Why Brand Matters?
The term brand is literally flying around everywhere, we can’t go more than 10 minutes in the studio with someone not mentioning brand, phone rings and yep you’ve guessed it, a client wants to talk about brand, we log on to social media and there it is splattered everywhere, ‘brand this’, ‘brand that’, ‘developing a personal brand’ we are immersed quite literally in brands!
But when did we become so brand aware?
We have certainly seen a real shift in people’s perception and understanding of brand over the last 12 months or so maybe even more. At Grey Coffee we love nothing more than talking, developing, creating and designing brands it has something we have done for over 9 years now. We have had the privilege of working with some really great brands over the years and love to continue learning, listening and seeing how ‘brand’ and ‘brands’ evolve.
So what does the term ‘brand’ mean for you and your business? What is the most important or critical element of your brand? Is it your logo/wordmark, communication – tone of voice, narrative, values, consistency or even awareness?
If you don’t currently take your brand seriously then now’s the time to start, in the fast paced social world that we live in if your brand isn’t getting noticed, quite simply, it is going to get left behind…. And fast! Developing your brand, giving it real thought, and understanding why you do what you do will elevate your brand to levels of success that you’ve not experienced before.
At Grey Coffee we are normally approached with ‘a bag of brand bits’ there will def be a logo, some about us content, social profiles, maybe some packaging depending on the client and maybe some other bits too. The business is usually established however the business will have acknowledged that they are now at a point where by they need some help to develop their brand.
At this early stage of our process, we are able to make our own judgements of our clients brand, we can interact with it as a consumer, we can review and analyse it with our ‘brand hats’ on and we can start to build a picture and understanding of who and what the brand is.
This initial discovery then develops to a deeper brand investigation and we start to carry out brand workshops where by we invite key people within the business/brand to come and talk about the brand with us. These sessions are great because we start to address people’s understanding of the brand. We can also identify any areas they think are strengths or areas where the brand is performing really well, this naturally also presents the opportunity to discuss weaker areas of the brand too.
Most importantly all this discovery needs to be balanced with what consumers are saying about the brand. This is generally carried out in the form of research and provides us with invaluable consumer insight and perception.
The brand sessions that we carry out with our clients really start to enhance their understanding of brand and better still it gets people talking about brand, more importantly their brand!
As the process develops we discuss the existing brand estate and assets and how these need to be managed. Depending on the nature of the branding project, we may be working with our clients to develop their brand and in other cases we could be guiding them through a rebrand.
Whilst there is some theory involved throughout the process the approach is holistic, iterative and creative all at the same time. Working on your brand should be a truly eye opening experience and an opportunity to learn and develop your brand to heights it may have never been before.
So going back to our original question, what part of your brand is most important to you?
The answer quite simply should be all tangible and intangible parts of your brand that you and your customers interact with. Your brand naturally has to look great, communicate consistently, be a great story-teller and above all have values and quality that makes it stand out from the crowd.
At Grey Coffee we are extremely passionate brand designers and very much believe that the brand should be centric to every design project we undertake.
