As an entrepreneur or business leader, you will have heard the phrase brand identity – often from marketing agencies touting for business. But what is brand identity?
Most businesses are different. They operate in different industries, offering different products or services in different ways. One thing they all have in common, though, is the need to express their identity.
Understanding the identity of your business and developing that into a brand is no small feat. It is, however, crucial for companies large and small.
Digital marketing and social media make this more important than ever. Your potential customers may only glimpse your company name and colours online; that means they must convey many messages.
What is Brand Identity?
A strong brand can immediately convey what your business does, its values, and why customers should choose it.
Think of the logos of organisations like Boots, Lloyds Bank, and McDonald’s and those images quickly conjure up knowledge of each business and an emotional response.
A simplistic definition of brand identity is a collection of visual elements that communicate the ideas behind the brand. The intention is to help consumers remember it and set it apart from competitors. Brand identity aids in forming consumers’ opinions of a business, fosters brand loyalty and trust, and helps make a brand distinctive.
Typically, this involves having a memorable icon, logo, colour palette, and other visual elements that create a cohesive sense of the company’s values, purpose, and mission.
In the best examples of successful brand identity, one of these key components is enough to lead to company recognition. The distinctive red and yellow of McDonald’s are recognisable even without the famous ‘golden arches’ logo being seen.
Does Brand Identity Differ from Brand Image?
Brand identity is the selection of the components that make your company recognisable and communicate what you do and your values.
Your selection of logo, colours, shapes, and even company name is deliberate in creating an easily recognisable identity.
Brand image, however, is different. This is about how a consumer feels about the business after interacting with it. Once your brand identity has brought in a potential customer, the work your company does to encourage a favourable reputation is what creates the brand image.
A company can be easily recognised and understood from its brand identity, but a strong brand identity does not equate to a strong reputation. The biggest and best-known brands can have terrible image problems due to pricing, poor quality products, customer service, or involvement in controversies like environmental pollution or poor treatment of workers.
Do not confuse the two, and remember to treat each with equal importance.
After all, you don’t want to invest heavily in a brand identity if the values people understand when they see it are far from positive.
Why is Identity Important?
For identity to matter, you don’t have to be a multinational business.
For even the smallest businesses, standing out from the competition, quickly communicating with potential customers, and establishing a feeling of loyalty and trust will contribute to growth and success.
Underlining your visual branding with consistent messaging in your marketing which establishes a connection between your company visuals and your company’s work or values is part of this journey.
Competition is forcing many new companies to develop novel visuals to establish identity. You may not have to.
Being distinct and clear can be enough to communicate what you do and why without resorting to whimsical visuals with a short shelf life.
What Makes a Strong Brand Identity?
Writing down what you want your brand identity to be might not be good enough or even useful. Carefully creating every component with your vision in mind may not achieve your goals.
Throughout the process, you must remember; this isn’t just about you. The point of a brand identity is to communicate.
That means your identity needs to be relatable to your business, for your internal and external stakeholders.
It needs to be strong, definitive, and clear while ensuring it speaks to people, not just to your ambitions.
It is crucial to have a strong brand identity if you want to succeed, whatever size of business you have or wherever you are on the corporate journey.
Here are some ideas for creating one:
- It should be distinct enough to catch your audience’s attention and stand out from the competition
- It should be scalable in order to grow with the brand
- It should have a strong visual impact. For example, Apple; its logo is memorable enough that they don’t include the name of its product
- There should be a flexibility that allows it to be used in many different applications, from digital to print
Final Words
When we launch a company, we put time and effort into the business and financial plans. We understand what we want to achieve, the resources we need to get there, and how the company will run.
Throughout this development, brand identity should be part of what you do. It should be developed in tandem with the business and considered an integral part of the plan.
Done well, a brand identity is a crucial and effective tool in communicating with your potential consumers and establishing an understanding of who you are and what you do.
