IQ-Magazine-Issue-14

IQ business planning
BRANDING...
WHAT DOES
IT MEAN TO
YOU?
Sarah BRERETON, of Limewash, asks the important
question, what does branding mean to your business?
More Information
Contact Limewash on 01223 813557
www.limewashmedia.com
All too often, when thinking about branding, businesses simply
consider the logo and visual identity of the company, rather than
take a wider view. Of course, these pieces
of the jigsaw are important, but they are
the tangible elements that make up a
brand, rather than the brand itself. Truly
successful brands are built around much
more than just a logo, tagline or agreed
colour palette; and yet for many businesses
we meet, this is exactly what their brand
has become.
If it’s not my logo, what is it?
Your brand is actually the sum total of
everything you do - your proposition and
how it is delivered and communicated
to your customers on an ongoing basis;
the products you offer, how they work and the service you provide,
including the way in which everyone within your organisation
interacts with your customers on a daily basis, right down to their
telephone manner. All of these things and more add up to the way
in which a customer thinks and feels about your company and how
successfully they believe you service their needs.
Think of your brand in terms of a commitment, or promise to your
customers rather than a collection of visuals:
What are you committing to provide? How will you communicate
and then deliver on that commitment? Over time, how will your
commitment grow?
Once it’s done, it’s done…right?
For most businesses creating a brand identity that sums up exactly
who they are, what they do and how and why they do it is a task
undertaken at the start of their journey. Once complete, attention
then turns elsewhere. However, it is vital that business owners take
the time to re-examine and re-evaluate the components of the brand
regularly. What worked for you at the beginning, given the customer
groups you were targeting, may not work for you two or three years
down the line. Customers’ needs and wants change. Brands have
to strike a chord with the end customer to motivate them to take
action to buy the product or use the service and businesses that
don’t pay attention to the changing requirements – and changing
demographics – of their customers may well find brand loyalty a
hard thing to cultivate.
Unfortunately, in a lot of cases company brands are developed based
on an individual’s view, rather than considering what the brand is
trying to do and who it is trying to attract. In these scenarios, it is
always better to adapt the brand if it doesn’t epitomise everything
that the business stands for, rather than soldier on with a brand that
issue 14 | page 36