How To Build a Strong Brand Identity

As competition soars high in the online marketing industry today, it becomes essential for retailers to create lifelong relationships with customers and connect with them emotionally. A strong brand stands out among competitors in the online marketplace. Thousands of brands exist in the market; however, people trust the brands they believe in. The success of a brand is defined by how its customers perceive the brand.

In this article, we discuss what it takes to create a strong brand identity to take you from where you are now.

What Defines a Strong Brand Identity?

To develop a strong brand, you need to identify the main components of brand identity which work together and strengthen one another. According to Harris and de Chernatony, 2001, the components are listed below.

1. Brand Vision - Unique core values behind the brand and to be embraced by the entire company.
2. Culture - Closely tied to brand vision and values and is the result of personal values and assumptions of individuals related to the brand.
3. Brand Positioning - Derived from the brand’s core values and vision. By positioning itself accordingly and targeting the right stakeholders, a brand can create a better identity.
4. Brand Personality - Defines the emotional traits associated with a brand.
5. Brand Relationships - Includes the relationships that are created between the brand and a variety of stakeholders.
6. Brand Presentation - Defines the way a brand is presented to match the values of the customer.

Building Blocks That Make a Strong Brand

A desire to lead, outpace the competition and give employees the best tools to reach customers are the reasons why companies leverage branding. The identity of a brand expresses itself in every touchpoint of the brand and becomes intrinsic to a company’s culture of its core values and heritage.

Listed below are a few ways you can use to create a strong representation for your brand in the marketplace.

• Strong Brands Reflect Company’s Value Proposition.

A brand’s value proposition includes the functional, emotional, and self-expressive benefits the brand delivers to provide value to its customers. The clarity in the expression of the value proposition is critical for marketing that sells. 

Companies with strong brands excel at marketing and ensure that whatever they do are aligned to their understanding of the market and the value they deliver. A company with a reputation for high product quality provides a guarantee against unpleasant customer experiences. Similarly, a strong brand provides emotional benefits from the experience and self-expressing benefits, for instance, supporting a local business.

• Strong Brands Portray Creative Visual Logo and Imagery.

Identity is often used interchangeably with a logo. The picture used to represent a company is equally as important as its name. The perception created by the image forms the visual center of the brand. It represents a collection of experiences in the mind of the customers when they encounter a brand. Logos should be treated with care. Many other factors, including readability, materials used, scale, distance, proximity, atmosphere, and experience in the physical space, also present great opportunities for increasing brand attributes.

Illustrative logos cover quite a range of meaning and help you to make a connection in the minds of your customers. The style of additive visual elements like photography, graphical illustrations, etc. truly defines the brand’s identity. Logos can add essential communication that is missing from the name alone. Consider what images mean for a brand identity and choose wisely. In a pool of photos available online, brand designers need to work harder to create new visual artifacts to carve out a new niche with a level of visual sophistication appropriate for your customers’ tastes. 

• Strong Brands Use the Right Choice and Mix of Colors.

Using the right color choice in your brand’s visual representation brings an immediate emotional quality. Current trends also influence colors; for instance, what looks contemporary today may seem outdated in the future. Color choices that are outdated, illegible, unsophisticated, etc. can drag down the image of a wonderfully drawn mark. 

A strong brand identity uses color in a fiercely consistent fashion. Once you are ready to consider color for a mark, start with the natural dimensions of color: hue, saturation, and brightness. Revisit the color wheel and think about how complementary colors with the same values play visual tricks. Also, you should know the cultural connotations of colors before assigning meaning to them in your brand identity.

• Strong Brands Choose the Right Typeface.

Today, a multitude of typefaces are available online to choose from, and only a handful of people can identify them all by name. Trends keep changing; however, it is essential for you to choose the typeface that suits your brand and will be timeless.

You should avoid complicated fussy looking shapes or fancy ornamentation work that can distract the reader. The written words should be clear and easy to read in the environment the typeface will be applied to. You should choose a typeface that will carry the brand message for the lifetime of the brand. Ensure that you choose a typeface with the right style for your brand. The consistent use of a typeface will build recognition and help to identify your brand. 

• Strong Brands Project Consistent Tone of Voice.

In brand communications, the tone of voice is as important as the content of the message. It refers to the brand’s attitude and expresses feelings about your brand’s vision. When tone of voice is consistent, it gives the customers another means of recognizing the brand and its promise.

The tone of voice for expressing your brand should be believable to those who are familiar with your brand, compatible with the personality that customers expect from your brand and consistent with the nature of your brand. You should choose the words carefully and use linguistic devices including metaphors, rhymes, and punctuation wisely to create a credible, compatible, and consistent tone.

The success of a company’s brand depends on the reputation it has within the market which facilitates the customers’ decision-making process. Using the methods detailed above can seize every opportunity to generate brand love from your customers.

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