Game of Thrones is one of the deadliest shows of all time, with over 100,000 characters having lost their lives since it began. These deaths have had a huge impact on fans, who genuinely mourn the characters they’ve grown to love over the years. So, to promote the final ever season, Foxtel, an Australian cable network, built a final resting place for these characters. Grave of Thrones, a live experiential media event, was an enormous cemetery featuring the tombs of the show's most popular characters. Over 40,000 fans made the pilgrimage to pay their respects.
AirPods Pro provide the ability to switch between noise cancellation mode and transparency mode (in which environmental sounds are heard). The challenge was to tell this complex story in a beautiful, simple way that communicates how the technology works, but also how it feels. The website marries product art direction, lifestyle art direction, diagrammatic elements and typography in a graphic design system that is born out of product truth. Light and shadow are used as a metaphor for sound and silence (how it feels) while illustration telegraphs how the tech works.
Every brand has secrets that they’d rather not reveal, but often this is part of what makes them unique. So, facing a crowded vodka market, Diageo did the most mischievous thing it could think of. It told the cold, hard truth. This global campaign shared the story of deception, revolution, exile, and resurrection, of deliciously mischievous characters and original concoctions. It helped reverse a decade-long decline in Smirnoff sales, leading to growth for the for the first time in 10 years
Labelling the EggMcMuffin The Smoothest Burger was an opportunity to create a new advertising language – one that is more modern, more fresh, closer to the digital generation, and able to properly convey this idea of softness. To do so, TBWA\Paris drew inspiration from the internet trend that best fit the product qualities: satisfying animations. They produced fifteen 3D Egg McMuffin Satisfying videos, and created a website to host them, as well as using them for social media communication.
In Crocodile Inside we feel the tension of a couple tearing each other apart, as the tough love they share is pushed to the edge of rupture. Symbolising the rift that’s created between the two lovers, their apartment cracks at every word too many. Ultimately, they realise they have gone too far and, in a pure moment of cinema, decide to come back to one another.
On the dark web, closed prostitution forums flourish, and men share reviews of sexual encounters with trafficked women, with no legal repercussion. NEWLIVES wanted to be a mouthpiece for these women by using the reviews of their abusers. It went undercover on the dark web, and extracted hundreds of reviews and the names of authors, then had actors and real sex workers lip-sync them un-edited in a very explicit film that exposed both words and usernames of each reviewer for the world to see.
Dentsu Inc’s brief was to produce promotional posters for the 2019 One Show Exhibition in Tokyo. To reflect the imaginative thinking of One Show award winners, they created a series of portraits of phantasmagorical birds, incorporating elements that evoke the skills that allow award-winners to soar above their peers and explore new creative dimensions. The exhibition was highly successful, with attendees spending more time on the premises than in past years. Dentsu Inc also received numerous inquiries and favourable comments about the posters, and were even urged to make them available for purchase.
IKEA entered the Christmas ad arena with a wonderfully ridiculous take on the state of our homes over the holidays. The film shows a crew of everyday household objects come to life to perform a scathing diss track about a place that clearly isn't ready for festivities - before each one is silenced by the ultimate comeback: some smart IKEA solutions. The track was made by legendary Grime emcee, D Double E.
KFC’s fried chicken and TV are a match made in heaven. So each of these executions is inspired by a TV show that features explosive action, with fried chicken seamlessly replacing the fireballs. Consumers could then binge on freshly delivered Hot & Spicy while also binging on the latest release of their favourite series.
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather Hong Kong / Ogilvy Hong Kong
If you took a guess, what brand comes to mind first from the image above? You probably guessed it. Coca Cola. Their brand is one of the largest, most iconic brands in the world and they can be easily recognized from just a simple letter. So let’s talk branding.
Your brand and your visual identity are both critical to your business but they are two different things and both terms have been used loosely in the past years in terms of what they stand for.
These are some of the most common ways project requests that come our way start with:
“We need to redesign our brand”
“We need to update our brand”
“We need to update our brand identity”
Most often, after a brief chat to understand the project at hand, typically they are referring to their logo or website. However, your logo and website is not your brand.
Defining “Brand”.
In the simplest form, your brand is the way someone feels about you. A deep down gut feeling. It is the emotional connection your customer has towards you. Every time your customer interacts with your brand, they build up a perception of how they feel and think about you as a business. If you think about your last experience with any brand that was negative, do you trust them as much anymore? Probably not. Over time, your customers will create a set of expectations on how each experience with you should be, and how they feel about you. Those thoughts and memories are what builds long term trust and loyalty. That’s what you want. That’s gold.
The more trust you build, the more loyal your customers become. You become irreplaceable in their eyes and there is an unbreakable connection between you and your customer. They will choose you over a competitor.
2. It Creates Distinction
You should stand apart from your competition, not blend in. The more distinctive you are from everyone else, the more noticeable you become.
3. It Increases Value
From a service, product, and a business you become more valuable. Additionally ー if your products or services are meant to be luxury, and you do not exude that feeling as a brand people will be hesitant to pay that higher price point. They will not see the value. Take Peloton for example; when they raised their bike prices they actually sold more bikes. Many people believed that because the bike was cheaper that it must not be a quality machine.
Peloton is also a great example of building a valuable brand over time. They empower people to connect, be inspired, and grow stronger together. They are the leader in their segment and while their products are expensive, they have built trust and differentiated themselves from others in a way people believe in and connect with, which has fueled their success. After only launching in 2012 they are now worth 4 billion dollars.
Defining “Brand Identity”
Your identity is all of the different touchpoints someone may interact with your business. It is an entire system put together that people can see, touch, hear and feel. This is everything from your logo to emails, customer services, and even the way you speak to people. This is how you influence the perception of your brand. Changing how people think about you, can change their behavior, which will increase your bottom line performance.
Brand Identity Touchpoints
Your logo is only one piece of the puzzle, and while most often it’s the first step when creating your identity, it is not the last. A good logo surrounded by a frustrating website experience, un-unified collateral and marketing is a recipe for failure. Every touchpoint matters.
Your identity has three primary functions:
1. Identify Your Business
The visual look and feel that your company encompasses should separate you from the competition. Over time, your customers can immediately look at something and have a sense of feeling for that brand.
2. Communicate Your Message Clearly
It should communicate to the desired customer you are trying to attract. This is key. Your identity cannot always speak to everyone. Some brands target the average individual looking to stay fit, other brands target suburban moms who want to learn how to cook authentic asian cuisines. By understanding who is your ideal customer profile you can design for them, not for yourself.
3. Create Visual Consistency
Your identity takes separate elements, and makes them whole by staying consistent through design and messaging. Every part of your brand should be consistent. The moment something is different from the rest, you risk mis-communicating to your audience. This breaks trust.
The Branding Process
Branding is the ongoing process of developing, or re-developing your overall strategy and touchpoints within your identity. This could be redeveloping your website, logo, collateral, messaging and your color system. It’s an investment that can help position you for success and growth. There’s several key reasons when the process of branding is necessary.
New Company or Product
You have started a new business, or have a new product
You need to raise venture capital, even though you have no customers
Revitalization
You need a facelift
Your product or service is great, but you look behind the times
Your packaging is not distinctive
Consistency
Everyone creates and does their own marketing
All of your marketing looks like it comes from different companies and you lack consistency
Reposition
You are not attracting your desired customers
You want to appeal to a new customers
Nobody knows who you are
You need to communicate more clearly who you are
Name Change
Your name no longer fits the business you are in
Your name needs change due to trademark conflicts
Your name misleads customers
You have Merged
Two companies have merged into one
You need a new name
You want to build on the equity of one brand
Starting the Branding Process
The branding process is essential for any business that wishes to differentiate and get ahead of their competition. It’s also a process you shouldn’t rush. While the investment is long term, it can pay off in growth of your business. The overall process consists of four systematic stages that vary from business to business.
Strategy
This gathers all necessary information from research to organized brand strategy workshops.
Design
The development of all visuals and assets
Implementation
The rollout of the new visual identity
Build
Adapt and pivot where necessary and grow your brand over time.
Why Branding is Worth The Investment
In the end, the long term rewards of the branding process building trust, distinction and value pay off big. It creates years of competitiveness for your business. However, in today’s business world everything moves at lightning speed. That makes it easy to get caught into quick fixes such as a fast logo or website redesign on websites such as Fiverr and UpWork which can be risky. The strategy and development process typically takes several weeks to a few months depending on the scale of the project at hand. Rushing this process will not provide the results you are looking for.
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Free Branding Workbook
Want to try yourself? We’ve put together a free brand strategy workbook. While it’s not the same as professionally run workshops, it’s a great foundation for you to work from.
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The first thing you think of when you envision most businesses is their logo and branding. Building the brand is one of the most important parts of building a business of any kind. Whether you want to open a coffee shop or run an influencer account, the way that you brand yourself will play a large role in your success. It is important for showing off who you are to potential customers so that they have a reason to choose you.
For major companies, branding is known for playing an even more influential role than product identity in a lot of cases. It can also speak to the quality of products or the vibe customers experience. Plain and simple, people love a good brand. Now, let’s discuss how to build one and how to make it successful.
“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.
The goal is not to do business with everybody that needs what you have.
The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.”
– Simon Sinek
Brand Origin
The most important thing your brand should have is a story of its origin that explains why you exist, what problems and pain points you will address or solve, what makes you different and why should people care about your brand. This will serve as the foundation and undertones throughout all of your branding. Your passion for your company should assist you with the who, what, why, and how to distinguish your company from others.
Branding: How It Looks
A big part of branding that people recognize is the actual appearance of a brand. A good brand has a few core colors, a distinct visual appearance, and a logo. These visual elements like color, typography or font, and images make it easy for you to identify a brand just by looking at it. In the same way that we all recognize the white box from Apple or a red can of Coke, a good brand should have a completely original look.
Branding: Building An Identity
Beyond mere physical elements, a lot of other choices go into making a brand. The two most prominent factors are voice and tone. Your brand voice will be the voice that you use to address your customers. It can be found in the way that you write on your website and the kind of language you use. More often than not, the tone will play an important role in branding because it governs how your voice comes out. Are you being casual? Professional? What does that look like for your company? Nike, for instance, gives an intense, competitive voice in a calm, serious tone. Nike provokes its customer with its strong voice and tone to “Just Do It.” A strong brand always includes a strong voice.
Branding: Know Your Customers
Your customers should always come first, which is why you must keep them in mind with branding. You don’t want to build a brand with no potential customer or without having the market of your potential consumers in mind. Really take a moment and think about the type of customers you want to attract. Find out who your target audience is so that you know how to catch their eye, hold their interest, and address their pain. Narrowing down the pain points of your customers that you will address specifically will help maintain your brand consistency. It will help a lot when it comes to making the most of your brand decisions. Let your audience guide your brand and they will respond in kind.
Building a brand is truly about finding a personality for your company. From typography and colors to the voice and tone, you want all these pieces to mesh together. You may need to explore effective ways to present your ideal business identity. There are so many different ways to go about it, and they often vary by industry. If you are looking for a place to get started, try exploring what other brands in your niche are doing. You will love seeing what other people are doing. This is a great way to learn color schemes and design while also gaining some inspiration!
