It’s always a good place to start with the very rules and fundamentals of something, and that’s where we’ll begin this blog post, with the definition of “brand”. There are numerous definitions that exist, but we’ve tried to boil it down to 5 key points. A brand is…

• More than a colour palette and logo, a brand is a perceived experience

• How all of the parts of a company work together to create an image 

• An idea, a gut feeling and a story that lives in your customer’s mind 

• An emotional experience that your customer has when they interact with you on any level

• A promise your customer believes in 

Our creative manager likes to think that, to quote Ronan Keating, a brand is what your company says when you say nothing at all!

THE EXPERTS

Wally Olins, known as the father of territory branding, once said: “If branding can, in its strange, illogical, emotional way, encourage people to develop a close rapport with soft drinks, hamburgers and running shoes, what will it be able to do when its power is released for genuinely significant and worthwhile activities?” Take a look at our blog about brands taking a stand here.

A renowned branding specialist, Marty Neumeier, the author of one of the most famous brand books out there: The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance between Business Strategy and Design, famously said that:

“A brand is not a logo. A brand is not an identity. A brand is not a product. A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service or organisation.”

SCIENCE

As Neumeier described, a brand is much more than a logo or colour palette…a brand should be seen as the intersection between art and science.

There is always science, method and purpose behind the design of a logo and colour choice…they aren’t just random decisions. A brand is more than just a visual exploration, it’s a carefully curated identity, and we have to look at science and research to understand how our brand should interact with the wider world.

WINE TASTING

You’re probably reading this and wondering how wine tasting connects to branding. Well it’s all to do with perception…

Neuroscientist Liane Schmidt conducted a study on the link between the price of wine and it’s taste. Schmidt recruited more than 50 students, who were given various wines in an MRI machine and asked to grade them on a 9 point scale 

Before consuming, volunteers were shown the bottle and the associated price before consuming, with the twist being that all of the wine was exactly the same.

The results?

As would be expected, the more expensive the bottle of wine, the better the score. But this wasn’t just opinion, the more expensive the wine, the more activity was recorded in medial prefrontal cortex and the ventral striatum, proving that our brains actively change perception (taste) when confronted with a stimulus (price). Remember our first point about a brand being a perceived experience?

THE IMPORTANCE OF A BRAND

So we’ve understood what a brand is, but just how important is it? Take a look at some of these statistics…

• 86% of consumers say that authenticity is a key factor when deciding what brands they like and support

• 81% of consumers said that they need to be able to trust the brand in order to buy from them

• Using a signature colour can increase brand recognition by 80%

• It takes 0.05 seconds for people to form an opinion about your website

• Consistent presentation of a brand has seen to increase revenue by 33%

• 66% of consumers think transparency is the most attractive quality 

• 64% of consumers state they would buy from a brand or boycott it solely because of its position on a social or political issue

• 73% of consumers cite customer experience as an important factor in their purchasing decisions

• 77% of consumers buy from brands who share the same values as them

• 79% of people say that user generated content highly impacts their purchasing decisions

EVERYTHING IS BRANDED

Last but not least, everything is branded. Everything that you touch, everything that you see, everything that you hear is branded. 

Even when you don’t actively contribute towards your brand you are still developing a brand…that pixelated logo on your website and 30-second loading time all contribute psychologically to your audience’s perception of your company. Even by saying nothing, you are saying everything.

GET IN TOUCH

If you’re interested in speaking to our experienced team to discover how we can help your brand tell your story, align your vision, unearth your values and put what you stand for at the front of everything you say and do, then get in touch today.