How to practice brand building

Brand building, also called branding, means de­vel­op­ing and es­tab­lish­ing a rec­og­niz­able brand. By employing various measures and strate­gies such as design, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, tonality, logo, company name and product des­ig­na­tions, you can shape your brand or add value to your corporate identity.

What is brand building?

Brand building refers to es­tab­lish­ing a brand or brand image as­so­ci­at­ed with your company, service offering, contents or products. In other words, it’s all about creating a corporate identity. An appealing, high-quality brand adds value to a business by conveying a positive image to clients. Suc­cess­ful brand recog­ni­tion is as­so­ci­at­ed with re­li­a­bil­i­ty and brand values. Brand building en­com­pass­es marketing strate­gies including ad­ver­tis­ing campaigns, net­work­ing events, image campaigns or charity actions and col­lab­o­ra­tions.

The main goals of brand building or branding include:

• Es­tab­lish­ing a brand identity for companies, products, services, in­di­vid­u­als (e.g., in sectors such as art, politics or en­ter­tain­ment), in­sti­tu­tions or websites and online shops
• Shaping your business image for an improved market position
• Strength­en­ing customer loyalty or retention through memorable branding
• Positive influence on pur­chas­ing decisions and tapping new or larger client groups
• De­f­i­n­i­tion of unique selling propo­si­tions, which can be au­to­mat­i­cal­ly linked to your brand

What’s the dif­fer­ence between brand building vs. marketing?

While brand building is closely linked to marketing and can serve as the goal or basis of a marketing strategy, the terms aren’t identical. Marketing uses ad­ver­tis­ing measures to add customers and drive sales while brand building includes more abstract goals.

This includes, for example, strength­en­ing customer loyalty and creating a positive brand per­cep­tion. And while marketing is tech­ni­cal­ly possible without brand building, branding doesn’t work without specific marketing and ad­ver­tis­ing measures. At the same time, branding strate­gies should always be included when defining your marketing strate­gies.

Types and strate­gies of brand building

Brand building plays an important role in de­vel­op­ing a corporate brand and brand identity for the self-employed as well as small, medium and large companies. The goal is becoming a rec­og­niz­able brand. Your name, logo or ap­pear­ance should trigger positive as­so­ci­a­tions among (potential) clients and foster customer loyalty.

The various types and strate­gies of branding include:

• Product Branding: Products are perceived as brands (e.g., Coca Cola, Apple devices or IKEA furniture).
• Corporate Branding: The company appears like a brand or is perceived as a brand in­de­pen­dent of the specific product (e.g., Disney, A&T).
• Employer Branding: Employees and (co-)owners identify with the company or brand (e.g., Apple, Tesla or Facebook).
• Personal Branding: In­di­vid­u­als are perceived as brands through personal branding and become ad­ver­tis­ing vessels for products or or­ga­ni­za­tions (e.g., David Beckham, Brad Pitt, or Greta Thunberg).
• Emotional Branding: Marketing and ad­ver­tis­ing efforts for better branding are emo­tion­al­ly conveyed through emotional branding to appeal to customers and clients sub­con­scious­ly.
• Retail Branding: Describes retail companies that are perceived as brands (e.g., Amazon, Alibaba or Rakuten).
• Co-Branding: In co­op­er­a­tion with other brands, co-branding leads to the creation of joint products or services boosting the per­cep­tion and vis­i­bil­i­ty for par­tic­i­pat­ing brands.

Important steps and measures for suc­cess­ful brand building

For suc­cess­ful brand building you should be able to answer the following questions:

• What should your brand represent or convey?
• Who’s your brand’s audience?
• Which USPs create a dis­tinc­tive and unique brand?
• Which measures, channels and media are you going to use to market your brand?
• Which sto­ry­telling tools could help boost your brand recog­ni­tion?

As a simple guide for brand building and brand design, you can use the checklist below:

Brand design

Brand design is among the most important aspects of brand building, because how a brand is perceived largely depends on its visual design. A suitable logo and emo­tion­al­ly appealing brand colors are central to this purpose. For example, Coca Cola uses a dis­tinc­tive corporate logo, strong colors and product design. In com­bi­na­tion these aspects embody its unique brand identity. Equally important are ty­pog­ra­phy, visual language as well as graphics, il­lus­tra­tions, an­i­ma­tions and icons.

Value of a brand

A suc­cess­ful brand convinces with a striking design, the quality of its products, and its brand and corporate values. This includes a brand’s social com­mit­ment, focus on equality, en­vi­ron­men­tal awareness, social justice, and team spirit. These aspects bolster customer loyalty and improve the image of a brand.

Register and secure brands

Ensure you protect your brand name or create a trademark ap­pli­ca­tion to secure your brand.

Brand sto­ry­telling

A suc­cess­ful brand tells a story which sets it apart from others. Visual sto­ry­telling through ad­ver­tis­ing measures on social media, online, pro­mo­tion­al videos or other media is one important tool. You can also condense plenty of in­for­ma­tion into brand slogans and your website in­for­ma­tion.

Integrity and flex­i­bil­i­ty

A rec­og­niz­able brand has a rec­og­niz­able design and a strong story. You’ll want to keep an eye on current social and creative trends. Don’t shy away from non-linear or new ap­proach­es and measures. This is a great way to extend touch­points and reach new audience groups. A touch­point analysis using customer journey mapping is always useful.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion/tone

The sto­ry­telling approach is also closely linked to your com­mu­ni­ca­tion and the tone of your brand. Ensure that all brand com­mu­ni­ca­tion cor­re­sponds to the re­spec­tive marketing measures and brand values.

Marketing guide­lines for company culture

A uniform ap­pear­ance is based on clear brand guide­lines to define and com­mu­ni­cate corporate goals across teams. Brand-building measures must be measured against these goals.

Assets of a brand

Brand assets are closely linked to brand design. The style guide and design guide­lines ensure the creative and visual ap­pear­ance of a brand remains uniform and con­sis­tent across all areas.

Positive customer journey

Customer sat­is­fac­tion and an un­der­stand­ing of brand per­cep­tion from the customer’s point of view is par­tic­u­lar­ly important for brand success. Branding should ensure your content is user-friendly and adapted to different devices. From first contact with a brand to con­clud­ing a sale, a positive user ex­pe­ri­ence makes for a suc­cess­ful customer journey and brand ex­pe­ri­ence.

Examples of suc­cess­ful brand building

Strong and appealing brands tend to be at the forefront of the market. If you shop online or in-store you already know that a brand can sub­con­scious­ly influence your pur­chas­ing decisions. Brand building enables you to tap into the same strate­gies to establish a rec­og­niz­able brand. Check out success stories and best practices for some ideas of suc­cess­ful strate­gies. These can help shape the direction of your brand building. Here are some of the most suc­cess­ful examples of brand building.

Google

Once a compact search engine with a striking logo and color scheme, Google is now a billion-dollar IT group spanning many different in­dus­tries. The group regularly invests in new tech­nolo­gies and security features. The success of Google is in part due to its clever marketing, brand building and ac­qui­si­tions of com­peti­tors. The company now plays a major role in shaping people’s and company’s online identity.

Amazon

Amazon has quickly become the market leader in eCommerce thanks to its excellent online shopping features. AWS is one of the largest cloud platforms globally. Amazon’s success has been shaped by its excellent customer service, the Amazon Prime concept, and its dis­tinc­tive design. The same can be said of Amazon’s sto­ry­telling, its versatile range of services, and suc­cess­ful branding. Speedy delivery maintains a positive brand per­cep­tion.

Apple

Apple has always focused on customer loyalty, from logo to product design to its pro­pri­etary software solutions. The high quality of its products, personal branding and the “cult of per­son­al­i­ty” created around Steve Jobs as well as emotional branding using modern, original ad­ver­tis­ing in the form of com­mer­cial clips have played a major role in shaping Apple’s brand per­cep­tion. Likewise, co-branding through, for example, col­lab­o­ra­tions with artists such as U2 and its uniform design language continue to drive its highly rec­og­niz­able brand.

IKEA

The ad­van­tages of IKEA products (DIY con­struc­tion, low prices, min­i­mal­ist design in original colors, etc.) are also com­po­nents of its brand identity. This has been sig­nif­i­cant­ly shaped by emotional sto­ry­telling in the form of original, funny and emotional ad­ver­tis­ing campaigns.