people, which is challenging to do when a brand is anonymous. Melissa Cassera, a marketing, communications and PR expert, advises, “Don’t edit yourself out of your brand. This is one of the most common mistakes I notice with entrepreneurs, especially in copy and content. If you tend to edit your voice and personality, then dictate what you want to say, record it, and transcribe it. It works wonders!” If your audience can connect with you or your story, they will likely join your brand.

Day #7 — Test and tweak

Receiving feedback from a trusted circle that can relate to your target demographic can provide valuable insights into aspects of branding you may have missed. Writers often say they cannot edit their own work, as it becomes harder to recognize errors in a piece the more you’ve read over it. The same can be said when developing your brand. Perhaps you missed an essential aspect of your brand story while focusing on a different aspect. It is better to catch missed opportunities and ensure you successfully serve your audience before an entire release. “Don’t just put something out there to put something out there. Make it right the first time!” designer and stylist Megan Bailey says.

Day #8 — Professionally create, integrate and replicate

When making the official assets for your brand, make sure those assets are professional. Whether they are in-house or contracted, hire a graphic designer to create your logo, website, business cards, etc. Hire a marketing expert to execute your strategy effectively. Research internal and external systems that will keep your communications with stakeholders organized and professional, and integrate your assets into those systems. Every asset you put out to consumers should represent your brand, whether digital or static. Those assets should be replicated, promoted and shared regularly in the area where you have found your niche.

Day #9 — Keep it consistent

Arguably, the most critical aspect of successful branding is ensuring your brand is consistent. Meghan Bailey also advises, “Right from the start — every single piece of material from a logo to photography to social media posts need to be consistent and professionally organized. The ultimate goal is to have people gravitate and recognize your work instantly”. The more recognizable your brand is, the more recognizable your product or service will be, and the closer you’ll become to solidifying your brand as a household name.

Day #10 — Give yourself a hand (and a break)

You’ve made it through our ten-day crash course and have hopefully developed a successful brand concept in that time. Give yourself a quick break to take pride in your work, then get out there and promote!

Feature Image Credit: Shutterstock

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Sourced from Entrepreneur

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What Colours Should You Use For Your Personal Brand? (and Why It Matters)

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When it comes to personal branding, the right colours have the power to attract clients and opportunities, while the wrong colours can do the exact opposite.

When it comes to personal branding, the right colours have the power to attract clients and opportunities, while the wrong colours can do the exact opposite. So, what’s the secret to choosing brand colours that lead you to the C-suite and closing bigger deals?

The first step in figuring this out is understanding the psychology of colour. Colour has the power to influence human behaviour. It can be utilized to induce a desired mood or emotion in someone and elicit a desired response (Masterclass Staff, 2022).

Colours are broken into several categories, the most common being primary and secondary colours. The primary colours are defined as colours from which all other colours can be created by mixing. The primary colours are:

  • Red
  • Blue
  • Yellow

Secondary colours are created by mixing two primary colours, with the most common being:

  • Green
  • Orange
  • Purple

The psychology of colour

Each colour can vary in intensity, also known as chroma (think, electric blue vs. navy blue) and its value (lightness or darkness). Here is a quick reference guide:

Red is passionate and energetic. Brands that use red in their branding are trying to communicate excitement, vibrancy and action.

Blue is calming and trustworthy. This is why many financial and healthcare services use blue in their branding.

Yellow is cheerful and optimistic — perfect for brands that want to communicate happiness and positivity.

Green is refreshing and natural, making it an excellent choice for eco-friendly and health-focused brands.

Orange is energetic and playful, often used by brands targeting younger audiences.

Purple is associated with royalty, luxury and mystery. If you want to convey a sense of sophistication and elegance in your branding, purple is the way to go.

Black, white and brown are considered neutral colours, but they also evoke emotions:

  • Black is powerful and mysterious.
  • White is pure, sophisticated and simple.
  • Brown is a mixture of all the primary colours and is natural, earthy and strong.

When it comes to personal branding, you want your brand colours to represent who you are, and authenticity is everything. Choosing your brand’s colour isn’t a game of “hope for the best.” It’s a scientific approach that starts with clarifying what you want to achieve and how you want to be perceived by your ideal audience.

For example, let’s say that you are a take-charge nurse who wants to leverage a personal brand’s power to move into an administrative role. In this case, you may lean towards choosing colours that convey compassion, excellence and leadership.

Let’s use Kaiser Permanente, a non-profit healthcare organization, as an example. The brand’s logo uses a calming blue to represent “loyalty and trust,” while the white brings balance and peace to the logo. When you look at the Kaiser logo, how do you feel? Do you see how this large organization used colour to make the brand feel “human”?

Get clear on how you want to be perceived by others

Now that you have an overview of colour psychology, it’s time to understand how you want others to see and experience you. What are three words you want people to use when they describe you? What colours come to mind when you hear the words fiery, bold and ambitious?

Ask yourself how your industry and/or niche are viewed. Would you expect to see a doctor in private practice using pink and purple in their branding? Another point to consider when thinking about industry standards is: Do you want to disrupt the industry or offer a slightly different approach?

Your primary brand colour is the colour you’ll use most often. It should demand attention. Visually, it is the star of your show and is used in your logo, website, social media and marketing materials. Your secondary brand colours are the colours you’ll use less often in your branding. They can accentuate some aspects of your website or add visual interest.

Related: Understanding the Power of Design and Branding

Consistency is key

Now that you know the psychology behind choosing the right colours for your brand, it’s essential to use your colours consistently. You’ll use your brand colours on your website and marketing materials.

Another area where your brand colours should be consistent is in your attire. So many leaders and entrepreneurs miss the mark by displaying brand presence in the way they dress. If you’re planning on doing any public speaking, attending events or networking, wear your brand colours! By showing up “on brand,” you will stand out in a crowd and make yourself unforgettable.

If advancing in your career is your goal, consider using your brand colours in your email signature, across social media and any other place you show up. To remain consistent, you also need to know the hex codes of your brand’s colour.

What is a hex code?

A hex code is a six-digit combination of numbers and letters to specify a colour. Hex codes start with a pound sign (#) and are followed by six characters, three numbers and three letters. For example, the hex code for electric blue is #00FFFF.

Hex codes are essential for personal branding, because they ensure that your brand colours are consistent across all platforms. When you use hex codes, you can be confident that the blue in your logo will match the blue on your website, and the green in your social media posts will match the green in your email signature.

A best practice is to create a guide that outlines your brand standards, including your colour palette, words that describe your brand, etc. This document is known as a brand guide, and it can also include logos, fonts and even the filters you use on social media. As your brand grows, everyone on your team will know the standards, and they can easily maintain the same level of consistency.

Colour is an essential tool that should not be overlooked for personal branding. By understanding the psychology of colour and choosing colours that align with your goals and values, you can create a strong and recognizable personal brand.

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Why experiences are the future of brand marketing

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Sourced from Creative Review

The marketing world is always evolving with new ways for brands to differentiate themselves. The importance of brands being proactive online is vital – but what can brands do offline to help their company stand out?

Experiences offer a brand the opportunity to elevate themselves beyond two-dimensional entities, allowing them to articulate personality and emotion in different ways. Through experience design, brands can take their visitors on an immersive experience that reflects their values, mission, history and so on.

At the forefront of this movement is Mather & Co, an agency that helps commercial brands across the globe to hoist their offline presence and overtake their competitors by creating experiences that showcase a unique brand story. Established in 1995 by Chris Mather, Mather & Co’s work includes the Gretna Green Experience; Downton Abbey: The Exhibition; Silverstone Interactive Museum; the R&A World Golf Museum; and The Royal Mint Experience.

Many of the best brand activations sit at the cross-section between creativity and technology, using the latter as a tool to bring great ideas to life. So, what’s the secret of successful experience-based marketing?

MAKING A GRAND STATEMENT

Projection-mapping technology can transform any irregular surface, such as the face of a building, into a canvas for breath-taking audio-visual experiences that may extend a brand’s reach. Through next-level design and production any surface may be augmented and transformed into an exciting and immersive display to communicate a story or showcase a product.

Successful examples of immersive projection mapping technologies include Wear the Rose, a 360-degree sports experience that took over London’s O2 Arena, as well as a giant installation in Saudi Arabia using the Tuwaiq Mountains as its canvas.

A recent project for the R&A World Golf Museum saw Mather & Co produce the Celebration of Light projection-mapping show across the famous Royal & Ancient Clubhouse building. This extension of the experience allowed the iconic golfing brand to reach millions of people worldwide, narrating 150 years of golfing history to mark the occasion of the 150th Open.

Photo: James Bridle

CONNECTING WITH YOUR HERITAGE

Sometimes it is the history and heritage behind a brand that steers the type of experience you need to develop. The Famous Blacksmiths Shop in Gretna Green is legendary for runaway marriages stretching back hundreds of years, but the legend is in danger of being forgotten altogether with the ageing demographic of visitors.

Here, the Mather & Co team recognised the need to reinvigorate the brand in new ways to connect with younger audiences – creating a new experience on site telling the story of romance, rebellion, and unstoppable love since 1754. The shop has been transformed into an immersive, storytelling experience at the heart of the iconic Gretna Green destination. The experience takes visitors on emotional love story and highlights the business as a whole – a family run business. It is a modern and contemporary take on a 200-year-old history.

“Before the redevelopment, Gretna Green was already a significant destination in British history – the new experience still holds the original magic and romance of the site,” says Sarah Clarke, managing director at Mather & Co. “The experience now allows visitors to delve into the heart-felt love stories and also explores Gretna Green as a brand itself.”

Gretna Green Experience; Photo: Chris Humphreys
Gretna Green Experience; Photo: Chris Humphreys

CREATING INTERACTIVE MOMENTS

The way people interact in experiences, and what they want from them, has changed dramatically over the past decade. With technology at everyone’s fingertips, people are now looking for more participatory and physical interactivity that they cannot do at home. Creating immersive and interactive experiences allows brands to connect with their audiences in different and more memorable ways.

At the home of British motor racing, the new Silverstone Interactive Museum tells the brand story of the circuit and its place in British motorsport in a fully interactive way. From taking part in tyre changes and sitting in an iconic historic F1 car, to getting involved in the tech lab and designing your own vehicle, this Mather & Co project immerses visitors in the experience – not only enhancing their understanding of the brand, but making them a vital part of it.

Photo: Peter Corcoran
Photo: Peter Corcoran

RELIVING MEMORIES

For TV programmes and films, iconic moments are there to draw on in extension experiences. No-one can deny the success of offers such as the Harry Potter Studio Tour, Game of Thrones Studio Tour and the Doctor Who Experience which are sweeping the nation and extending connections with fans of the shows.

“When it comes to designing a visitor attraction, we must understand what makes the visitors want to keep coming back for more,” continues Clarke. “It should be an extension of the brand, so the values must be translated in the experience.”

Mather & Co worked with NBCUniversal and Emmy-winning writer Julian Fellowes to create an immersive experience for the internationally acclaimed TV programme Downton Abbey and created one of the most successful studio tours in the UK around the original Coronation Street set.

For both, the key was to authentically recreate the sets, immerse ourselves fully in the brand and select the memories that resonated the most with fans. It was about taking visitors on an emotional journey beyond the fourth wall right into the beating heart of their favourite shows.

Photo: Bespoke Foundry
Photo: Bespoke Foundry

To discuss how your brand could unlock the full potential of experience design, contact Mather & Co; matherandco.com

Sourced from Creative Review

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Brandingbyexperts.com Promises To Increase Sales, ROI and Organic Traffic By Using Sponsored Posts

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Sourced from Marina Times

Before understanding how building brand equity can increase your sales, let us first understand what exactly is brand equity and what does it mean for your brand.

In the world of marketing, brand equity is something that refers to the value of a brand which is predominantly determined by how your customers perceive your brand. It can either be positive or negative. It’s all about how you present your brand or how you advertise it to the world. If your branding is good, and it is pretty famous among the customers and they regard it highly, then your brand equity is high, and thus positive.

But if not that, then it is termed negative. Meaning that if a brand fails to consistently deliver, fails to live up to the expectations of the customers, and also manages to get loads of negative word-of-mouth it has a lower brand equity or lower brand value. So, to put it in the simplest words, brand equity is the reputation of a brand. A good reputation garners good equity whereas a bad reputation garners negative equity.

What is Branding?

Branding is basically the way in which you characterize your business to yourself, to the business partners, and to your clients. Marketing alludes to giving an extraordinary character to your business that is substantially more than only addressing your organization’s name and logo. The brand character characterizes what’s really going on with your business and how it makes an incentive for other people. With a market that has developed brilliant enough to see through glossed over promoting methodologies, the requirement for a solid and veritable brand character is clear.

Branding is huge in expanding deals for a business. It works as a booster for the growth of revenue. If a brand customizes the experience for the clients, the clients associate with the brand emotionally. A solid brand personality increments client dedication and trust which thus builds the deals for your business.

Here are the key factors that influence how buyers see a brand. At the point when you dial in this large number of pieces, you can further develop brand discernment, drive deals, hold clients and increment references:

Brand message:

How buyers see your image relies a ton upon what you say and how you say it. Ensure you’re reliably conveying your brand image’s worth, vision and novel selling recommendation in a way that reverberates with your objective market across all client touchpoints.

Extraordinary items or administrations:

Make sure your items are top-notch and pertinent to your optimal clients.

Client support:

Try and establish good and strong connections with your group of clients across all channels (e.g., email, telephone, web-based entertainment, visits). This will fundamentally affect how they see your image. Convey a consistent and predictable client experience that lines up with your brand image across all touch focuses.

Trust identifications:

When selling on the web, fabricate trust and believability with customers. Sites with trust identifications cause clients to feel more certain while sharing their data (e.g., during checkout).

Virtual entertainment:

Offer client assistance via web-based entertainment stages. Furthermore, many ask their companions so that suggestions or search via virtual entertainment might see what others are talking about a brand.

Brand Equity Increasing Your Brand Sales Value

Good brand equity increases your sales. Brand equity is nothing but the financial or commercial worth of your brand based on the perception of your brand name amongst consumers or clients. If you build a good brand by indulging in various branding methods and techniques your brand equity rises and thus your sales rise as you are able to sell your product at a higher value.

Your painstakingly built brand makes a visual, profound, and social association among clients and your organization and thus builds trust. A consumer is always ready to pay a comparatively higher sum if he/she trusts the brand.

There are many examples of brands that have built a name and inculcated a trust factor amongst clients thus generating higher brand equity which in turn increased sales.

Sponsored Posts Strategy

Sponsored Posts Strategy is a sure short way to gain a lot of traffic for your brand and your page. This strategy helps you to collaborate with publications having a high amount of traffic and featuring your blog or product on their websites. This strategy is responsible for drawing a major chunk of organic traffic to your page. Sponsored posts are not like irritating ads that are dripping with sales language. Instead, these posts are finely articulated and informative posts which show your potential target audience a solution for their problems. Sponsored Posts touch the right nerve and address the issues and showcase your brand or product as a good fix for all the issues faced by your potential consumer.

BrandingByExperts

Branding Experts , as the name suggests a branding agency run by experts in the fields of digital marketing, PR and branding.  The company is dedicated to learning and understanding your business. By building a relationship with each of your clients, the company ensures that they build a marketing strategy which focuses solely on the nature of your problems and then on solving them. Each of their marketing campaigns is built with the client’s needs in mind to solve all the marketing obstacles.

The team’s expertise lies in building brand equity and formulating a reliable sponsored posts strategy to add up to the advantages of the client. This causes your sales to boom right up and increases your market value. The agency uses analytics to bring about a positive metamorphosis for your business.

The company builds your brand by distributing a press release to prominent outlets such as many local news affiliates. They give your brand in-content white hat links by reaching out to bloggers with high traffic and reach.

For more than 15 years, the platform has been providing branding solutions for businesses wanting to expand their online presence, increase leads and grow their revenue.

If you too are waiting then your wait ends here. Reach out to BrandingByExperts.com  today and increase your sales by leaps and bounds.

Sourced from Marina Times

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How To Build Your Business Brand in the Metaverse

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By Zaheer Dodhia

Is your brand ready for the metaverse? It can be a complex question — for one thing; the answer depends on what “the metaverse” refers to for you as a business owner. For another, it can depend on the type of business that you run. But, ultimately, brand owners want their companies to be ready for anything — and active growth is often top on the list.

What Is The Metaverse?

The answer to this question depends on who you ask, but a simple definition is “a collection of technologies that allows us to interact in a virtual universe.” Most commonly, those technologies involve augmented or virtual reality and video.

Technically, our ability to interact with AI or with avatar representations of others on social media is an offshoot of what the metaverse is intended to be. The function of the metaverse is to meld the physical and the virtual into one.

As technology advances, experts and innovators predict that we’ll spend more time in this digital universe than we do now — and maybe more time in our virtual world than we do in the real one. With the heightened focus on digital communications and ecommerce during the past two years, this doesn’t come as a surprise. Statistics already show the rise in interest — in 2020, almost 84 million people were using AR/VR regularly in the United States alone, with that number projected to rise to 110 million next year.

There’s endless scope for the imagination with the metaverse concept — not to mention endless scope for business growth. Big companies like Microsoft and Epic have already invested in the metaverse, aiming to stake a claim on their virtual brand. As a result, the market for augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality are projected to reach 300 billion dollars yearly by 2024.

There’s no doubt about it — the metaverse is the next significant shift in the digital world, and it’s best to be ready to take advantage of it!

Here are the top three ways to build your business brand in the new digital movement known as the metaverse.

Unified Branding

Branding is always one of the top keys to building a business. Branding not only identifies who your company is but connects it with core values, products and services on offer, and even your audience.

“Just make sure you have a brand” isn’t really the best advice, though, because inconsistent branding can actually be detrimental to your overall brand. Inconsistency can cost — 90% of consumers expect to have a consistent experience with a brand regardless of the platform, and consistent brands are more likely to have strong visibility, whereas if consumers are less aware of a brand and have less of an impression of it as a whole, they’re less likely to notice the company — and therefore less likely to engage or invest. Neglecting your colour scheme or making a logo design mistake can have serious consequences.

Along with consistency, specific elements can help with solid branding. For example, using a signature colour can boost a brand’s recognizability by up to 80%. That means that customers would be 80% more likely to recognize and interact with your brand in the metaverse if they see your signature colour.

Leitmotifs, or sonic branding, are also valuable to a complete branding package. Some statistics suggest that using audio — think jingles or recurring notes, like with MacDonald’s ba-da-ba-ba-ba — as part of your branding can increase recognition by up to 46%.

In the end, the numbers show the importance of keeping your branding steady as you move into the metaverse with your brand. Unified branding across all platforms, including print, storefront, social media, and website, has been shown to increase revenue by up to 23%. That’s significant growth, especially for a small business.

Virtual Experiences

The metaverse is all about virtual reality, and adding virtual experiences into what you offer your customers is an excellent way to get them ready for the metaverse even now. In addition, you may be able to leverage the rising sales of VR headsets, which is one of the most popular ways to explore the metaverse concept. From just under five million sets sold in the US in 2020, sales are projected to reach more than 14 million yearly in the US by 2024.

But VR headsets aren’t the only way to craft a virtual experience to share with your customers and attract them to your business. Build a digital storefront that mimics your brick-and-mortar store. Create digital tours of your products. Ikea is an excellent big-name pioneer of this, already demonstrating how to use the metaverse concept to grow a particular aspect of a brand. With virtual room design, Ikea customers can see what furniture and features will fit, how the colour scheme will turn out, and how frustrated they may get while figuring out how to put it all together.

Okay, that last part isn’t actually a feature of Ikea’s virtual experience. But it’s only a matter of time.

Video Production

A final and significant way to build your business brand in the metaverse is to incorporate videos in your marketing, website, and social media posts.

The importance of video isn’t anything new. Approximately 85% of marketers already leverage video use as an essential part of their strategy, with 92% of that number labelling it as essential to their work going forward. Video nets the most engagement on social media, especially Instagram. More than 90% of businesses point to social media videos as a key that has garnered new customers and directly caused conversion.

But with the metaverse being focused on virtual/augmented reality and video, video production is even more of a recommendation for brands that are looking to grow. Not just for marketing purposes, either — other popular kinds of videos include how-to or explainer videos and social media videos, both of which puts the focus on entertainment and education.

The more value you can provide, the more likely you will attract new interest. And with new interest, your brand is sure to grow.

To the Metaverse and Beyond

It’s challenging to get a consensus on just what the metaverse means and how far it will take us. But one thing is for sure — we’ve been spending more time in the virtual world than ever in the past few years, and it’s almost guaranteed that the trend will continue.

With essential brand-building methods, your brand will be ready to grow in the metaverse and whatever comes next.

Feature Image Credit: Julien Tromeur; Unsplash

By Zaheer Dodhia

Sourced from readwrite

 

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Why it’s a bad idea for start-ups to make their branding distinctive

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By Saskia Ketz

Fluid design is having a moment—and embracing it will save start-ups time and money in the long run.

When Google Chrome revealed its first logo refresh in nearly a decade earlier this year, the internet was left scratching its head. The change was so slight, the new logo so simple, merely removing the highlights and shadows to completely flatten the logo, slightly adjusting the proportions, and saturating the colours.

[Images: Google]

As someone who has worked in branding for more than 15 years, I don’t think this subtlety was a failure—it shows that the company is paying attention to where the design world is going. If you look at the major rebrands of 2021—from Burger King to GM—almost all of them involve paring down, flattening, or simplifying a brand’s look.

 

The driving factor is more than just a trend in our visual language—it’s about adjusting to our new normal as companies and consumers. As we’re all too aware, the world is changing at an unprecedented pace. Brands are looking for simple designs that give them flexibility to adapt across new platforms, appeal to new audiences, and pivot as things change around them. And—jokes about Chrome’s new logo aside—consumers are craving simplicity in an increasingly complex world. A 2021 study by brand strategy agency Siegel+Gale found that 76% of people are more likely to recommend a brand that delivers simple experiences.

While this shift is important for all companies to pay attention to, it presents an especially exciting opportunity for start-ups, which are constantly changing by nature. When done correctly, approaching branding with simplicity can help start-ups more easily align their brand with their strategy—and save a lot of money in the process.

Why distinctive branding doesn’t work for start-ups

Company branding used to feel permanent: You spent a lot of time and money getting it right and then didn’t change it for as long as possible. Take American Airlines, which didn’t change its branding for 40 years. While the original branding was classic, it ended up looking a little too patriotic as the world became increasingly globalized. When they addressed this issue with a major rebrand, they faced some pushback for such a drastic change. And yet, too many founders still adhere to a mindset where they see branding as a boxed-in solution that will last, even if their business changes.

The reality is exactly the opposite. There’s no way to create strong visual branding without a solid understanding of a company’s core product, purpose, and audience—something start-ups are still figuring out in the early years. As start-ups pivot their strategy to find product-market fit or appeal to different audiences, branding that used to work might not anymore. I’ve even seen designer friends work on projects where the brand is already dated by the time they’re exporting the final files (no exaggeration!) because of the speed at which the client is pivoting.

The more distinctive a brand identity, the more exaggerated this problem becomes. Foursquare is a great example: They launched over a decade ago with complex, consumer-focused branding and have had to significantly rebrand every few years as they found their footing and eventually expanded to include a B2B business model.

The evolution of Foursquare’s branding. [Images: Foursquare]

A more fluid way forward

Looking at Foursquare’s latest rebrand, you see how simplicity helps solve these issues. The company stripped its branding back to a wordmark and a few basic colours, describing the new approach as a “simple, scalable system” that allows them to appeal to the multiple audiences they’ve grown to serve.

 

[Images: Foursquare]

Simplicity not only helps growing brands be more things for more people, but it also gives them more flexibility to tweak things as they grow and evolve. I like to think of this approach as “fluid design”—start with something simple, and make subtle updates as your strategy changes or you learn more about your audience.

 

Chat app Discord took a fluid approach last year in a brand update they described as “not too different: just a little friendlier”—a move to make the product more welcoming as they expand beyond the gaming community.

[Screenshots: courtesy of the author]

Dropbox has seen a similar fluid evolution, starting with a simple logo that has seen small upgrades over the years, and more recently adding pops of colour to their traditional blue branding in order to appeal to a more creative audience. It’s still obviously the Dropbox brand—just more playful.

Save money on simplicity

So, why am I talking about this approach when there are plenty of brands—big and small—that already do it?

For one, there are still plenty of start-ups taking the old approach, looking for trendy or flashy design to help them stand out, when they should really be seeking a simple brand that gives them flexibility while they find product-market fit.

The other issue is that start-ups are hiring branding agencies at all—at great cost. Top agencies for early-stage companies typically charge $150,000–$500,000 for their branding work; even entry-level agencies often start at $50,000. At that price, growing companies (that barely have that money in the first place) feel pressure to get it perfect and never update their branding.

Instead, young companies can DIY a simple design system, with a sleek wordmark, professional fonts, and a basic color palette. Moreover, when they take the fluid approach, there’s no pressure for this early branding to be perfect: Tweaks can and should happen along the way.

I’m not saying that the work brand designers do isn’t valuable—but it’s only valuable once a company feels secure in what it’s doing and who it’s marketing to.

So, my advice for start-ups: Take advantage of this simple design trend to create something that’s good enough for now, make perhaps imperceptible changes as you learn along the way, and spend the bulk of your resources getting your product right. Once that’s in place, you can pay for all the fancy design work you want.

By Saskia Ketz

Saskia Ketz is the founder of MMarchNY, a New York City-based branding agency that’s worked with brands like Netflix, IKEA, Timberland, and Mojomox, an online wordmark builder that allows start-ups to create dynamic, professional-looking logos themselves.

Sourced from Fast Company

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How to Create Content for Different Purposes: Branding, Sales, and Retention

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By Tom Gil

Different parts of the sales funnel need different content types. Here’s how to make them.

We often talk about content creation and repurposing it using different channels, like blogs and social media. What isn’t often mentioned is how to create different types of content for different stages of the sales funnel: branding, sales, and retention.

Every end goal can call for a different kind of content. For example, you might need content that’s designed to move people closer to a sale, make you more memorable (branding), or help you maintain clients (retention). Usually, in your marketing funnel, your target audience is within one of these three stages:

  1. Awareness (made aware of your brand)
  2. Consideration (considering your solution)
  3. Decision (moving towards buying from you)

What content the customer needs to consume in each stage differs. But the first hurdle, as Devin Reed, head of content strategy at Gong, notes, is simply making all your marketing messages relevant to the consumer: “When it comes to actually creating engaging content, it needs to be relevant, insightful, and actionable. This is critical if you want to grab — and keep — their attention. Unfortunately, most B2B companies focus on themselves, specifically their product/service, and as a result, their content is boring and fails to influence how their audience thinks or acts.”

Retention

Your end goal shouldn’t be to simply make a sale. Instead, it should be to create loyal, long-term customers. Here are three methods you can implement today for better retention content:

  1. Use storytelling in your marketing: Customer-focused stories win. Describe how your product or service empowered a business with a solution that yielded results.
  2. Publish quality content consistently: Creating a blog is crucial nowadays. Aside from helping you rank higher on search engines, it enables you to build trust with your ideal customers and craft a unique voice for your brand.
  3. Continue to educate your audience: Having a separate section for unique studies and stories (not blogs) is a way to stand out, and is one of the best ways to show up for your audience consistently. Try different mediums, like podcasts, vlogs, guides, and case studies.

Now, let’s focus on a topic that is often ignored. Retention branding.

Are you pleasantly waving customers good-bye when they choose to leave or are you pointing a sword at their backs, making them walk the plank while they gaze at sharks below?

Even after you lost the battle — when a client cancels their membership or unsubscribes — the psychology of user offboarding is paramount. Just like the aftertaste a drink can leave you with, the offboarding experience can make or break your brand’s reputation. An unreasonable layer to a journey’s end can cause friction and leave a bitter taste.

Making it hard for customers to leave your product is unethical, and usually does more harm than good. There is a way to make a person smile even as they’re about to unsubscribe. AppSumo‘s messaging around cancelling a subscription is a good example: The unsubscribe screen says “It looks like you’ve had enough of us (tough but fair).” A small thing like that can take a stressful process and make it more enjoyable. It’s a reminder of what brands should do: let you leave with a smile, remembering them positively.

That’s retention branding. If you still want to leave, at least you left smiling. If you changed your mind, you stayed smiling. You smiled either way, and that matters.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Tom Gil

Certified real estate copywriter & marketing consultant

Sourced from Inc.

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