Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. – Elon Musk
The success of any brand depends not on quality but on the ‘perception of quality’. In other words, a brand that makes people consistently believe that it offers most premium quality products enjoys the greatest market share. Perception of quality is exactly what branding does (or exactly what branding is). Let’s dive deeper and understand how Branding is a magic wand for new brands, well-established brands as well as for a brand idea that is cooking in someone’s head right now. If your brand falls in any of the categories, you’d sure want to keep the foundational laws of branding up your ally. Say no more, we got you! Here are 10 branding laws which when applied strategically and creatively, would brighten up your brand image in the market like never before. Let’s get started:e human nature.
1. A brand should know no borders.
Expanding your product line across the world is the need of the hour. Reaching out to more people exposes your brand to more potential audiences, thereby strengthening the presence of your product. With the advent of technology and increased preference for e-shopping, expanding globally is a win-win for the brand as well the customer. Rebranding your start-up or business to fit the global customer’s emotional, physiological, demographic expectations is of paramount importance. Here is where creative agencies like Vowels come into the picture. Apart from providing research-based strategies and deep market analysis to shield you against market challenges, we also hand-hold you throughout the process while paving the way for your global and domestic success, long term as well as short-term.
2. Promotions keep a brand afloat
Saturated market demands promotions and advertisements to ensure the smooth sailing of business. Whether it is direct advertising or indirect advertising, making people see your brand logo, listen to your brand name, see the product you are selling, understand what you believe in, etc. is important. The primary benefit of advertising is that the visual and hearing senses of the customer gradually familiarise with your brand and the next time they go shopping – online or offline and spot the same brand logo, brand colours, etc. which they saw in the advertisement, they would be mentally open to picking your product up against all the other options available.
3. Hues and Dimensions
Brand name is the face of the brand and so is the logo. Choosing the shape of the logo to filling in the right brand colours and picking a typography style which is easily readable is supremely important. Logo building done right is 40% branding done right. It is advisable to keep your brand colours distinctively different from your competitors. Take Netflix for example. The red colour of its logo was not just a random pick. Red, as a matter of fact, is a colour of deep feelings, and high levels of energy. On the other hand, orange stands for playfulness and friendliness. Blue brings in a feeling of peace and like so, every colour has a different meaning that plays a major role in setting the brand tone and vibe. With an eye for detail, an unsurpassable expertise in logo creation and a thorough understanding of every specific brand, Vowels has established itself as the leading creative agency with special expertise in branding.
If you are working on a new startup or rebranding an existing one, look no further for all your branding needs. Whether it is a logo redesign, a website redesign, powerful packaging, refreshed messaging, or a complete brand makeover, it’s time you get in touch with professional branding agencies like Vowels to make your vision come
4. Singularity
Be ready to portray your product as different. Creating an impression that your product is something that people have never seen or experienced should be the first step to introducing your brand. All the successful brands have deployed this branding tool to spread their magic across their respective markets. Setting yourself apart from others is the route to becoming “the brand” which not only people talk about but also aspire to own. This encompasses sharing a unique brand story with the audiences. A very simple contrast to understand this: A fabric company portraying themselves as nothing more than fabric sellers VS another fabric company portraying themselves as revivers of natural regional crafts and supporters of craftsmanship. Both these companies may be selling the same quality, same designs but the latter would become the beneficiary of greater customer attention and patronage, all on the back of a solid brand image. Sharing the brand image is crucial but knowing how to make the sharing look effortless is an elusive art – one that professional creative agencies hone.
5. Keep it short and clean
The law of “More The Merrier” has led to failure of brands, time and again, across different geographies. More products with different variants deteriorates the brand image. The brand image shouldn’t be cluttered in the customer’s minds. It should be as crystal clear as possible. A brand with a one line description in customer’s mind about how it solves their problem or serves them better — this is something that has proved to be a game changer for brands then and now: Amazon, Starbucks, Volvo, Rolex, etc. While Starbucks could be all about confectionaries and baked goodies, it purely only focused on coffee. That’s how when people think about Starbucks, they think about coffee and what’s even more victorious is that it also works vice versa.
6. Conquer The Senses: Conquer The Shelves
Conquering all the senses of the target audience is the secret recipe to conquering the shelves. With the visual senses (eyes) being the most powerful influence on decision making, aesthetically and professionally created advertisement is every brand’s pot of gold. While they may not remember the brand name so vividly while they are out shopping, the brand colours and the logo stay saved in their visual memory.
Brand logo, brand colours and the overall brand’s look and feel play an important role while you are trying to maximise customer attention via advertising. Hence, marketers stress on consistent packaging across all touch points so it is easy for the customer to connect the dots and identify the product.
7. The Leader Mentality
Smart brands don’t portray themselves as better than other brands. They simply portray themselves as the leader. For instance: BMW portrays itself as “The Ultimate Driving Machine”, Burger King uses the tagline: “The Home of the Whooper”. When the branding is based on the Leader Mentality, a perception is created in the customer’s minds that the brand is elite and premium. As a matter of fact, everyone in their head wants to own the best, wear the best, use the best. If they don’t already use your product, their ego and inner drive makes them want to raise their standards and own it.
8. Higher Price; Higher Brand Image
Selling your products and services at a higher price is another significant way used by brands to set the Perception of Quality. Intangible emotions like pride and prestige are physiological terms that brand experts and creative agencies understand deeply. It is these feelings that overpower the customer’s decision while he is least aware of them. Humans are driven by reputation in society. As discussed earlier, when the brand image is set higher, the customer aspires to upgrade and provide better to himself and his family. Rolls Royce, Rado are examples of such brands.
9. The branding of brand name is unmissable
At general shops, people sometimes are heard saying “Give me a packet of duracell”. This is an indication that the brand’s name has penetrated inside the consumer’s mind and it has become synonymous with pencil batteries. Domino’s has become synonymous with Pizza. Maggi has almost become synonymous with noodles. In short, the market leader of that product category becomes more than a brand name but starts coming off as a general name in people’s everyday conversations. And that’s the real magic of branding — to conquer and occupy their minds.
10. Humans Follow Humans
Human nature is such that if a consumer sees a crowd around your product or sees your product even in three people’s shopping carts, he would naturally tend to add your product to his cart. It’s exactly how a restaurant with queues of people waiting outside for a table continues getting more queues as people feel confident to go in a direction where other people are going – it is simpl true. We specialize in brand consultancy, strategy, brand guidelines, CI manual, brand presentation, and corporate branding. Just in case you are planning your new product launches or simply wanting to repackage already existing products with impressive content that strikes a chord, we’ve got you covered.
