Brand Identity: 5 Steps to Build a Remarkable One for Your Brand?

Imagine a story with the perfect plot and climax, but you haven’t defined the protagonist well.
He doesn’t have a clear purpose that drives him and his voice and personality are generic. He’s no different than the many characters in your story.

What happens then? Your story will become one of the many stories that failed the mark and couldn’t make the audience remember you.

That’s the importance of a strong brand identity. It’s not just your logo or the colors you use, but it’s the protagonist of your brand’s narrative. It determines whether your brand marketing will connect and resonate with your audience or become another voice in the crowd.

So, let’s dive deep to explore how you can build a strong brand identity –

What is a Brand Identity?

It is a set of features that highlight your brand’s purpose, values, vision & mission, and positioning and determine how you want to be perceived by your target segment.

When we say brand identity, it is not the visual elements alone. 

It is the image your brand creates in your consumers’ minds through your voice & tone, personality, interactions with them, and the experience you offer.

How to Establish Your Brand Identity in 5 Easy Steps?

1. Research your Audience, Value Proposition, and Competition

With the help of Market Research, you must find answers to these questions before you start any work on your brand identity –

• What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats?
  (Pro Tip: Compare your SWOT Analysis with that of your competitors. Doing so will help you spot areas you have an advantage in and places you can improve).
  
• What is the gap in your existing Market Category (Image) that your product can/ will fill?
  
• Which audience segment will benefit most from it?
  What are the unmet needs and pain points your product can address?
  
• How will they resonate with your brand?
  What are your Unique Associations/ points of difference they will find desirable?

It is best to conduct both primary and secondary research to get an in-depth clarity of your landscape and enable your brand-building endeavors.

2. Know your Brand’s Personality

Today’s consumers are conscious about which brands they associate with.
They want to support brands that share values, purpose, or personality similar to theirs.

Hence, it’s essential to define your brand’s personality with these questions –

• What is your firm’s purpose (why do you exist)? Why do you think it is important?

• How do you want people to perceive your brand? (A hard-core professional, friendly, witty, or funny)?

• How will your values, purpose, and personality change how you communicate, internally and externally?
  
  The above 2 Steps give you everything you need to craft your brand’s narrative.
  
  A brand narrative enables you to strike an emotional chord with your stakeholders, guide your brand marketing strategy, and even business decisions.

1. Dove’s brand narrative revolves around their commitment to making beauty a source of confidence for every woman, not anxiety.
   Their products, packaging, internal processes, marketing communications, and campaigns all integrate its core values effortlessly.

3. Design Elements for Your Brand

It’s time to bring your brand’s personality and core to life through brand elements.

Here are the visual components you should focus on first for your brand identity– 

• Logo: It’s the most recognizable element of your brand. It will appear on every brand asset – website, products, shops, Ads, packaging, etc.

• Color and Font: You must choose a color that evokes emotions you want to associate with your brand. The font should be attention-grabbing and relevant to your business.

• Shape/ Packaging: You should strive to build packaging and icons that are easily recognizable/

Tiffany’s packaging and McDonald’s golden arches’ iconic ‘M’ form are the best examples of shape and form.

• Templates: You can create templates for your brand’s internal and external communication to give it a unified and credible look.

4. Set the Tone & Voice for your Brand’s Story

The insights from your Brand Personality step will guide you in setting the right tone and voice that helps you build a brand identity that resonates deeper with your target audience.

When we say tone and voice, it isn’t just how you talk about things.

It is how you communicate through your content, design, the experience you give across touchpoints, and the initiatives you undertake – all while being credible and consistent.

5. Monitor your Brand Identity

It’s Done and Dusted. 

You can never follow this philosophy for any of your brand assets – be it Brand Identity, Positioning, or Narrative.

.The reason is that everything in and around your business will constantly evolve – your business’s growth goals, the market’s nature, and consumers’ behavior.

Hence, it’s crucial to evaluate and adapt to the vital changes (not every change is for you) to build a brand identity that’s relevant and can resonate well with stakeholders.

Which Factors to Consider While Building Your Brand Identity?

• Consistency & Focus: 

It must offer a consistent impression, style, voice, and experience throughout all areas and platforms of your business to be easily recognized by your stakeholders.

• Flexibility & Relevance: 

It should regularly evolve with your brand’s and landscape’s changing nature, but stay true to your firm’s core purpose and value proposition.

• Clarity & Differentiation:

It should highlight your brand’s unique points through every aspect and avoid mixed messaging to confuse or turn people away.

Your firm will constantly evolve so it will be a good practice to revisit your brand identity every 1-2 years to be relevant and consistent with your brand’s growing needs.

You can schedule a workshop/ training session with Mili Kataria to learn and build your branding foundations – brand identity, purpose and values, positioning, and narrative.

Pandora’s Box is a Brand Marketing Agency that helps firms build and scale their brand through research, strategy, implementation, and analysis.

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