The Aroma of a Strong Brand Idea
Nothing beats a killer idea. A product that intrigues people.
A service that gets a pesky job done well. A company with
a compelling esprit de corps.
Branding is about finding your big idea and creatively
attaching it to a product or company. The bottom line:
if you can’t explain your business idea in a short sentence
or two that wows people, you need to go back to the
drawing board.
Soft Power Strengths the Brand
There’s the bricks and the mortar, and the inventory of
goods – the hard stuff.
And there’s soft power – the brands, intellectual property,
reputation, design ideas, the marketing programs and
affiliations.
Branding is where so much of a company’s value lies
because it attracts people and builds customer loyalty.
Names that Engage Customers
The first branding decision you have to make is your name.
Names can make a big difference in today’s competitive, me-too marketplace. After all, which would you rather have, a Starbuck’s Frappuccino® or a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee? Vitamin Water or water?
A Full-Bodied Brand Persona
In many ways, brands are like people. And people are like brands. Something you can describe with a brand personality and personal style, with lifestyle preferences and proclivities.
That’s why part of brand development is creating a brand personality or brand personal. It helps in making all kinds of branding and marketing decisions, from the name to the logo design, from website graphics to its content, from product design and to the way your package a brand
A Compelling Verbal and Visual Identity
For my company, I wanted a name and identity to convey the power of branding to transform a product, company or person to a whole new dimension.
So I came up with the name, SelfBrand, and secured the website, www.selfbrand.com.
For the graphic visualization of the company identity, we used lower case letters in black for the “self” portion of the name(pre-branding), and all caps and multi-colors for the “brand” portion of the name (post branding).
I also wanted a visual “mark’ for the logo, and selected a box with a red dot outside it which could stand for “thinking outside the box.” The mark could represent a camera, or seeing things differently in branding, or it even could represent the letter “I” or person in self branding.
The New Marketing
What's spearheading dramatic change in branding today is Media 2.0. With the internet and digital technology, now there are thousands of media and marketing venues at every price point. The Media 2.0 world is dynamic – multidimensional and multisource with “crowdsourcing” and consumer involvement in your brand messages and news like never before.
Find Out More
Catherine Kaputa is a brand strategist, author and speaker on strong branding for growing companies and self-branding. Contact us if you'd like her to speak at your organization or work on a strategic branding project for your company or start-up.
212.662.4734
copyright SelfBrand LLC 2008
