THE POWER OF BRAND
When some people hear the word 'brand', they usually think of their favourite brands. But what they never do is take the time to think in detail about why it's their favourite brand and how it came to be. The truth is BRANDS DON'T JUST HAPPEN! Everything about your favourite brand is carefully planned and structured to make it appeal directly to you or whoever its intended audience is.
At a base level, your brand tells people who you are, what you do, what you stand for, how you're different from your competitors and why they should choose you over everyone else.
A brand is also way more than just a logo, a name or a slogan. The name NIKE, its swoosh logo and its slogan JUST DO IT, meant nothing when it was first created. It's what NIKE did after that point (how and what it communicated and to who) that attached the meaning to it that it has today.
So how can you expect to achieve success if you don't make a plan for your brand?
Survive specialises in helping you formulate, understand and articulate your brand's strategy and how best to communicate it to your potential and current customers and the world. We offer the following BRAND related services:
- Brand Strategy
- Brand Architecture
- Brand Positioning
- Brand Naming
- Brand Identity
- Brand Alignment & Engagement
An outline of what's included within each service area can be reviewed below, including guidance on who each service is best suited to.
BRAND STRATEGY
Brand strategy can be carried out for:
- Business or Corporate Brands - the brand of a business or corporate entity (sometimes referred to as the 'Umbrella' or 'Family' brand)
- Product or Service Brands - a brand for a consumer good or a brand for a service offering
- Personal or Personality Brands - the brand of an individual or celebrity
Brand strategy includes everything from a brand's architecture, vision and positioning, to defining how people engage with it, what its called and the way it looks and feels. It also extends to optimisation of a portfolio of brands and aligning internal behaviours with brand values. Each brand service area is detailed below.
BRAND ARCHITECTURE
We review the structure of brands within your business/company, looking at:
- the way these brands are related to and are different from each other
- how any sub-brands relate to the corporate/parent brand and how they can support each other
- how best to optimise your portfolio of brands
- what the appropriate brand architecture is for your business/company, for example:
- a Branded House approach where the one corporate/parent brand is used across all areas like Virgin (Virgin Money, Virgin Music, Virgin Air, Virgin Mobile, etc.)
- a House of Brands approach where any sub-brands are all branded independently with no connect to their corporate/parent brand (Bunnings, Coles, OfficeWorks, Kmart or Target are all branded with no connection to their parent company Wesfarmers).
- a Hybrid or Endorsed Brands approach where the flexibility is maintained to choose whether or not to use the parent company brand to endorse its sub-brands (Toyota endorses the Lexus brand)
Suitable for:
- Businesses with multiple brands or plans for multiple brands
- Businesses looking to review and optimise their portfolio of brands
Brand Architecture is undertaken on a project basis. For more information, please contact us.
BRAND POSITIONING
A brand's positioning is the single most critical piece of planning we can do for your brand. This includes:
- Vision - defining the overarching vision for the brand i.e. what you're striving to achieve as part of the bigger picture
- Brand Proposition - defining how the brand intends to achieve that vision compared to its competitors
- Brand Messaging - generating the basic messages for the brand to communicate to its audiences in simple and easy to understand language
- Reasons to Believe - identifying the key reasons and supporting messages as to why your target audience should believe what you're saying you can do, will do or currently do
- Tagline - a short catch phrase used by a brand or business that summarises its mission and/or the product and services it offers
- Brand Personality - defining how your brand should act and what characteristics or personality traits your brand should possess and embody i.e. what type of personality would your brand have if it were a person e.g. smart, engaging, professional, etc.
- Brand Voice & Tone - defining how your brand should sound when it comes to communicating e.g. authentic, personable, enthusiastic, etc.
- Brand Values - defining and communicating to your customers what they can expect from you, in combination with determining the guiding principles around how people who work for the brand should naturally behave e.g. fairness, creativity, trustworthiness, etc.
Suitable for:
- Businesses looking to define and differentiate their brand from their competitors
- Businesses of any size and at any stage of development e.g. start-up or established
- Businesses looking to create a new brand
- Businesses looking to reposition an existing brand
- Businesses with one or more brands
- Businesses with a complex portfolio of brands
- Businesses looking to optimise their portfolio of brands
Brand Positioning is undertaken on a project basis. For more information, please contact us.
BRAND NAMING
Whether it's creating a name for a new brand or renaming an existing brand, we interpret your brand positioning (see above) to help formulate the right name for your brand. This includes an exploration of different creative approaches to generate a name, as well as determining its availability from a business/company name, trademark and domain name perspective.
Suitable for:
- New business start-ups
- Businesses looking to create a new brand
- Businesses looking to rename an existing brand
Brand Naming is undertaken on a project basis. For more information, please contact us.
BRAND IDENTITY
A brand identity does just as it says - it helps people to identify your brand!
When it comes to developing a brand identity, an understanding of the brand's positioning (see above) is CRUCIAL. Why? Because it's these visual elements that will identify and distinguish a brand in the mind of a consumer/customer. Our Brand Identity services include:
- Identity design - the development of a brand's assets i.e. a logo, logo marque and selection of primary colour palettes and primary fonts, etc.
- Brand look and feel - a broader sense of the brand including the development of secondary brand elements, secondary colour palettes, photography styles and mood boards and how they might be applied and interpreted using reference points such as what a business card, letterhead or template might look like
- Brand guidelines - a published set of guidelines on the do's and don'ts when it comes to implementing and using the brand's assets with the goal of creating and maintaining brand consistency across everything you do
- Application of the brand - the development and implementation of the brand identity based on your requirements e.g. designing business cards, letterhead, Word templates, presentation templates, sales presentations, brochures and collateral, websites, mobile apps, newsletters, email templates, posters, signage, wall graphics, retail stores, exhibition stands, banners, point-of-sale materials and more.
Suitable for:
- New business start-ups
- Businesses looking to create a new brand
- Businesses looking to refresh an existing brand
Brand Identity development is undertaken on a project basis. For more information, please contact us.
BRAND ALIGNMENT & ENGAGEMENT
Brand alignment and engagement is focused on your employees and its about ensuring that when they engage with each other or with potential or existing customers, that they behave in a way that is aligned with your brand's values - everyone has to walk the talk! Brand engagement services we offer include:
- Cultural Alignment & Values - working with your employees, we define what brand values are appropriate given the goals of the business, the brand's position and the type of work environment and culture you want to create
- Internal Brand Behaviours - together we define what is 'on-brand' behaviour (behaviours that ARE aligned with the brand's values) and what is 'off brand' behaviour (behaviours that are NOT aligned with the brand's values)
- System & Policy Review - working with your HR/People & Culture/Management teams, we review your current systems and policies and then integrate brand considerations, objectives and metrics into each of them. For example:
- Recruitment - recruiting people that exhibit behaviours and values that are consistent with the brand will reduce poor hiring choices
- Induction - educating new employees on expected internal brand behaviours up-front will set the platform for a greater chance of success and understanding on the new employees behalf
- Performance Management - setting objectives and integrating KPIs that are related to brand's values will encourage 'on-brand' behaviour and deter 'off-brand' behaviour
- Rewards & Recognition - putting in place initiatives that reward and recognise people who exhibit exceptional 'on-brand' behaviour
- Training & Development - designing training and people development initiatives that help develop and strengthen 'on-brand' behaviours
- Launch - the launch, roll-out and communication of internal brand engagement programs across the business e.g. workshops, training, communications, etc.
Suitable for:
- Businesses looking to align internal behaviours with customer expectations
- Businesses wanting to clearly communicate values and expectations externally
- Businesses wanting to build culture while driving internal engagement
- New business start-ups who want to get everything right from the 'get go'
Brand Engagement is undertaken on a project basis. For more information, please contact us.