Effective branding is important: Why branding helps your business

What is branding?

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, branding is “the act of making a product, organisation, person, or place easy to recognise as different from others by connecting it with a particular name, design, symbol, set of qualities etc.” Simple right? Not really!

Whilst ‘branding’ may have once been known as a way to tell one person's cattle from another by means of a long piece of hot metal with a special design or logo at the end - it has come to mean so much more. A 'brand' in the modern sense is built on expectation and experience. In its simplest form, it is the associations people make when they see, hear or think of your business or product.

What does branding look like?

whilst a brand often includes a logo, it is also defined by specific fonts, colour schemes, symbols, and even sound. All of these elements are developed to collectively represent core values, ideas, and even personality or tone of voice.

A brand also includes how you present yourself to your clients or customers, how you answer the telephone, the signage at the main entrance to your office or shop front, any promotional items or banners, the uniforms your staff wear, any promotional items, newsletters or banners that are used internally and externally. Together, all of these elements form the basis of your overall brand, i.e., branding.

In contrast, a logo on its own is just a part of a brand, not the whole brand identity. A logo is the graphical element, symbol, or icon that, together with its logotype (text which is set in a unique typeface or arranged in a particular way) forms a trademark or identifying mark to represent your brand.

An example of effective branding

An example of a business that does branding very well is Coca-Cola, which belongs to the Coca-Cola Company. Brands were originally created by marketing and advertising people in large companies, such as Coca-Cola, to seduce customers to buy their products by creating and projecting colourful but simple ideas clearly, again and again.

Their adverts first appeared in 1914 and helped promote Coca-Cola as a "delicious, refreshing, thirst-quenching" drink. Coca-Cola has subsequently been associated with the creation of Santa Claus' red and white outfit following a series of annual advertising campaigns during the 1920s and 1930s. The Coca-Cola Santa Claus created by artist Haddon Sunblom had its debut in 1931 in The Saturday Evening Post and is not too dissimilar to the current version of a cheery, red-faced St. Nicholas we have now. He was deliberately dressed in the Coca-Cola colours of red and white, an image that still resonates today and demonstrates the power of branding and associated advertising.

The genius lay not so much in inventing the product, or even in manufacturing and distributing it, but in communicating a simple, frequently exaggerated statement about the product again and again. Coca-cola consistently promotes the quality of its products as part of its brand values to convey confidence and trust to the audience which stands confidently today.

Why is branding so important?

In a highly competitive and visual-led marketplace, the look, styling and tone of your brand identity are essential. It should reflect the personality, ethos and spirit of your organisation while visually appealing to a wide audience. The power of branding derives from a curious mixture of how it performs and what it stands for. When a brand gets the mix right, it makes us (the people who buy their products) feel that it adds something to our idea of ourselves.

In a world that is buzzing with competitive noise, in which rational choice has become almost impossible, effective branding represents clarity, reassurance, consistency, trust and membership. Basically, everything that enables a human being to help define themselves. Brands represent personal identity.

What makes your branding successful?

A brand's success relies on the repetitive delivery of a consistent message. It is typically designed to cause immediate recognition by the viewer, inspiring trust, admiration, loyalty and an implied superiority. Therefore, the most important aspects of branding your business can be summarised as:

• Consistency

• Instant recognition

• Desirability

• Repetition

Why do you need your branding to be consistent and repetitive? Well, if you repeat something often enough, people will believe the messages that you are communicating.

You can see that the Coca-Cola brand is powerful because they have successfully repeated the look and feel of their brand identity by using consistent fonts, colours and graphical elements such as the graphical swoosh throughout all their product ranges and advertising campaigns. It’s clear that they have a solid set of brand guidelines, as their branding is instantly recognisable.

Creating and sustaining trust is what branding, above everything else, is all about. The best and most successful brands are completely coherent. Every aspect of what they do and what they are, reinforces everything else.

A successful, consistent brand identity will distinguish and give recognition to your organisation as well as create a 'desirability' factor for existing and potential new customers, employees, supporters and stakeholders.

Need help with your branding?

Branding your business can feel overwhelming, but that’s why agencies like JUMP are here to help you. We are here for a reason. That reason being that we’re experts in bringing brands - like yours - to life! We are also experts at making sure your branding is cohesive, and essentially does everything needed to become a well respected and memorable brand.

Are you ready to transform your brand? If so, get in touch with our expert team.