Why do some companies immediately spring to mind and others don’t? Is it the product, the service, or a great PR team?
Each company has a brand, a reputation, an image that we see when we think about them. This image relates to their mission and values and is what employees, customers and investors all buy into defining the company. A clearly expressed brand image creates a sense of unity and credibility behind a company’s cause giving it greater influence, control, and higher profits within the market.
Here are the 5 key ingredients for building an authoritative brand image:
1. Brand Design
A brand design is artwork, company logos, colours, animals, the product itself, anything visual. The purpose of brand design is to express the company’s vision and values inspiring and motivating people around the company and its cause.
When creating a brand design, consistency and simplicity are key. Making sure the design communicates one clear message helps people to understand the brand.
Haribo is a great example of a brand whose design is anchored to its mission of inspiring childlike happiness. The consistent use of vibrant colours, childlike imagery and rhyme creates an association of childhood fun with its brand.
A consistent brand design gives a brand greater validation and trust.
Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate bars epitomise this having used their signature purple and gold packaging since 1920.
Milk chocolate is incredibly nostalgic as a result of being enjoyed as a popular childhood treat for over 100 years. Cadburys uses this nostalgia, and magnifies it by keeping its product and packaging consistent. Resulting, in the design being strongly associated with reward, happiness and success.
2. Seamless and Holistic Communication
How you communicate your company’s vision and values is the most important factor for creating a successful brand.
Brands that communicate in a simple, consistent, engaging way we find easiest to understand and relate to. The Planet Earth TV series is a great example of this. It manages to engage PHD professors, people who have never studied biology before and everyone in between.
The reason for this is storytelling. We all love a story because it taps into our imagination sparking empathy which lets us understand what’s going on through our emotions. When we hear Sir David Attenborough narrating a killer whale chasing down a mother penguin, we attach ourselves to one of these characters (usually the penguin) and for a moment we really feel their struggle to escape and get back to their chick.
This is the same for the best brands where it’s difficult to think of their brand without thinking of their story. Look at Gymshark, founded by a 19-year-old out of his parents’ garage with a dream about changing the world by sharing his passion for fitness. When people buy the gym clothing, they buy a piece of this inspiring story, they get to live their dream through the brand.
3. Well Targeted Marketing Messages
Targeting the right people with the right stuff allows your brand to come across more genuinely. A dodgy mechanic who charges customers extra for work they don’t need on their cars is not only wasting everyone’s time, but when a customer finds out they’ve been deceived that mechanic’s reputation will be ruined.
The same goes for spamming irrelevant contacts with marketing emails. Sending out thousands of generic emails to anyone hoping that someone is interested is a quickfire way to end up in the junk folder, blacklisted with zero credibility.
The key to well targeted marketing messages is knowing who you are talking to, why they are relevant and how you can help them.
Finding this information involves reaching out and building connections within the industry. Having good network connections allows you to better understand the market and make better decisions when it comes to targeting new clients.
Building connections comes down to knowing your brand, what you can offer and what you need. Reaching out online via Linkedin is the quickest way to build professional connections.
Or in the PR world, Roxhill Media’s Journalists Profile Search allows you to quickly find the right journalists to approach.
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4. Understanding Customer Pain Points
Creating an authoritative brand relies on a company’s ability to solve its customers problems. Identifying your customers main issues allows you to deliver the right solutions.
Customer pain points occur where the value of the product/service does not meet their expectations.
Expectations will vary between customers and tend to increase over time. It’s important to recognise which expectations can and can’t be met.
If a customer signs up for a gym class with the expectation that they will get a six pack from it and afterwards they don’t. They will most likely feel disappointed and won’t recommend the class to others or do it again.
Overpromising and underdelivering is not a great reputation to have and will most likely result in customers losing trust in the brand and looking elsewhere.
5. Using Social Media to Build Communities
Social media is a useful, cost-effective tool for growing your brand. Social networks such as facebook, linkedin, twitter and Instagram are all free to use and allow you to quickly find the right people and companies to connect with to start building your online community.
Building a community takes time and requires regular active engagement with your audience. It is also important to note that whilst keeping your audience engaged is a priority, maintaining a strong authentic brand and sticking to the company’s values must come first.
Social Media trends are a great way to boost engagement and increase brand exposure. Off the back of the #MeToo movement, Gillette launched its #TheBestMenCanBe campaign with a short video aiming to tackle toxic masculinity and sexual harassment. This created a lot of controversy around the campaign and the subject of masculinity. Social media blew up and Gillette gained a large amount of brand awareness.
However, the trend must be relevant to your brand and your community. Tenuous or inappropriate connections to your brand can cause PR disasters. Adidas made the unfortunate mistake of sending an email congratulating runners who had “Survived” the Boston Marathon 4 years after a bomber had killed three people at the same event. Leading to Adidas’s brand going viral on social media for the wrong reasons.
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