The Story of Branding: How to stand out from the herd

Back in the day, when men were cowboys and horse thievery was a common way of life, branding served a vital function for identifying livestock and determining ownership. Today, when we speak of branding, most of us are not concerned with stamping reluctant animals with red hot iron. But in an age of information and ideas, the role of branding has grown more important than ever.

You might not be worried about tracking down a runaway ram or reclaiming a few head of stolen cattle, but if you’re running a business, you absolutely need to be thinking about establishing your identity, distinguishing yourself from your competitors, getting recognized by your customers, and standing out from the herd.

Your Brand

Unlike its usage in animal husbandry circles, your brand is not simply a logo stamped inconspicuously on the hide of your product. And it’s not something your customers have to dig around and scratch to find. If it’s done right and done well, people won’t have to look for it, and might not even notice it right away. As they admire the quality of your livestock — your company’s goods and services — your brand will surround people, like the air they breathe and the landscape they see on a well kept farm.

Your brand is the personality, the lifestyle, of your whole operation. It begins with the logo that you stamp on every item you print, package or produce —like the brand a herdsman inscribes on his animals — but it doesn’t end there. It’s in the pastures where the animals graze, in the mountain streams from which they drink, in the unique mix of herbs and grasses where they forage.

For the not so pastoral line of business, your brand involves the colors you use, the typefaces you use, the tone of voice you use in messages and newsletters. It includes all the things that people might not notice, but together they create an image and a persona that people recognize as yours. Maybe they can’t put a finger on it, but it’s a feeling they get when they read your material, visit your website, or step into your office. It may a feeling of security, a sense of playfulness, an aura of adventure.

The most important thing is that you convey the right feeling, that the message you send is the message you want, and that you don’t just throw everything at the side of the barn and see what sticks. That’s where we come in.

Effective Branding Examples

If you ever walk into a business or cruised the Internet — in other words, if you’re not living under a rock — then you’ve witnessed some effective branding. You take a cursory glance around the premises, around the website, or through a brochure, and you get that safe, familiar feeling, like stepping into the home of an old friend.

For example, you walk into a grocery store,  you see stacks of produce crates that remind you of a warehouse on the docks, you read the hand drawn signs with their whimsical drawings, you hear Jimmy Buffet playing on the loudspeaker, and one of the store clerks dressed in casual Hawaiian shirts smiles and offers you a sample of today’s special, the tofu tortellini with apricot and sun dried tomato. There’s doubt about it. You are at Trader Joe’s. Everything about it conveys a consistent message, a warm friendly atmosphere, no frills, just a lot of interesting and satisfying food at low prices. Even when you get to cashier with two bags of groceries that add up to $150, you still feel like in the midst of a low-price shopping experience.

That’s a national example of a major chain store we can all recognize. And there are dozens of similar examples for companies who have spent millions or even billions establishing the logo, their color scheme, that certain something you might not be able to put your finger on.

Consider Santa Clause in his red suit and his reindeer or polar bear companion, sipping an ice cold soft drink at the beach, or the North Pole, or at the mall. Of course that soft drink is a Coca Cola.

Or how about another on? A big, dark brown truck pulls up in front of your house. A man (or a woman) dressed in a brown shirt and brown pants (or shorts) jumps out of the truck and scurries up to your front door with a package. You don’t need to read his name tag to know that he works for UPS. And a mere split second glance at the smiling arrow on the side of the package let’s you know that it’s a delivery from Amazon.

Back to Your Brand

Ok, so I know what your thinking. You’re a small business, with one location, maybe a handful of employees. You don’t have millions and billions to spend on market research and advertising campaigns that will imprint your brand in to the minds of consumers across the globe with you logo, you slogan and your color scheme. You can’t possibly compete.

Well, if you’re trying to out-brand Coca Cola, or Apple, or Amazon, then you’re right: you can’t possibly compete. You can’t outspend the corporate leviathans. But that’s no reason not to develop an effective and memorable brand. Quite the opposite in  fact, this is exactly why you do need a strong brand.

You can’t outspend the corporations to reach billions of customers, but you can understand your niche, and guarantee that your clientele understand and remember you. You’ve got a few hundred or a few thousand customers, and you have a personal relationship that a company like Trader Joe’s can never establish, no matter how hard they try to simulate it with their friendly greetings, lighthearted signage and casual ambiance.

You smell the nag champa wafting down Broad Street, you take a look at the Om moral in the entry way, you admire the zen of the window display, and you step inside where you’re greeted by a friendly business owner dressed in comfortable natural fibers and a “Life in the SLO Lane” t-shirt. Here you are, it’s Bambu Batu.

Or you head down Grand Avenue for a weekly adjustment for yourself and your family. You walk past the sign with a young child pointing proudly upward at his lego tower, the soft blue tones make you feel healthy and safe. The walls of the office are filled with photos of smiling families and inspirational quotations. The good Dr. Bronstein will see you now!

How can we help?

With two decades of experience in small business development, branding and design, we can help you formulate the look and feel that’s best for your business, and then piece it together with a coherent set of colors, lettering, imagery, and more. Through careful strategy and artistic precision, we’ll work together and see that the your brand rings true, rings loud and rings clear, across the hills and the plains.

So don’t wait for the cows to come home, give us a shout today, and let’s make your brand come to life. Whether you’re re-styling an existing brand, or just getting started with something new, we’re always excited to be of help!

Click HERE to learn more.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia