branding

What Can a Brand Agency Do for Me?

The purpose of a Brand is to express your company’s unique personality, purpose and values to your potential customers. A Brand Agency can create an identity for you with these factors in mind and which will be recognisable and rewarding in terms of business growth.

A Brand Agency will:
Gain a thorough understanding of your business needs, goals and values.

By gaining a thorough understanding of your business, they will be able to produce a design that reflects what you want for your business.

Identify your target markets
Identifying your potential clients is a key factor in your branding strategy. Your “look” will position your brand correctly and add an emotive factor that sets you apart from your competitors. Your brand image can be; bright, dark, serious, fun, professional, established, quiet, loud and so on. It should reflect who you are and have high appeal to your target audience.

Define your product/service appeal
By defining your product/service appeal they will be able to create a design that highlights important factors and makes the design appealing to your target market.

Discuss forms of communicating your identity to your potential market 
There are many promotional options to get your company known. For instance you might like to have vehicle signage, billboards and banners. These marketing options allow you to use your identity to show customers that you offer something that they need.

Create a Brand that works for you
With so many options of gaining attention for your product/service, you need a Brand that stands out from the crowd. After all, this is what your customers will think of when they hear/see your name.

Manage your Brand to ensure that you get the best results
By working closely with you a Brand Agency will be able to develop strategies which will ensure that your message is clear, consistent and most of all catchy both in the short term and long term.

Whether you are a new or existing business, hiring a Brand Agency will provide you the assistance you need to create your unique business personality with a whole new design or a refreshed version of your existing Brand.

For a more in-depth review, Jag offers a free, no-obligation personal assessment of your existing or proposed new brand.

What Can Branding Do For Your Business?

Not only is branding about your target market choosing you over your competition, it is about giving potential clientele a solution to their issue, by providing a trusted brand.

With a clear branding strategy your customers will be able to remember your business through your logo / image and/or your brand name. If your customers come across a shelf full of products, which all appear to do the same thing, but they recognise your branding and therefore purchase your product, you have gained the trust of that customer. If they are happy with the product you also gain brand loyalty, not to mention that they will most likely recommend your product on to their friends and colleagues.

Branding also tells your customers that you are serious enough about your business, as you have spent time and money on producing a brand that represents your business and it’s products / services. People tend to stick to brands that they know and trust and because of this they want to be reassured that you are in this business for the long haul and not just for the next five minutes.

Branding produces an image of your business. Let’s say you sell toothpaste and you have established a brand, but let’s imagine your ‘branded’ toothpaste sitting on a shop shelf next to a ‘non branded’ version of your toothpaste. Here we have a scenario that is offering exactly the same product but just different packaging. The customers are going to think that the ‘branded’ version is of a better and higher quality than that of your ‘non branded’ version - when really they are the same product.

Another great thing about branding is that it allows you to associate your different products. If customers know your brand, they are more likely to purchase other products in your range, because they associate it with another product they know works for them.

In order to get a branding strategy that works for your business, it’s a good idea to employ the services of a brand consultant. They will be able to assist you in defining what it is that you want to achieve for your business.

Brand Development - Where to Start

Successful brand development involves developing a brand identity which when delivered in marketing & advertising campaigns, will express your company’s unique personality, purpose and values to your potential clientele. Your brand must intrigue your customers immediately; it needs to make them want to know more about your offering. Clear consistent branding is a powerful marketing tool for your business. 

You need to remember that in today’s age your potential customers have access to a range of avenues in order to find out all that they can about your products and your competitors. This provides them with many choices of price, quality and functionality of the product / service you have on offer. It is because of this that you need to create the most powerful brand identity that you can, so that your customers recognise & trust you.

The beginning of a good business starts with establishing your core values and enforcing these values within the organisation, from the way that you deliver your service / product to your customers right through to the actions of the business owners. Upon establishing these important values for your business you can start the brand development process. This process involves in depth research to analyse main factors such as:

Target audience
These are the people you are trying to sell too, the ones who need or want your offering. Brand development will help you establish what their needs and wants are. By knowing these things you can target your advertising campaigns and marketing strategies towards your relevant audience, which makes your Return on Investment (ROI) higher, than that of a non targeted campaign.

Industry competition
These are your competitors that you need to get market share from. A branding agency will help you to research who these companies are and what they are doing that you could do better. 

Industry history vs today’s standings
This will help you gauge what other companies have experienced in the past in your industry, compared to what is available today. Things like seasonal changes can alter the number of sales that you can expect and by looking over the history of your industry you will be able to get a better grasp on where your company stands.

Organisation goals
This will help you to realise what your goals are for your business. Brand Development makes you think about where you want to go with your product / service in the future. It’s important to have goals in the business world to enable you to work harder and strive for what you want.

Whilst there are many more aspects that the brand development process includes, this will give you a starting point. Don’t be afraid to jot down ideas - perhaps a list of needs and wants for your organisation and then talk to a brand development consultant, who will help you put all of your ideas into a brand that works for you.

3 common misconceptions about branding

What return on investment does branding offer, if anything?
Years of experience have left me in no doubt that a good brand is essential for business performance -- it’s the one thing that most organisations can change to make themselves more successful.
But the biggest obstacle is that most people don’t really understand what a brand is – there are too many misconceptions about branding, its value and the return on investment a good brand provides.

Here are three of the most common misconceptions.

Misconception number 1: “Branding is overrated”.
Many of the business owners or managers I speak to tell me that branding isn’t as important as delivering a good quality product or service at a fair price.
In a perfectly logical world this would make sense. But the research tells us that people make buying decisions based on gut reaction (in other words, buying decisions are based on emotions, not logic).
A good brand is the key to triggering a positive emotional reaction and feelings of attachment in your customers and prospects.
Providing a good product or service at the right price is a given – you need to do that just to be in the game. Winning the game comes down to the gut reaction your customers have towards you, which is where your brand comes into play

Misconception number 2: “We already have a logo”.
This may be so, but your logo is not your brand. Your logo alone will only have a very minor influence on the emotional reaction of your customers.
As an important element of your brand, your logo must naturally be professional, creative, engaging and unique – it must accurately reflect the personality and culture of your organisation.
Branding is influenced by multiple elements, including what you say and how you say it, your web presence, the colours you use, how your staff interact with people, the look of your premises – branding is the sum total of experiences that any one person has with your business, its products, its service and its people.

3. Misconception number 3: “We just don’t have the budget right now”.
Perhaps one of the reasons you don’t have the budget right now is because your branding (or lack of) is costing your business.
Branding is the foundation upon which your business and its success are built. A weak foundation is always going to leave you scrambling.
If you limit your branding, you are limiting your sales, your reputation, your aspirations and your turnover because they are all fuelled – positively or negatively – by your brand.
We all do business with people we know and like. If your brand doesn’t leave customers feeling like they know you or like you, well then…

Conclusion
Branding will have an effect on everyone who comes into contact with your brand.
This effect will often determine if that person will do business with you, refer your services, enhance your reputation, recommend you or simply do repeat business with you.

There is simply no bigger priority for your business.

SmartSpace Branding and Packaging

Round the world solo yachtsman Graham Dalton has had plenty of time to come up with good ideas. Sitting in the cabin of his yacht he got to thinking about how pots and pans could be rectangular rather than round. This way they would take up a lot less space in cramped areas such as a galley, a camper-van or todays more common small city apartments.

Brother of Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton, Graham saw an opportunity in the market for space-saving rectangular cookware that would let sailors, campervan owners and apartments dwellers take advantage of the limited space available in these environments.

After more than two years of planning, Graham has designed the pots to maximise the available space on a small stove as well as stack inside each other for easy efficient storage. He has registered global patents for the new sets of pots and pans to be sold under the SmartSpace brand.

GardyneHOLT worked with Graham to develop the SmartSpace brand and design the packaging and marketing collateral for the launch. Within a week of the pots hitting retail shelves, stores around the country had already run out of stock and they were calling Graham to order more. The big plan is to go global within the next 5 years.

Do you have a unique selling point?

How much time do you spend worrying about a unique selling point? I had an interesting discussion with a colleague today about that concept. What we realised was that there are some businesses that cannot claim a genuine unique selling point.

Quality service - check, knowledgeable people - check, good customer service - check, the list goes on. So many companies claim these features, but some are missing the point, rather than looking for the golden goose, why not focus on what you can control, and how much more effective these services can be delivered.

As the conversation went on the level of detail became quite granular, to the point we realised that a small chain of events could cause some major issues if it broke, and those had a direct effect on the goals of the business owner . . . ding the light goes on. The ripple effect is so destructive, unless you get it under control, before you know it there may not be an answer - this can lead to a loss of clients, money, confidence and above all cause damage to your brand.

So think about what really affects the success of your business, I bet you can control more than you realise!

You've got a great product, but no one is buying it?

There are many businesses, large and small who have some amazing products. Often it may either be difficult to get them onto retail shelves, or if they have, they may not be selling very well because the branding needs a refresh. On the other hand, you may be trying to sell them online, but not achieving the sales you had hoped for.

There can be many reasons for this and most often, it is the presentation of your product and how it looks, what type of audience it is appealing to, and whether the contents and the branding are appealing to the same audience it was intended.

Whether you like it or not, people will always judge a book by the cover, and therefore, your presentation on your packaging needs to look professional and credible. It needs to stand out from all the others, be visually attractive and convey the visual message that the customer is looking for.

By making a relatively small investment into having your packaging professionally designed can be the ultimate difference between selling all your products - or not. Or having them in retail stores - or not.

The process of engaging a professional designer is ensuring they have experience in both designing packaging and in brand development at a professional level. Your packaging IS your brand and therefore the consistency of your brand, the way it is applied and the quality of your products are all a reflection of your brand.

So, do you have a good brand - or not so good? If it is the latter, you need to get in touch with a professional brand and packaging designer so that you can start the journey of getting your products off the shelves and into shopping trolleys.

What’s the Difference Between Advertising and Marketing?

Many people tend to confuse the meanings of advertising and marketing, and it’s easy to see why. The ultimate aim of them both is to heighten consumer awareness of your product or service in order to create a loyal user group and increase sales. But what’s the difference between the two?

Advertising
Advertising is the form of communicating the benefits of your product or service in order to persuade potential clientele, that they need what you have on offer. There are many forms of advertising - more common forms are TV, print and radio advertisements, however web based avenues are becoming increasingly more popular, with the likes of Pay Per Click Campaigns and Banner Ad’s. 

Marketing
All your customers want to know is: Why should I choose you? Why should I spend money on your product / service? Marketing provides the answers to those questions by tapping into precise psychological triggers, in order for sales to begin before the salesman makes the call. It’s the planning, implementation and control of communicating, delivering and exchanging your service or product offerings. Marketing is the process as a whole, whereas advertising is just part of that process which also includes branding, research and pricing to name a few. 

So how do you get an advertising campaign and marketing plan established? Once you employ a advertising / marketing specialist, they can define the things which are important to you, as a business, and deliver a concept that is sharp, creative and strategically sound - something which will assist you in attracting new customers, whilst keeping your loyal customers more than satisfied. By working with you your specialist will be able to ascertain what your product / service appeal is, identify your target markets, explore growth strategies and form your current and future communication needs. It doesn’t matter whether your business is new or existing, you will need a marketing plan, whether it be something extravagant or something minor, all it needs to do is get your message out to your clients.

So it’s fair to say that advertising could not work without a marketing plan, it’s merely one small part of the bigger marketing picture and without marketing your business would not reach all of your potential clients, therefore the success of your business would be hindered.

Why Starbucks' Logo Change Doesn't Equate to Brand Change

This is a segment from an article written by by Carl Johnson Published: January 19, 2011 on adage.com, it is an important statement that is often misunderstood, not only by those procurring branding services, but for those delivering a new brand.

"Trademarks can take several forms: words or "brand names," such as Starbucks; logos and designs, such as Starbucks' siren; slogans and taglines, such as Campbell's M'm! M'm! Good!; product and packaging configurations, such as the shape of Goldfish crackers.

A brand, meanwhile, is the sum total of brand elements and equities, and in short is the promise a company makes to its customers. A brand encompasses its trademark, and can include other brand elements such as logos, slogans, graphic designs and packaging. A brand also incorporates a wide range of marketing decisions, such as competitive positioning, target users, and pricing, which influence consumer associations with a brand and contribute to the constellation of values and imagery, or equities, that the brand represents."

Food for thought!

Why should a company consider a rebranding exercise?

There seems to be some discussion around the value of rebranding recently concerning some fairly well known companies including Starbucks and Gap.

Now as a branding company we have a vested interest in the need for these services, however it is not a task undertaken lightly. The backlash about the Gap rebrand was so strong that they retracted the design and cast it aside. The amount of time and money invested in the development of that new brand was based on the desire of the company rather than the impact on the end consumer.

A statement from the company summed up their own ignorance; "we were suprised at the reaction of the consumer, internally we liked it!". Now you don't have to be in branding to realise how rediculous this statement is.

The evolution of a brand isn't just about the little picture on your business card, it is about the culture of the company that you can build around that logo. Businesses develop so quickly nowadays that changes are almost a necessity. An example is an online company that we recently worked with to 'update' their brand.

They had a passion for their current logo but felt is didn't really represent what they were and what they wanted to be. With the update in the visual comes an update in their offering and therefore how your current clients and potential clients view you.

When considering rebranding think about the story you are trying to tell, it's not about what you personally like, it's about telling your story in a way that you can engage with your clients - both internal and external. Get the company involved but be assertive, ask for outside help and drive it forward.